McCain treating Obama like a used tissue during the debates.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 1:16 am

Yeah, that does sound a bit crazy there that you don't think the federal government should be taking care of such things.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 5:39 am

Crissa wrote:Wait, what?

Old people dying on your lawn isn't a proper issue?

Not really. IMO old people can off themselves as much as they want, but they should do so quietly and cleanly... which we have no public support for in this country. It's severely discouraged.
You're expected to rot of old age in a hospital or retirement home rather than end life at a time of your choosing.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 8:15 am

Sir Neil wrote:I can see your point, Frank, but I consider national security a legitimate federal expense. Social Security and Medicare aren't.

Wow. That's not just misanthropic, that's retarded.

First of all, let's get it right out in the open: National Security programs cost more than medical programs and pensions. By a huge amount. So straight up you do not support a "small government" in any meaningful way. You, like the Republican party, support the expansion of government. The spending of more money, the hiring of more people, the creation of more agencies. The demands of "national security" are a constantly increasing government with an ever larger budget and ever more powers. So you're a big government guy - you're just apparently a stupid asshole about it.

Because let's get back to medicine as a social expense. Medicine is national defense. Germs kill more people than bullets, always have. They always will. World War I killed a lot of people, but the Influenza outbreak killed a crap tonne more. If you're willing to defend the shores of the US from towel heads with guns but not from Polio, you're a moron who has no capacity for risk assessment. Furthermore, disease begets disease. The only way to protect yourself from Smallpox 100% is to protect everyone from smallpox. That works, smallpox is dead and people are safer because of it. Smallpox used to kill fools. Lots of fools, all the time. Now it doesn't, because modern medicine killed it.

Protecting yourself from disease is not something that you can do on your own. Herd immunity is incredibly important. Disease washes back from reservoirs all the time. So long as you allow anyone in society to carry a disease, that disease remains a threat to everyone.

What you just said isn't just appalling from a humanitarian perspective, it's completely idiotic from a simple cost/benefit standpoint. Even if you believed the shit we're fed about rational self interest, the fact is that keeping everyone healthy is in your fucking rational self interest. Every sick person is a threat that is substantially more real than Islamic Jihadists or Tamil Separatists.

-Username17

Sir Neil · Post by **Sir Neil** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 2:04 pm

The numbers I've seen show national security, Social Security, and Medicare run at ~20% of the federal budget each.

IIRC, disease prevention is authorized under the "general welfare" clause, administered by the CDC, and has nothing to do with the SSA or CMS.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 3:21 pm

Medicare is a form of disease prevention.

If you think otherwise, you're insane. Full stop.

You cannot prevent outbreaks of serious diseases without giving medical care to everyone. It's not even possible.

-Username17

Sir Neil · Post by **Sir Neil** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 7:49 pm

Giant Frog.

Bigode · Post by **Bigode** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 7:50 pm

Sir_Neil wrote:Giant Frog.

WTF?

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 7:54 pm

Bigode wrote:
Sir_Neil wrote:Giant Frog.
WTF?

If you're insane, the the answer to disease and government bloat really is "Giant Frog".

RiotGearEpsilon · Post by **RiotGearEpsilon** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 8:27 pm

Giant Toad!

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 1:32 am

Bigode wrote:
Sir_Neil wrote:Giant Frog.
WTF?

See: Tome of Fiends -> What Chaos might mean -> Insanity/Slaadi/Giant Frog

And this is also why a popular iconic challenge is a Death Slaad mounted on a giant toad.

Apparently, there's good eating on cane toads. Especially the roadkill ones, because the tire prints make them like waffles.

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 8:18 am

Sir_Neil wrote:Giant Frog.

Touche.

Seriously though, I don't know why people go on about federal health spending. Either the feds do it or the state does. Its your tax dollars either way.

erik · Post by **erik** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 2:53 pm

FrankTrollman wrote: The disadvantages of keeping a loaded firearm anywhere near your head for any period of the day should be extremely obvious to everyone.

-Username17

However... However!

The awesome advantages of keeping a loaded firearm near your head should be extremely obvious to anyone as well.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 7:05 am

Croak.

Speaking of medicare, disease prevention, and failures of the nation, I'm sick right now. Today it's spread to my lungs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinovirus

My entire family is sick. My dog is sick. My girlfriend is sick. Her office is sick. Half of my classmates are either recovering, ill, or just now coming with it.

Fucking disease outbreaks. Even if it is the common cold, you'd think we'd have readily available cloth masks like in Asian countries.

I'll bet we'd have street riots and burning cities in America because of denied freedoms of not wearing a mask during outbreaks.

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 7:30 am

I always find it strange that most of the rest of the developed world seems to be able to provide adequate (I'm not claiming awesome) for their entire populations, yet the world's largest economy in the world finds it to be an intolerable hardship.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 8:56 am

To be fair, the other developed countries have way more population density, which must make that kind of infrastructure much more feasible.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 4:19 am

They are older nations. America is only a few hundred years old and founded by means of pure rebellion (and godsdamned puritans), not thousands of years of civilization peaks and conquerings.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 6:14 am

Pfft, Australia is younger, and settled by criminals!

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 6:42 am

The US doesn't even have better technology penetration even in our denser areas. You probably get better cel phone coverage in some third world countries than ten miles outside of our densest cities.

-Crissa

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 6:46 am

Yeah, uh Sig, US is pretty old as far a countries which have maintained a single form of government go. Most other countries have gone through a hell of a lot political turmoil than the US has.

Also I believe most systems of socialized medicine were all put in place within the century. That and countries like Canada and Australia have both managed to put relatively effective public healthcare systems in place while having much smaller population densities.

Not to mention having lower GDP per capita than the US.

Really the problem in the US is private healthcare is too lucrative for those managing it now to want to give it up

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 6:49 am

Yeah, uh Sig, US is pretty old as far a countries which have maintained a single form of government go. Most other countries have gone through a hell of a lot political turmoil than the US has.

Also I believe most systems of socialized medicine were all put in place within the century. That and countries like Canada and Australia have both managed to put relatively effective public healthcare systems in place while having much smaller population densities.

Not to mention having lower GDP per capita than the US.

Really the problem in the US is private healthcare is too lucrative for those managing it now to want to give it up

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 7:07 am

The US is the second oldest country on the planet, after the United Kingdom. It was the third oldest country on the planet, but the Kingdom of Nepal dissolved in January of this year. "Young Country" doesn't fly as an excuse for anything any more.

-Username17

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 9:20 am

To be fair nobody lives in most of .au and if you do happen to live in the empty parts the healthcare isn't great.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 2:19 pm

True. It's often said that the only parts of Australia where the mosquitoes can actually give you some kind of disease are the ones where you can't get treatment for said diseases, and the only places you'll find the king of deadly land snakes are out in the middle of the desert where you won't find a hospital.

So you're completely fine unless you live away from the cities, in which case you're fucked. Former PM* John Howard was asked about this before, and had this to say:

"It's okay, they're only black people out there."

*Bolded just because it's so good to call him the former PM. As in, not any more.

Bigode · Post by **Bigode** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 3:56 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:The US is the second oldest country on the planet, after the United Kingdom. It was the third oldest country on the planet, but the Kingdom of Nepal dissolved in January of this year. "Young Country" doesn't fly as an excuse for anything any more.

I'd think government system age doesn't matter as much as civilization age (as Sigma meant); but since Western civilization was pretty much brought wholesale there anyway ...

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 9:01 pm

It's not exactly physically possible to get emergency support to those areas of oz anyhow.

And it's not as though even with having emergency services in the rural US your fate is much better... Our poisonous spiders and snakes merely destroy limbs, not life.

I doubt in oz when you actually get to the hospital they tell you the price for reattaching those limbs, and make you choose which ones you'll ditch because you don't have the credit for the procedure.

-Crissa