If you want a perfect example of Goverment Health Care check out our Veteran Hospitals. We have never properly taken care of our Soldiers. There is absolutely no way they will take care of us, the average Joe.
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i have talked to several veterans and they have dropped their private insurance and are quite happy with the care they get at the VA. stop your feeble attempts at fear mongering.
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I am glad you have found some that got great care. I know many that haven't.
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Sure...... here is Is072456 who has taken it upon himself to do a survey of "several" Veterans and how they were treated at the VA Hospital.
Yep.... that's believable. Not exactly a Zagbe poll...
Government run VA Hospitals are beyond abysmal. Oh, by the way, the Government also ran the Post Office and AMTRAK. Need any more be said...???
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dear hairlip,
it would be herself. and where is your poll? post office....last letter i mailed got there on time. amtrak, when was the last time you were on amtrak? i use it quite a bit and it runs on time.
think private insurers are nice guys? read this senate testimony from someone who was once a big time industry exec. you are fighting the wrong dragon.
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I think that one person's experiences may be good but overall VA's have a rotten reputation.
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Democracy:
A government of the masses.
Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of "direct" expression.
Results in mobocracy.
Attitude toward property is comunistic-negating property rights.
Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate. whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences.
Results in demagogism license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.
Democracy is the "direct" rule of the people and has been repeatedly tried without success.
A certain Professor Alexander Fraser Tytler, nearly two centuries ago, had this to say about Democracy: " A Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of Government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess out of public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that Democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a Dictatorship."
A democracy is majority rule and is destructive of liberty because there is no law to prevent the majority from trampling on individual rights. Whatever the majority says goes! A lynch mob is an example of pure democracy in action. There is only one dissenting vote, and that is cast by the person at the end of the rope.
Republic:
Authority is derived through the election by the people of public officials best fitted to represent them.
Attitude toward property is respect for laws and individual rights, and a sensible economic procedure.
Attitude toward law is the administration of justice in accord with fixed principles and established evidence, with a strict regard to consequences.
A greater number of citizens and extent of territory may be brought within its compass.
Avoids the dangerous extreme of either tyranny or mobocracy. Results in statesmanship, liberty, reason, justice, contentment, and progress.
Is the "standard form" of government throughout the world.
A republic is a form of government under a constitution which provides for the election of:
an executive and
a legislative body, who working together in a representative capacity, have all the power of appointment, all power of legislation all power to raise revenue and appropriate expenditures, and are required to create
a judiciary to pass upon the justice and legality of their governmental acts and to recognize
certain inherent individual rights.
Take away any one or more of those four elements and you are drifting into autocracy. Add one or more to those four elements and you are drifting into democracy.
Our Constitutional fathers, familiar with the strength and weakness of both autocracy and democracy, with fixed principles definitely in mind, defined a representative republican form of government. They "made a very marked distinction between a republic and a democracy and said repeatedly and emphatically that they had founded a republic."
A republic is a government of law under a Constitution. The Constitution holds the government in check and prevents the majority (acting through their government) from violating the rights of the individual. Under this system of government a lynch mob is illegal. The suspected criminal cannot be denied his right to a fair trial even if a majority of the citizenry demands otherwise.
Difference between Democracy and Republic, in brief:
Democracy:
a: government by the people; especially : rule of the majority.
b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.
Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences
Republic
a: a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government.
b: a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law.
Democracy and Republic are often taken as one of the same thing, but there is a fundamental difference. Whilst in both cases the government is elected by the people, in Democracy the majority rules according to their whims, whilst in the Republic the Government rule according to law. This law is framed in the Constitution to limit the power of Government and ensuring some rights and protection to Minorities and individuals.
The difference between Republic and Righteous Republic is that in the Republic the Government rules according to the law set up by men, in the Righteous Republic the law is the Law of God. Only in the Righteous Republic it can truly be said "One nation under God" for it is governed under commandments of the only One True God and there is no pluralism of religions.
Autocracy declares the divine right of kings; its authority can not be questioned; its powers are arbitrarily or unjustly administered.
Mobocracy: 1. Political control by a mob. 2. The mass of common people as the source of political control.
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Ok, "herself," but, I believe it is grammatically correct to refer to a male if gender is unknown.
We aren't referring to "on time" here..... the fact of the matter is that your Government couldn't make money with a hot dog stand in a ball park. You cite the Post Office and AMTRAK as being the pinnacles of efficiency???
Maybe by the clock, but not by the pocketbook. They are both disasters, financially. But it's ok, we'll just keep pumping money down the rathole so that we can be "on time."
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Oh, and by the way, I am a Veteran.
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"making money" off the backs of the sick is repulsive. for profit health care does not respect human rights.
speaking of financial disasters...have you checked your stocks lately?
to freedom fighter, i have read that rant and it is informative. nevertheless, call our system what you will, do you want government to afford you certain protections under law? should we let corporations do as they please? do you think it is right for private corporations to profit from the delivery of health care administration? do you realize how the private insurers are ripping people off? are you okay with that?
folks who decry the government "takeover" of our lives are okay with corporate takeover of our lives? right now, i don't see much of a difference since what we have in washington are corporate legislators who have literally been bought by private corporations of every stripe.
your "mobacracy" argument against democracy is misleading and you know it. last i heard, the US was a democratic republic. also, contrary to what you may believe, not everyone wants to live in a righteous republic. your one true god may not be someone else's idea of a one true god. i don't believe in god. you would wish to have your one true god be the final authority whose authority cannot be questioned? i think i would not be the only person who has a problem with that.
your idea of "mob rule" indicates an inherent distrust of humankind. if man is made in god's image, why do you mistrust man's ability to reason and govern himself?
no government can truly control the greed, anger and stupidity that is the cause of all human suffering. that takes personal responsibility on the part of each individual to control those three poisons. nevertheless, government can take measures to protect the individual so they are not subjected to the greed, anger or stupidity of others. call it what you will, democracy, republic, mobacracy...that is my expectation of government.
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hairlip
so was my dad. he was in WWII. are you an irag veteran?
i have heard that iraq veterans will be getting a new GI benefit that sounds quite generous. if you are an iraq veteran i hope you take advantage of everything the country is offering.
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Is... I suppose that you think that medical education should also be free, restauranteers should feed the hungry, mechanics should fix the cars so that people can get around, all at no cost to the masses. This is a very socialistic attitude. The US is a Republic, not a democracy. The majority does not dictate our rights, the Constitution does. Do you earn a iving?
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to apugh96
if medical education was more affordable perhaps MDs could see patients in a less financially demanding manner. right now we have shortage of primary care physicians because insurers compensate their fees at a lower rate compared to the specialists. some pediatricians and primary care MDs actually make less $ than you auto mechanic.
speaking of auto mechanics, etc no i do not think they should be "free". no one should work for free unless they want to. last i checked that was called slavery. the question is do we want a system of health care based on human rights principles or free market commodity principles. basing it on a human right principle does not make it "free:", it makes it affordable and sustainable thereby allowing individuals the opportunity to exercise their basic right to health care. in reality, the free market private insurers are getting loads of money from taxpayers like you and me (assuming you pay taxes) because they administrate plans for the federal government. talk about a cash cow. better yet, the industry has bought their way into the legislators hearts so washington turns a blind eye to industry abuses.
health benefits from your employer (assuming you have those) is not taxed as income. to me, this is another type of taxpayer subsidy to the health insurance industry. combined now with the possibility that the government may mandate everyone have coverage, provided of course by the private insurers, creates a market that is anything but free and open.
as to your final question, yes i earn a living. both my husband and i are self-employed and have been for over 25 years. we have raised to children to adulthood and our youngest will be a senior in college next year. we pay taxes (alot of them for people of a modest middle class income) and do not begrudge it. i pay taxes to provide others with health insurance, yet because we are individual business owners, we cannot afford health insurance for ourselves. everyone in politics loves to talk about supporting the small. business person, i can tell you, no one steps up to that plate.
in reality, i think you and i are not so diametrically opposed. i too am frustrated by people who take advantage of government generosity. but these people who take advantage come in many groups and corporate america is the biggest abuser. eliminating government involvement is not the answer. transforming the way government operates is the answer. we all need to look out for each other. government is a vehicle by which we can do just that. to me, working to eliminate the profiteering of private health insurers and working towards eliminating fraud and abuse in the health system is a good place to start.
you are right, the constitution defines our rights and the role of government is to preserve those rights. to many these rights have eroded into a belief that anything but a free market capital economy will preserve those rights. right now, in every sector of our economy we are seeing the folly of that belief. remember apugh, we are the government. democracy is not a spectator sport. your insistence that the US is a republic is a thinly disguised attempt at paralyzing the very actions that are needed at this time to transform our government...and it needs transforming. republic implies that those who control the purse strings control the masses. democracy implies that the masses determine how the purse string is applied to the maintenance of government. if america is not a democracy as you proclaim, why are we fighting in foreign lands to promote, as george bush would say, democracy? equality? human rights? anything here sound familiar to you?
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