Month: August 2015

FROM FACEBOOK

Only “rights” are negative rights. Positive rights — like what you are calling “access to affordable health care — implies that someone else must provide them. Does the doctor have to work at 3AM to be accessible and for free to be affordable? If not the doctor, then why forced — by being robbed — to pay for that service for someone else?

Moral principles are the same in the first world as the third world.

Charity care has ALWAYS been available. And IS available.

An example, a fellow at the AL on a merchant marine disability pension had some serious health issues. He was treated at Princeton Hospital as a “charity case” and it cost him nothing.

The original hospitals were set up by religious organization to provide care for the poor. Columbia Presbyterian, Baylor Baptist, Jewish Memorial, and the vast number of Catholic ones.

Then the Gooferment got into “health”, “health care”, “health care insurance”, or something else with “Medicare and Medicaid” and it has been a mess ever since.

People “demanding” their “rights” to “free stuff” has been the death of the American Experiment.

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http://www.unionleader.com/article/20150825/OPINION02/150829657

Another View – Martin O’Malley: To ensure retirement security, let’s start by expanding Social Security
By MARTIN O’MALLEY

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This is not our American Dream. As a nation, we must act to ensure the retirement security of American families. And we should start by expanding Social Security benefits — not cutting them or merely “enhancing them” — to provide a foundation for a more secure retirement to all those who have worked hard to achieve it.

Social Security has worked so well for so long because it is fundamentally fair: Everyone pays in, and everyone receives a payout. The result? Social Security now provides a guaranteed retirement or insurance benefit to almost every worker in America — while keeping 300,000 Granite Staters out of poverty.

However, despite Social Security’s remarkable success, if you listened to Republicans and even some Democrats talk about the program today, you’d think the sky is falling. But let’s be clear: Social Security is not in crisis.

It’s not the sky that’s falling. It’s the floor that’s falling out from under our seniors.

As Democrats, it is time to stand up for our values and call for the expansion of Social Security for all beneficiaries. Increasing Social Security benefits remains the best and most straightforward way to provide greater retirement security for American families — not raising the retirement age, or cutting benefits for our seniors, or privatizing Social Security and putting the program in the hands of Wall Street.

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Sorry, but “Social Security Insurance” is a Ponzi scheme where the victims don’t get a choice.

If it’s such a great idea, why is it compulsory?

It’s hard to get into all it’s negatives in a short space and limited time, but let’s remember Bastiat’s “seen and unseen”. What could people have done with the “FICA taxes” stolen from them and their employer?

Even an index fund that mimiced the S&P, Dow Jones, or Total Stock Market would have returned 10% per year average over 30 years. What kind of retirement would people have versus the negative return that social security represents.

In 1977, Chile eliminated their “social security” plan in favor of a free choice one and they are better off for it.

Argh!

Stop socialism and trust the free market for a better life for all. 

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http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/22/tsa-reveals-master-baggage-keys/

TSA inadvertently shows the dangers of master baggage keys
blogger-avatarby Jon Fingas | @jonfingas | 22 hrs ago

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Security researchers have long warned of the dangers of using master-keyed locks — if thieves get their hands on just one key, they compromise all of the compatible locks at the same time. And unfortunately, the US’ Transportation Security Administration is learning this lesson the hard way. It briefly let the Washington Post show a photo (we’ve blurred the details) of the master baggage keys it uses for approved locks, giving crooks a crude guide to making duplicates. And you can’t just switch to a non-standard lock to get around this, since TSA agents will rip it off if they catch it during an inspection.

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Can the Gooferment be any more immoral, ineffective, and inefficient?

The stupid bureaucrats allowed a picture of their “masters” to be published.

Maybe it’s deliberate?

Now that the picture’s out, you can’t automatically blame the TSA!

Argh!

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Disagree on principle — If one has a “positive right”, then who is required to pay for it. As distinguished from “negative rights”, that outline what human can’t be prohibited from doing — likfe liberty, and property. Hence self-defense, speech, and not to be hurt or have their stuff stolen. “Health care” is not a right and “charity care” has always been a hallmark of America. Hospitals were originally set up by religious group (i.e., Baylor Baptist, Jewish Memorial. Mother Cabrini Hospital).

Disagree on strategy — Healthcare is wonderful in Canada and England if you don’t die waiting for an MRI. And, look what is not covered or just not available. If single payer is so great then explain the VA healthcare fiasco or the Indian Health System’s half year disaster. And, Medicare / Medicaid ain’t great either. They make the mean old insurance companies look like saints.

Disagree on tactical — one size fits all healthcare is a national disaster. Obamacare / SCOTUS care make nuns have pregnancy insurance. Makes a poor old senior citizen on a fixed income pay for stuff they will never need.

Finally, the Gooferment is immoral, ineffective, and inefficient. Why would anyone in their right mind give them more to screw up?

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