Healthcare: a right or privilege?

[Geoffrey]

My world view has kind of evolved dramatically over the past few years after having exposed myself to the world’s religion of convenience to the point where I’d describe myself as more of a Neo Conservative. I believe that there is only one race, the human race, and everyone is born equal regardless of their skin color and that within us all lies hidden potential waiting to be unlocked. People merely need to discover their own strengths in order to use those talents as a foundation upon which to grow and indeed thrive, while to many it is more convenient to rob them of all hope by keeping them in the dark through ignorance and class determined crippled social mobility.

I believe in fixing what is broken. Through science we can potentially cure anyone of anything, which is why I am almost disgusted when people so willingly embrace social Darwinism. Let the failures die? No. Turn them into successes. Help them by giving them a way out.

Here’s where I disagree with the oldschool Conservatives and why their movement is forever crippled: I believe in the right to life. So I support helping those in need, which I feel is also the Christian thing to do.

Yet those who would call themselves Christians are so ferociously opposed to the idea as if this is taking from the winners and giving to the losers that I almost fail to understand.

So where do you guys stand on this issue?

[Solo_Wing]

Healthcare should certainly be free, at least up until a reasonable point. While there is a good chance that people won’t contribute anything back to society if they aren’t given a reason to push themselves forward, we should under no circumstances let people die because they can’t afford to pay for health insurance. Poverty is not always something that can be prevented, and many people are trapped in that cycle because of social conditioning, rather than from any immediate fault of their own. It’s rather sad people prioritising things like money over human life in so called civilised western society.

I believe that there is only one race, the human race, and everyone is born equal regardless of their skin color and that within us all lies hidden potential waiting to be unlocked. People merely need to discover their own strengths in order to use those talents as a foundation upon which to grow and indeed thrive, while to many it is more convenient to rob them of all hope by keeping them in the dark through ignorance and class determined crippled social mobility.

Racial differences are a bunch of trade offs anyway. For example, I’m quite pale due to my English ancestry, which would be fine living in a place with a lower density of sunlight. Living in NZ not far from the ozone hole, having darker skin would a strong advantage as it would mean not being burnt within minutes in the summer. But as you say, people need to discover their strengths and run with those. However, I don’t quite see the connection with the healthcare issue that you’re raising… ?

[quote=“Geoffrey Duke”]Here’s where I disagree with the oldschool Conservatives and why their movement is forever crippled: I believe in the right to life. So I support helping those in need, which I feel is also the Christian thing to do.

Yet those who would call themselves Christians are so ferociously opposed to the idea as if this is taking from the winners and giving to the losers that I almost fail to understand.[/quote]

It all comes down to their personal interpretations of the scriptures coupled with other beliefs that they’ve subscribed to. There’s so many different interpretations out there, when someone says that they hold Christian values it could mean many things.

[Geoffrey]

People tend to take pride from division, and I cannot be one of them. We’re all human beings, and what shocks me the most is when people disagree with me on THAT.

Liberals as well.

Unify people through a prevailing sense of justice as opposed to divide through segregation.

Race is still a huge issue in the U.S. because of illegal immigrants potentially benefiting from free healthcare. To that I say, so what if they did? If they are hard working law abiders especially. People still even today, associate race with intelligence when it is the culture that is to blame or thank for their outlook on life, not their race.

We should see through the eyes of culture and not race.

As for the Christians, we should be following Christ’s example by helping the poor and lifting up the downtrodden, so to say that life isn’t a right but rather a privilege, kind of frustrates me. It’s an indefensible stance to take.

Christians are too far to the right in crazy land at the moment for their world view to survive the modern world when it so easily can.

[Parn]

The illegal immigration issue is kind of funny, mostly because corporations have infiltrated some of the highest levels of American government and bend laws and regulations to accommodate what they want. This faux outrage over illegal immigration keeps the masses perpetually angry at the wrong group of people; illegal immigrants, particularly from Mexico, wouldn’t be crossing the border if they weren’t being employed en masse in the first place.

When President Clinton signed NAFTA, it resulted in Mexican farmers being completely unable to compete due to the US government subsidizing corn production. Why buy an ear of Mexican corn for a dollar when you can buy ten ears of American corn for the same price? All these Mexican farmers became unemployed, and food production companies like Tyson and IPB started advertising in Mexico to get Mexican workers to come to the United States for the purpose of picking crops, cutting meat, so on and so forth.

The root of the problem is prosecuting these corporations that rely heavily on illegal immigration, but that will never happen due to their control over the government in positions of power, and heavy amounts of lobbying where they don’t have direct control. There’s also the issue that if they did stop relying on illegal immigrant labor, food prices would jump quite a bit due to having to pay legitimate workers a fair wage. The American standard of living is currently possible due to illegal immigration, which makes it funny that people get outraged that they might be able to get any form of social services in the country.

As far as health care goes, I get into arguments with folks on the subject of it being a right as opposed to a privilege quite frequently. Some folks bring up that it’s not in the United States Bill of Rights, but I retort with “neither is clean drinking water, yet you seem to have no issue paying tax dollars towards this.” A non-profit health care system is critical to a modern society in the same manner that fire departments, police departments, food testing agencies, clean drinking water agencies, so on and so forth, all are.

[Nemoide]

On a philosophical level, healthcare is a privilege - at least it is in not an “inalienable right” since people can quite easily refuse to grant it. A right, in my view, is something which fundamentally cannot be taken away. For example “freedom of speech” - even if there was a law against saying certain things, as there are, there is no way to absolutely REMOVE the ability from a person without removing their humanity (ie killing them).

HOWEVER just because it isn’t a right does not mean that a modern society, such as ours, should withhold it. The healthcare system in the United States is one which doesn’t really make sense - it isn’t a “system of healthcare” so much as it is an industry designed to bring great wealth to a few by exploiting the masses. In my opinion, a government-run system is the only one that can really make sense, since it could be operated in a not-for-profit manner. Everyone pays in, those who are sick get treated with the money from the healthy people who are paying. (To me, this sounds reasonable but the right-wing politicians in the US consider this to be analogous to Soviet Communism.)

I’m no Christian but come on! We don’t need to make the lives of the poor worse than they already are! Helping people should not be considered taboo!
I don’t know how much of it has crossed the seas but since most folks on this forum aren’t American it’s worth pointing out that there has been a considerable amount of madness in regards to health-care in this country in the past year. Basically, even “moderate liberals” seem to think that having a government run-system will lead to Nazism. The hardcore right-wingers (Glenn Beck) are saying there has already been a secret takeover of the government by unseen conspiracies (who are apparently simultaneously fascists, communists, Nazis, socialists, and anarchists). So I don’t really know what sort of health-care changes we’ll will be in store for under the Obama administration, but they seem to be fairly minimal.

As for immigration, frankly I’ve never wondered what people get so upset over. By making illegal aliens citizens, they would be forced to pay taxes – tax evasion seems to be the biggest reason so many Americans seem to dislike them. It would also ensure a better lifestyle for many, by allowing them to get a public education and the like. IMO having a more educated populace and a larger base of legal workers sounds like a good thing to me. shrug
I know it will cause the costs of certain things to grow and unless I specifically know “the price went up because we are now using legal labor” then I’m generally inclined to look for inexpensive things. So I’m not helping…

What the US needs more than anything is to realize that “a free market” is different “free corporations controlling the market”. I don’t consider myself much of a capitalist but GEEZE. Even the old-time conservatives used to think that big business wasn’t that great. Now even the slightest hint of regulation has people calling fowl.

BTW Geoffrey Duke: I don’t know if “Neo Conservative” is what you want to label yourself… in the US at least it refers to George W. Bush administration-style politics. Basically the idea that democracy should be actively forced upon the entire world.

[The_Ancient]

I’d actually been mulling the issue of “racism” in a less simplistic manner recently, and the distinction between that and “culturalism” you just made is notable. The very word, race, retains a clue to the original connotation, from times when race and culture were virtually synonymous. And it seems to me the conflation itself is rooted in the impulse to roll all aspects of one’s personality and motivations into the bundle of one’s nature, therefore to be determined by one’s blood.

But if you set aside the stigma and all the misconceptions and derangement that stigma is built from, leaving the basic connotation of distinct groups of people in competition - in a race - for resources and dominion, then it’s part of a reality that has certainly defined our nature thus far. And in that sense, I think it’d be hard for anyone to claim they aren’t an old-school racist, since I think most of us have some opinions on the superiority of our cultural worldview.

Since my own nation constitutes an experiment - and still a relatively young one - in essentially declaring our freedom from any chains of bloodline; it’s destiny as a crucible of evolving morality on that front was set from the beginning. And so Americans who may yet clutch at archaic and obsolete racial sentiments as part of the real American values, can be crushingly ironic. But to tie up an actual point to this rant, I do feel there’s a legitimate concern about our cultural identity that has been significantly oppressed lately - one area in which I’m definitely not an orthodox liberal - and I think that can then become misbegotten fuel for more latent smolders of racism.

Anyway, more on topic:

Unfortunately illegal immigration and health care are equally FUBAR issues in the US right now, 95% of the mass media dialog is pure misdirection and emotional politics. But as for health care being a right… no, I can’t quite agree with that, not so simply. But for starters at least, I would absolutely argue that the current status-quo of corporate privilege is infringing on our inalienable rights, with our health care industry being an egregious offender. And one thing that enrages me about the current dynamic, is how our right wing refuses to acknowledge any culpability for their part in letting things get so out of balance, and thereby allowing - almost guaranteeing - such a pendulous swing towards this overzealous, greatly flawed, patch-and-spend system.

[Geoffrey]

I am curious, Heretic, where exactly you place yourself on the political spectrum. You really are an enigma to me considering your unique insight into the heretofore political minefields we are all forced to navigate.

The “real” Conservatives frustrate me more than they do their rivals mainly because their whole approach to life is so unforgiving. Succeed or die. Literally. It may motivate people to try all that much harder, but that really needs to become a relic of the past; there are better ways.

I’ve argued with so many liberals now that I’ve lost count. When these worlds collide co-existence will be more than a mere challenge. Ultimately there will be a tyranny of the majority the very moment one side’s ideas are simply the most efficient, and we all know where that leads. Constant change is the only thing keeping the balance in check because everyone’s ideas have their time and their place.

I agree with Parn that the immigrants have been exploited, and this era of greed being a compass and of only being entitled to healthcare if you can earn it as if it were bait to work hard needs to come crashing down before we are put on a path towards true meritocracy.

Back to WoW.

[The_Ancient]

Geoffrey you more or less nailed it with the “enigma” label, as narcissistic as I know that may come across. But my life has been greatly defined by a lack of firmaments, and as such one of the few reliable comforts I seem to have is from the exercise of staying dynamic. Though whether that’s even a net positive is still far from clear to me, in relative terms I know some of my thought patterns must qualify as insanity.

But for the less enigmatic answer: I can label myself a liberal, though progressive feels more literally appropriate. But I also have a lot of personal disdain for the political packaging and constraints of both labels. My current affinity for the ‘left’ is firm, if only because the right wing’s corruption and disingenuousness is so transparent and absolute; and institutionally so. Specifically referring to the Democrat and Republican institutions in the US, I often use the illustration: even if half the Democrats are every bit as compromised and corrupt as any Republican, that still leaves a significant body of representatives with at least some remnants of conscience and genuine shame.

Whereas Republicans prove they are without shame nine out of ten times they open their mouths, as a rule. With the only exceptions being of the “prove the rule” variety. And as I’ve brushed on before, the Christian alliance, generally speaking, only represents the apex of the disingenuousness in practice. You may have already been exposed to some of this, but the “C-Street” example epitomizes my own ‘Second Great Apostasy’ take on things. Much of their core rhetoric appears as a direct and simple repackaging of the idea of Manifest Destiny, if more explicitly personalized. Their practical purpose is literally to supply the already powerful with divine justification for their desire for (even more) power.

Areas I tend to break with the left wing orthodoxy, is the “small government” issue, State’s rights, and the increasing tendency to try to push for solutions involving programs more than regulations. Going back to the health care example, all along I believed the starting point should have been sweeping and ruthless re-regulation, but I also understood the politics of that were an even bigger problem. Which brings us back to the disingenuous dilemma, with the right wing base so firmly propagandized into equating corporate regulations with “private sector” infringement. It’s nothing but a classic bait-and-switch con over and over again; “Government is bad”, they all know that, but why? “The Fat Cats in Washington” of course, but how did they get fat? They’re being fed by corporate interests, yet every time one of them that still has some shreds of conscience tries to impose any greater limits on how glutinous those interests can be… the same people who hate the Fat Cats get outraged by the prospect of infringing on the ‘right’ to keep feeding them?

The insanity of the whole situation is staggering and highly demoralizing to me, whenever I think about it too much. This became more tangential than I intended but it touched on some issues that are most central to my current animosities, and therefore shape my direction of contemplation.

[Solo_Wing]

But my life has been greatly defined by a lack of firmaments, and as such one of the few reliable comforts I seem to have is from the exercise of staying dynamic.

This is really important point. Too often we fall into the trap of siding with a particular political view/party, but being open to shifting your perspective on a particular issue is much more noble, in my opinion, than firmly sticking to one side of a debate.

Any perspective/viewpoint needs to be amenable to argument, and that goes for the individual policies as well. Perhaps some policy from the other side of the political spectrum might be preferable after arguing the point through, even though by and large you consider yourself a liberal, a conservative, etc. In that case it would be uncritical to support one particular ideology when it comes to all policies.

[Geoffrey]

I think that the right wing does have a powerful message that has been clouded too much by protecting its corporate allies as well who’ve exploited the American work ethic and need for self-sufficiency for a start.

There’s a long list of ticking time bombs I could go down here, and it frustrates me because that’s where I belong. I agree with the basic idea of bringing the best out of people to unleash their potential in order to shower the world in the fruits of serendipity. I just disagree with the methods. I know exactly what the right wingers will do in the states next.

It’s almost as if you have population control freaks on one hand while complete avaricious money hording profiteers on the other taking complete control, and even as the extremes become more extreme, and even as we average out more in the center, this is heading for a crash as the polar opposites tear us apart.

Don’t you find the label “progressive” too associated with eugenics and control? A lot of people who claim to be liberals really, really aren’t. A liberal would defend someone’s right to freedom of belief, religion, family and speech as long as no one was being hurt in the process. In the current arena of ideas people are so divided because of how they’ve pretended that anything they disagree with is irrelevant.

See? I can go on and on. Sorry about that. I just love how science fiction is becoming science fact.

The right wingers would be half right if there was growth in the private sector that wasn’t mostly sweat shops in China as they take their businesses abroad to where they are unfettered by rules that could infringe on their precious profits. They are only going to do what is profitable no matter who they screw in the process, because that’s just who they are. Meanwhile technology is replacing people who are left to starve in order to somehow inspire them to self-improve.

So where were we? Are yes, we are screwed. The Neo Cons like myself are right about one thing: there is only one language this jungle of animals understands, and it isn’t English. You can only bring peace to much of the world through force and an empire of ideas by letting those ideas roam free to obliterate anything inferior to them. That, however, is the enemy of the current status quo who want to hold the monopoly on what’s best.

Rather than make ideas compatible with a changing world preserve what has always been proven to work imo, lest our identity is eroded to death and we forget who we really are. But hey, this forthcoming redefining of what it means to be human isn’t going to be painless.

So I share your frustrations. Christianity isn’t going to survive modern criticism as it is, nor will much of it remain relevant to its target audience except for the key teachings of Jesus which are all about helping people and repairing what is broken. That’s not exactly profitable these days, but it is the future. I don’t know why people want to stand in front of that tidal wave.

I think that, overall, this perfectionism through death and a ladder of power whose lower steps have been cut we are about to undergo will lose to serendipity and self-improvement.

IMO, if you are genuinely trying in your own way to do good, more power to you. You can’t let a religion of convenience stand in the way.

[The_Ancient]

Perhaps my one truly personal resentment of Christianity is very specific to the society I happen to be a part of…

To represent oneself too decently or… amenable, in certain manners and context, is to invite a perception of weakness. That has been a recurring theme for myself anyway, it seems many people can not understand certain selfless actions and reactions without a context of established packaging; such as being a Christian. Which is a sort of flip side augmentation to the de facto conception that Christians somehow have a monopoly on decency itself, which then feeds into this climate where anyone who claims that label in any form, is automatically (and generally unthinkingly) afforded a degree of veracity they don’t even have to earn.

Whenever I see a “What would Jesus do?” sign anymore, I always think… well if he’s the same Jesus I’m aware of, I think the first thing he’d do is condemn at least nine out of ten of these hypocrites who’ve been most publicly exploiting his name lately. And as such, there’s times I really really wish that I could believe that he’s coming back. Even if I must be judged a heathen, it’d be totally worth it.

Speaking of which, I certainly didn’t mean to imply myself as being some sort of saint with the start of this. But there is that certain dog-eat-dog spirit in this culture, and it’s become tacitly legitimized at every level. And as ever it’s just another variation on gang mentality: loyalty, honor, and even integrity are reserved for one’s pack alone - of course not always the same rules for different packs, of ‘friends’ or of business interests - and everyone else is just The Mark.

And so, often when people begin to realize one’s starting point of interaction is not searching for where they’re willing to be exploited, they just get confused. It’s downright weird. And as such they probably cannot trust it either, unless there’s another label that the culture has supplied to put it into context… such as Christianity. Which cycles back to the problem of exploitation all over again, as that label is itself so exploitable.

I put very little stock in labels as a rule, they serve a necessary purpose, but only as that of a single doorway into an always multifaceted domain. When I say I prefer the term progressive, it’s not so much about the current political packaging, as it is my own sense we’ve been in a long period of regression as a nation. The social engines of capitalism serve a purpose - even the unofficial quid pro quo ones - until such time as it may be proven we can shed that part of our nature, self interest is still the most reliable motivator for doing anything unprecedented. Hence the term “greasing the wheels of progress.” But we’ve gone well past a balance point, where those institutions and traditions of instigation are more often just greasing the wheels of regress.

But I’m unsure of where your “eugenics” angle comes from Geoffrey, unless it’s just the general rift over the issue of biosciences? I did very casually fall in with the Libertarian side once, and so I’m definitely not for control in the terms you seem to mean. As I said the orthodox Democratic agenda routinely goes too far with programs that effectively impose greater strictures on individuals, while ironically leaving ever greater leeway for corporate interests. But again, if you look beyond the rhetoric, the practical Republican agenda has in no way shape or form advanced the cause of individual liberties for a long time. In the end it’s not even a matter of differences between the two parties, but rather the lack of difference.

[Geoffrey]

The way you word everything always surprises me. It was actually very very hard for me to become so cynical, and yet, no one really has a choice in this world of selfishness where most people are out to gain somehow almost as if the destination was more important than the journey.

When you can only help your fellow human being when you can profit from it, even if it’s for the greater good, unsettles me.

The key issue here is identity. People have to take an identity from something, and that is a powerful, powerful potent bait for anyone. The Christians are polarized into an antithesis of their rivals and vice versa which is just stupid. It’s almost by design because that brand of Christianity with its black and white absolutism cannot really reach many people as a message that is simply true. It really can’t. All you will see are hypocrites everywhere.

It’s a shame because there is a form of Christianity lost within all that dogma that can survive ANYTHING. I’m surprised so few can even see it. Again, I guess it’s not really profitable in a world of lemmings.

If you look back in time as well, the Vatican only took what was best suited to their goals from all the gospels they didn’t destroy such as Jesus’s victory over death which they wanted to use to inspire people to die for the faith. So they focused in on that. Magnified it. When Jesus wanted people to live. He just didn’t want people to be bullied into surviving with the threat of death which is an idea so powerful it almost crippled the Roman empire.

I guess we’re suckers for irony.

The way I see things, the U.S. heavyweights are simply vying for numbers and will do anything to get them. You can really simplify it that much. Mexican immigrants will mostly side with the dems even though most of them are Catholic (another irony) due to how they feel disenfranchised and entitled due to the sheer wealth that is so concentrated away from them into the hands of so few. On the other hand, the Conservatives will frighten people into voting for them now with the threat of spiraling debt that is a problem only shrinking the size of government can solve, which of course, shrinks the size of loyalists to their rivals who’d become dependent on that system when it was an unregulated free market that led to the crash in the first place.

I am for limited government because limitless government will only be abused. However, government NEEDS to play a role in helping people. This is where most fail.

I guess I’ve associated progressivism with socialist collectivism which IS the direction some are taking us in. It won’t work. Even if that is paranoia and fearmongering designed to scare people, it cannot ever work, not in a world of individuals. Not everyone believes in the power of the individual. I just don’t believe in leaving someone to die in order to force them to learn how to survive like many of my fellow Conservatives do. And they really do believe it.

Healthcare isn’t taking from the winners and giving to the losers like they think it is.

[The_Ancient]

Geoffrey you’ve made your own dynamism and individuality clear, anyone who can tow the party line 100% just has no genuine opinion in the first place… as in basically just a sheep.

I don’t really know how similar the Christian-conservative merging is in the UK political landscape, but if you aren’t already clear on it you may find it useful to try to understand the origins of the dichotomies that frustrate you, because in the US this Republican=Christian status quo is ironic in the first place. As you said they’ll do basically anything to win, and while I’m in no way trying to claim the right has a monopoly on disingenuousness, again the Republicans have become institutionally pristine in that attitude. The big turning point seems to be President Nixon’s campaign, and the appeal to the silent / moral majority. Nixon himself could be considered a liberal by today’s standards, and I think that moderation was a necessary part of how the rearrangement could happen, but the appeal to old-school morality was always political and calculated. And in general the climate of corruption with the behind the scenes players crystallized there, Carl Rove’s own shenanigans trace all the way back to that time.

I think the success of it was greatly a matter of timing and expedience, they identified that they could catalyze the sentiments against all the dirty hippies, and so all along it was never truly about moralism in any positive sense, but a negatively charged appeal to traditionalism. And we see where it’s all lead, to a great many people brainwashed into a rigid conflation of the economic and social status quos. America is about Bible thumping Christians and Capitalism! Whereas Democracy itself takes a backseat in their rhetoric anymore.

So basically yes, virtually all of the rhetoric is fashioned to get them elected and nothing else. And for many years they’ve been given to understand that making good on any of it is irrelevant, because the interests that are truly concerned with what they ultimately do couldn’t care less what they say to get there, as long as they hold up their end of the bargain. And since those same interests now have a fundamental control of the dialog that reaches the voters who got scammed in the first place, many remain blissful in the never ending state of scam.

I don’t exactly wish to feed your own cynicism though, and that’s a nuanced realm for me, as I don’t even see myself as a cynic. Perhaps more of a fatalist… but it’s too automatic for me to empathize with other people’s limitations. My own drive for communication was born of both an acute despair of being misunderstood - which eventually metamorphosed into a more philosophical acceptance of being misunderstood than perhaps most - and a need to prove my own thoughts to myself. And along with the realization that such journeys of refinement cannot have an end, comes some comfortable understanding that it’s all relative. No one is perfect, and no one is purely vile or worthless. But everyone must have their own limits of what they can and cannot accept from others, and what they’re willing to do to try to influence others. And giving up on them is ultimately one’s own choice, either case-by-case or in wholesale.

The heart of strife and conflict, as I perceive it playing out most often, is from people being unwilling to allow for surprises in another. Subjective betrayals of their own rigid idea of who and what the other is supposed to be. All from a nearly universal if unconscious conceit that one can ever wholly know who another is. But if one simply affords everyone else the same right to surprise and even change, that we all give to our selves, then it’s more a matter of personal responsibility. Make the choice, if on balance someone is fundamentally worth your time and care, then they are worth your forgiveness of any details.

Which kind of gets back to the core message of Jesus, or at least a point I see in it that seems routinely missed. Forgiveness is not acceptance, yet neither can condemnation and forgiveness coexist. If there’s one Christian aphorism I most identify with, it would have to be “there but for the grace of God go I”. We are all driven by the same collection of desires, fears, and neutral mechanisms. And there’s a trillion ways they can each get orchestrated and played upon. That we have a “better nature” looking for any excuse to take precedence is to me only fact. So call it as you see it, and accept or reject with the greatest integrity one can muster, but no one is perfect and everyone’s on a journey, regardless of how much we may try to remain in one safe place. Forgiveness is not about an expectation that someone may return to the path you’re on, but simply the truth that everyone is a traveler, everyone is dynamic, and though our paths may intersect to greater and lesser degrees, no one can ever take the very same steps as another.

And that really went off rail I know…

Truly there’s nothing new under the sun though, this is all perfectly contiguous with how remarkable the Christian story is. The dark side and cynical exploitation has been there all along, and historically it’s been part of the birth pangs of modern civilization… in a sense the very power for subjugation was the Trojan Horse that carried the greater ethic throughout half the world. It just seems clear we aren’t quite done with that chapter yet.

I know this has been a very indirect response, I hope it’s yet apparent where it’s in response in some fashion. On that question of socialist collectivism, I get what you’re about as it’s essentially part of my own issue with the layers of programs. But there’s very little the orthodoxy demonizes on that front more than nationalized health care, so there’s obviously room for nuance on the issue for yourself as well. And the Democrats are still significantly more politically diverse than Republicans, I think you may be a little more influenced by the examples the right wing likes to showcase and use as a broad brush.

But that whole collectivism framing is one that always makes me see red when it’s coming from any form of right wing punditry. Again it’s the bait and switch tactic, as they relentlessly prop up corporate collectivism as an unambiguous good. In defiance of the fact people currently have explicitly less control over their own fate in that context than they do in the context of a democratic government. All that ultimately matters is protecting the democracy itself, then we can only blame ourselves for whatever we make of it.

[Geoffrey]

I just prefer to see people as a sea of individuals instead of a collective where some can be sacrificed for the greater whole. When there is choice, there is individuality by default. Many don’t see it that way. They either see pawns or lessers to be controlled.

I don’t think the Christians have much power in England anymore. They were wiped out of the media decades ago. Plus I know they are divided on certain issues like gay marriage which threatens to split the church of England. Overall, it’s a very watered down mild form of Christianity. Once it splits it may reach where it finally belongs. I think that they should accept gay people as a reality and not just as straight people who are sinning for a start. I can’t really take the opposing stance in good conscience anymore. It’s just who they are.

I think that in the states true Christianity would be much more liberal. It’s all about charity and helping to lift people up at its core. In its own way it serves the purpose of holding families together in a very strict old fashioned way by setting a firm example. I can almost actually like that black and white polar opposite world where on one side everything is neatly packaged and where it’s meant to be, while on the other completely out of control. Children NEED their parents like they need air to breath. Good parents. The chaotic reality, however, forces people to adapt and be in need of a helping hand. Some things are inarguably self-destructive and merit condemnation.

I still think the hardcore Christians are losing their power. I don’t see any fanatical crusaders taking charge any time soon to hunt down the evil sinners; their message can’t sink into the ears of enough people. You never know. I just feel the opposite is much worse.

I say expose the world to every idea possible, and let people decide what best reflects them rather than set up an ideal example for all to follow within a framework that refuses tyranny, because in the end, when people discover who they really are, I still don’t believe most of them are born to impose their will on others.

People are possibilities. But they always lean a certain way sometimes without realising it. There’s always an inner compass hidden beneath somewhere. Bring out the best in everyone, and by that I mean everyone, not just an elite few, and let serendipity evolve us to the next level. That journey can be shared; some ideas are too powerful to be ignored and really do speak to people.

So, if you really do feel misunderstood, as long as you defend the little good that’s left in this world, I’ll call you my brother.

I think I’m going to stop arguing and start learning more instead. I really do think that some people just live in different worlds. Whether it’s thanks to nature or nurture, it really doesn’t matter; the result is the same, leaving ideas to dominate through popularity rather than appeal to universal conscience.

The main themes at work to me seem to be perfectionism through death and only doing what is profitable. Impossible to overcome? I don’t think so. I don’t think so at all. But we need to more than merely counterbalance an elite few who herd the rest like sheep.

We reap what we sew in this world living by the sword.

Catch you later!