The reason I could vote for Ron Paul is because I know he would have acted to end the wars and stop spying on Americans. “Restore the constitution” as it were. Yet Congress would have stopped him from getting rid of social security, Medicare and public education – thus thwarting the detestable side of libertarianism.

The fatal flaw of American-style libertarianism (assuming you think that feudalism wasn’t so great) is the exaltation of corporate interests: The idea that you can turn everything but defense and policing over to private corporations and they’ll just magically do the right thing. The other name for this philosophy is corporatism. And the other name for corporatism is fascism. Anyone who isn’t drinking the libertarian Kool-Aid knows this is a stupid idea, but the average libertarian has been sold a bill of goods for so long that they can’t tell the beef from the bullshit.

A corporation’s only loyalty is to profit; their only goal is to maximize the bottom line on the next quarterly report. If selling a product that kills lots of people accomplishes their short-term goal, it’s fine with them. Shortening the lives of customers for a 1% boost in the quarterly report; Great! Using slave labor to improve profits? Pure Heaven! Gathering the wealth of a nation into one’s own pot and into the hands of a few super rich: priceless.

My take on this is that the only thing worse than government tyranny is corporate tyranny: With a government, at least you have a chance at voting the bastards out – if you can get enough people to agree with you. With corporations, you have nothing. You are just a slave, a piece of meat, a serf. The fact that corporate bosses refer to the insurance they buy on their workers as “Peasant Insurance” should tell you what they really think of you. And this is where American-style compromised libertarianism falls apart for me. It has this poison pill that kills any of the goodness it might otherwise express.

Libertarianism doesn’t have to be like this. The general idea of individual freedom is wonderful. But American libertarianism has sold out like everything else. You fans of this evil empire, does it never give you pause to think that giant corporations fund all the Libertarian think tanks?? Do you really think those giant corporations have the interests of the average Joe and Josephine in mind?? Hmm?

All the Libertarian talking heads exalt privatization (read, corporate-ization) because they are PAID to say that. Some of them may believe in this fairy tale too, but mostly they just say it because they collect big fat checks from corporate-funded think tanks to do so – whoring themselves out and selling out America in the process.

Having everything run by corporations that only care about this month’s profit statements always leads to disaster because corporations are acting in their own short term interest with absolutely no thought to the general welfare of the country or the long-term consequences of their actions.

Thus, libertarian paradise countries are doomed to going broke in the long run as every corporation works only toward improving its next quarterly report to the detriment of everyone else. Dubai is just the latest example: Dubai Has No More Money.

Dubai—home to the future world’s tallest building, artificial islands shaped like a palm tree, and a misplaced faith in the power of wealth—is broke. The government has asked its many creditors for a six-month reprieve from debt payments.

Of course, having a broke government is part of the libertarian dream, too. Dubai, as with other libertarian paradise countries such as Somalia and Abu Dabi, shares the common libertarian features: Government is minimal to non-existent and everything is privatized, workers having no rights (after all, government is the only entity that can tell corporations that they must treat workers humanely, and government is evil). With all those “small government” features, wealth has inevitably migrated into the hands of a few super-rich while the bulk of the population has been impoverished.

What did you expect? In the absence of government (which is supposed to represent the collective will of all of the people) the power vacuum will always be filled by the richest and most powerful among us. Duh. It’s hard to believe that anyone would argue otherwise but of course libertarians have to – they can’t just say, “yeah, we want to be ruled by the iron fist of a few rich guys” because nobody would join their party. So they preach the good stuff while soft-pedaling (but never discarding) the really horrible part of their philosophy.

I believe in the part of the libertarian ideal which says government should stay off of our backs and out of our personal lives. You could have a government like that, which still does the right thing and protects the average person from the predatory nature of the rich and powerful, that eschews corporatism and protects the weak. But for American-style libertarianism that just isn’t enough. They won’t be happy until regular people are owned by Disney and GE and can only live where they are told, wear what they are told and eat what they are told by their corporate masters. That part of libertarianism makes me want to puke.

Another take on it all: Objective Error – the Faith of Libertarianism and Objectivism ~ Random Journey

“In my 20 years of practice as a family physician, I have encountered dozens of cases where the main contributing factor to a person’s death was the lack of health insurance for most of their lives.”

A recent academic study showed that about 45,000 people die in the USA every year due to lack of health care. These are deaths that simply DO NOT HAPPEN in other first world countries. This may be part of why most general practitioners are FOR universal healthcare even as the AMA vehemently opposes it.

What are the arguements against universal healthcare? “The government can’t do anything right” …even though Medicare, which is government-run healthcare is twice as efficient as the best of private insurance, delivering the best healthcare at the lowest cost. “You’ll have to wait to see your doctor” …like you don’t wait now! Sure, okay, there will be more people who can see a doctor if we have universal healthcare. God forbid you should have to wait an extra day to see your doc about that hangnail. 45,000 dead people every year is a small price to pay! “There will be death panels” … No, but there ARE DEATH PANELS RIGHT NOW; they are called insurance company bureacrats (why, btw, brag about killing people to boost profits).

Basically, my bottom line is this: If you don’t care about all those people who are dying RIGHT now, EVERY fuckng day because we in America put private profits above human life, then go fuck yourself. I don’t want to hear your bullshit.

The real “DEATH PANELS” are those who – in the name of ‘profits uber alles’ – are willing to let people die and turn a blind eye to it. They are paid off by insurance companies and they don’t give a crap about you. Oh, and this applies to radio talk show hosts, too.

I soon realized that this friend-of-a-friend that I had friended was something of a right winger.  Among the first few postings from him I saw were complaints that people attending Congressional town hall meetings who disagreed with the Democrats were being denied their First Amendment rights.  What I had seen in the TV news coverage of the meetings showed these people not being prevented from speaking, even though their “speaking” consisted of screaming at the top of their lungs, preventing others from exercising their First Amendment rights.  I began to wonder what this guy was talking about.  Had I walked through the Looking Glass?

From there, he went on to talk about how health care reform would result in “rationing.” At that point, I had to jump in.  Since Jeff wrote in complete, grammatical sentences, I made the mistake of thinking he was a guy who would be interested in, you know, facts.  Silly me, how wrong I was.

I explained that my wife has congestive heart failure, a very serious illness and that since we don’t have health insurance, she can’t get the care she needs, care that could well keep her from dying prematurely.  Isn’t that a form of rationing, I asked.  Jeff responded by saying that maybe my wife should go to one of those “better” countries that have universal health care (yes, he used the quotation marks).  I’ll let you absorb that for a moment.

Surprise of surprises, Jeff just happens to have a friend in Canada whose mother also had congestive heart failure.  This “friend’s mother,” for some strange reason, was refused treatment by those rationing bastard Canadian doctors.  She even had enough money to afford private health care but couldn’t get it since private health care doesn’t exist in Canada.  No one would take her money, even to save her life. 

I had suspected all along that this “friend’s mother” was every bit as real as the guy who woke up to find that his kidney had been stolen by a hooker, but I kept my doubts to myself; I knew expressing them would result in a huge slap fight.  I calmly informed Jeff that he was factually incorrect.  I knew this for certain as my friend Sarah, an American citizen, had surgery in Canada several years ago which she paid for out of her own pocket.  I even named the surgeon and said that his clinic was in Montreal.  Sarah went to Canada because this surgeon has an international reputation and he charges several thousand dollars less than any hospital in the U.S. for the same operation.

Now you might think that a “clear thinker” (as Jeff describes himself) would realize that he was simply misinformed about the Canadian health care system and realize that he could therefore be wrong about the effect a similar system would have on the U.S.  In a spectacular display of cognitive dissonance, Jeff conceded that his (possibly apocryphal) “friend’s mother” had been given a health care ration of Zero, but apparently couldn’t see that my wife is going through the same thing in this country.  If a (possibly apocryphal) Canadian dies due to denied health care, it’s a tragedy.  If an American dies for the same reason, it’s OK because who would want to live if living requires *GASP* Universal Health Care?  The rules of logic change when you cross the 49th Parallel, I guess.

Continuing to play along with the story of the “Canadian woman who died because no one would take her money for the private health care that doesn’t exist,” I said that the real cause of her death was ignorance.  I didn’t say she was stupid or unintelligent; I didn’t know the woman (if she even actually existed, that is) so I can have no opinion of her intelligence.  I used the word “ignorant” correctly.  I’m a fairly bright person but there are subjects about which I know little.  I am ignorant about those subjects.  If you live in a country which provides universal health care and you die because you don’t know that fact, you are ignorant.  I’d call that World Class Ignorance.

Instead of conceding that he was factually incorrect about Canadian health care, Jeff sniffed that he knew that any debate with a liberal would eventually result in the liberal calling someone ignorant. 

The really sad thing here is that, even though he was presented with actual FACTS, Jeff has, consciously or unconsciously, decided to remain–yes, I’m going to say it–IGNORANT on this subject.

The point of this little story is not that some guy who I don’t know and will probably never meet doesn’t know what he’s talking about with regard to the real world consequences of America’s shitty health care.  The problem is that he’s just one of millions of America citizens who don’t know diddly and still think they are informed enough to have an opinion.  These are the people you see screaming at the town hall meetings on the TV cable “news” shows.  They don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about…and thanks to the Democrats who can’t or won’t fight back against the tide of stupidity, they’re winning the debate.

It would be laughable if it didn’t have the possibility of killing my wife (and millions of other Americans) prematurely.  I guess I should be glad that my wife doesn’t have to put up with  *GASP* Universal Health Care–you know, the only thing that has the realistic possibility of saving her life.

As we have said, however, America does not have a health care system, it has a health care INDUSTRY. That means that they are in business to make profits, not take care of sick people. As such, insurance companies aren’t in business to pay your claim when you get sick. They are in the business of trying to figure out how to AVOID paying your claims. It’s always profits not people – one hundred percent of the time. Try not to forget this, okay?

They may try to call your newly-discovered cancer an “undisclosed pre-existing condition” or they may say that any treatment is experimental and therefore not covered. If they can’t do that, they’ll just cancel your policy.

Don’t kid yourself, it happens all the time. It is the inevitable result of a for-profit, pay-or-die system. And that is also why even the biggest, most fanatical knuckle-dragging wingnuts in other western democracies would never advocate that their countries adopt our system. They may be wingnuts, but they’re not crazy!

HHS: Insurance Companies Encourage Employees to “Revoke Sick People’s Health Coverage”

‘You might have known that insurers can deny health coverage based on preexisting medical conditions, but here’s something else to worry about: They can take away the coverage you thought you had when actually need it’

Another blog gives a good breakdown of why American healthcare is so expensive and yet so bad: Where the money goes in the US health care system.

If you haven’t figured it out already, ALL of the scare stories and ALL of the crazy yelling town hall people are health insurance company-backed bullshit.

The people are shills. They are lying about being constituents, LYING about being ‘non-partisan’ – and the money behind all this AstroTurf (fake grassroots) comes from people with a dog in the fight; the health insurance industry.

Lies built on lies, and parroted by sleazy amoral radio and television talking heads.

So now we know, these people don’t give a shit about you, and they think you should just die if you aren’t rich. They’re bought and paid for by billionaires who also think you should die if you aren’t in their club. I hope all these sick fucks rot in hell. If there was an ounce of justice in the world, they WOULD!

So we see anecdotal evidence every day that conservatives don’t live in a world of facts, they live in a world of pre-determined conclusions… and fear. Scientists Explain Why People Vote For Republicans.

Covering two scientific studies about political views, one of the things we’ve shown as rather obvious is that conservatives start with a conclusion and then accept only “evidence” that fits their original beliefs. Duh. We see it all the time right here!

One study started with the whole lie about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. For the purposes of the study, they could have started with any story. Taking people who believed this trumped-up cover story for the pre-planned invasion of Iraq, the true believers were then shown evidence that the story was not true. This evidence included very thorough research papers and studies. More than enough facts to change anyone’s mind. But not conservatives. For them, they only became MORE certain of their preconceptions.

“This ‘backfire’ effect only worked on conservatives. Even when they varied the source of the refutations, it made no difference—corrections from the New York Times and Fox News both caused conservatives to believe the lies even harder. In other words, objective truth is dead, observable reality is a fairy tale, etc.”

The last poll I heard indicated that about 40 percent of Americans self-identify as conservatives. And as we’ve seen here time and again (and has been repeatedly proven in scientific studies) conservative=fact-free.

Or put another way, America is almost certainly doomed. I’d like to think better – I really would. I’d like to believe that facts and reality DO eventually penetrate the conservative mind; it just takes a lot longer.

At least give me that!

To get the best healthcare in the world, you should be at least a millionaire. If you aren’t a millionaire, the next best thing is to be a citizen of any industrialized nation in the world EXCEPT the United States. If that’s not an option and you are stuck in the good ol USA, try running for congress. They get the best healthcare in America… of course, they are mostly millionaires too so it’s kind of a wash. If you can’t get into congress, try to get on Medicare… yes, government-run healthcare is the BEST you can do in America. Lastly, there’s private health insurance. Just bear in mind – as the examples show – when the chips are down they will try to do everything legal and otherwise to avoid paying, and if you end up dying as a result, that’s an extra bonus for THEM.

Some ‘conservatives’ (read, pro-oligarchy folk) have tried to redefine the term ‘free market’ to mean only one that doesn’t involve “government interference.” I can’t blame them, I guess, everyone wants to make their position sound as good and as reasonable as possible.

It’s false, however.

A free market isn’t just a market lacking government regulation. Here is the ACTUAL definition: A “free market” is a market in which sellers, under no undue pressure to sell, proffer their goods/services to buyers who are under no compulsion to buy. This is critical; change any element of this formula and you are no longer talking about free market.

Health care is not (and cannot become) a free market for two reasons:
1) Supply is artificially restricted by the government and the AMA. The scarcity of medical care drives up the cost. This is completely artificial. You might say “Well, they have to! You can’t have just anyone practicing medicine!” Fine, I agree, but that means that health care CANNOT EVER be a free market, because of the artificial restriction of supply.
2) Not only is supply artificially low, but buyers are under EXTREME compulsion to buy. What, that thought never occurred to you!?!? If you need lifesaving medical care, you either get it or you die! End of story.

No free market exists in health care. And you just agreed in item one that you cannot turn it into a free market.

You could change item 1 by stripping the AMA of its ability to tell medical schools how many doctors they can graduate every year AND letting anyone sell medical services who wants to do so. So then you could choose between the really expensive guy who went to medical school and Joe the Plumber who sells antibiotics out of the back of his truck. This would take care of half the problem.

BUT, you can’t do anything about item 2: People will still need lifesaving care and as long as it is a LIFE OR DEATH NEED, the medical health care system will NEVER follow free market rules.

Sometimes people say, “yeah but we need food, too! And you don’t want the government regulating that.” Food has multiple sources and you can even grow your own, so supply isn’t artificially limited as it is with healthcare. And even so, the government does, in fact, regulate prices through farm subsidies and other methods. We have a cheap food policy in the USA. Some people think that’s bad. Whatever, we need an affordable healthcare policy and it needs to be effective in balancing the artificial (but necessary) limitation on supply.

No free market in healthcare and the people who say they want a free market really don’t (they still want limited doctors, limited medicines, etc.) so what we have is a monopolistic utility, ["monopolistic" because the government & AMA tell you who can provide the services and a "utility" because consumers NEED and are compelled to buy the services from only a few government-approved providers]. As with all monopolistic utilities consumers have no choice except to pay whatever price is demanded.

Now in most other utilities, government as the representatives of the people recognizes the unfair power that the supplier has over the consumer and acts to tightly regulate pricing. For medicine, those with an agenda having NOTHING to do with anyone’s best interest are still trying to pretend that there is some kind of free market solution.

It’s bullshit. When you figure out a way we can all buy medicine from our local supermarket in the same way we buy potato chips AND you figure out a system where people are NEVER compelled to seek medical care to LIVE – THEN and only then will you have free market healthcare.

The rest is all pure phony bullshit spewed by people who only care about profit-taking for the super rich and don’t give a shit about the average person. It’s a fact, and I just proved it!

Some probably-paid talk show callers have been claiming expertise and saying that the problem with health care is that people get too much of it. =The solution, these ersatz listeners claim, is to get rid of medicare and all government price controls and let the “free market” decide. Yes, that’s right, people are dying every day for lack of health care – and America is the ONLY industrialized nation where that happens – and the conservative “solution” is to make health care even more expensive so that you stupid consumers won’t use it as much!!!

Look, those of you who are driven by ideology need to understand that free market rules are a bit like the laws of thermodynamics: Yes, they work – but they apply only in a vacuum, under ideal conditions that seldom exist in real life. You need to blow off the ideology and start looking at reality. We’ll all be better off if you do.

I rest my case.

Anyway, this idea for the Dead Carpenter license plate is completely unconstitutional, but hey, why should THAT stop the Penis State from going through with it?

Since this stupidity probably will sail through the Florida legislature (what politician wants to be against the Son O’ God, after all, especially in the South?), here’s my offer:

Let’s see who has balls in Florida.  Apply for one of the special Jeezus plates with the license “NO GOD.”  If you get it, I’ll pay the state specialty license plate fee.  From what I see on the Florida DMV web site, the fees vary depending on the specific plate, but they tend to run in the $25 range.  OK, it’s not much of an incentive, perhaps, but hey, it won’t cost you anything extra to speak your mind in a way GUARANTEED to get attention.

If you apply for “NO GOD” and they won’t give it to you, I suspect the ACLU will have something to say about it.  Either way, you’ll be a news story, at least short-term.  OK, so who’s going to step up to the plate (nyuk nyuk) in Florida?

He’s going about this the hard way.  Why doesn’t he just buy a pair of sunglasses with a digital camera built into them, like I got as a present for Christmas?  It works just fine.  I’ve been able to take pictures of people on line in front of me at the supermarket and fast food places without them ever knowing about it.  My fantasy is that I’ll be in a store when it gets robbed so I can take some sneaky pictures of the thieves, which I can then hand over to the police and become the darling of the media, for about fifteen minutes.

Hey, it could happen.

A camera eye

You don’t believe in evolution?  No problem.  In that case, you won’t be needing that new flu vaccine this year, freeing up the supply for the rest of us who use that grey matter between our ears.  I’ll explain that for you, Superstitious Dipshit.  See, they wouldn’t have to create new vaccines if the flu virus didn’t EVOLVE and become immune to the old ones. 

If you don’t believe in evolution, don’t you fucking DARE get the new updated vaccine or you’re the biggest fucking hypocrite walking upright.  Just suffer with the non-evolved flu you MUST believe in.  Sneeze your ass off and feel like shit for two weeks; taking that new vaccine would be just WRONG, you religiously hypnotized loser.

Oh yeah, um… there was that right-wing uber nut job talk show host Les Kinsolving at every White House press conference, asking questions like, “How can you stand the evil Democrats and their attempts to destroy America?” ..But you know, it wasn’t Rush so it doesn’t count. Nothing the far right does ever counts. EVER. When will we stupid reality-based people learn? – Politico’s Daily Anti-Obama rant.