SAHD turned SAHW and husband seeking donations for IVF

[formergothardite]

I'm going to ignore facts and continue to believe that all Austrians are hard working, honest, musically inclined folks who spend their spare time rushing up the hills to twirl and sing. :snooty: In that way I am quit the libertarian because from my experience ignoring facts and reality is the libertarian way to do it.

In theory libertarian beliefs sound okay, but in reality, it would just suck. I grew up on a private road so don't try and tell me that private citizens would just voluntarily maintain roads. Trying to get a couple families to chip in and maintain it was a fucking nightmare. So just expand that to all of the roads and imagine the hell that it would be.

[BrownieMomma]

I don't have a lot of faith in the goodness of people to get things done. Heck, just in church you get a small percentage of folks doing the actual work and tithing while many just sit back and enjoy the fruits of the someone else's labor.

My recent employment experience... yeah I worked for 4 partners who all at least nominally called themselves a Christian of some kind... yet they pay low, few benefits, no hesitation to work the crap out of you but no reward other than what the law says you earned...

If any group of people who seem like they should treat their employees fairly, it should have been them, based on the idea that they are good people, churchgoers, but I had enough access to information to know they made a boatload of personal money and shared as little as possible with employees.

So, heck no, I will never again espouse the theory of relying on the goodness of people's hearts.

[sparkles]

Speaking as someone from the UK: I have never had a problem with my health care.

Granted, I have never been seriously ill. But I'm lucky enough to live in an area where I can ring my doctor's surgery and get an appointment for some time in the next week (southerners, hate me now), I had midwives and a named consultant during my pregnancies and a health visitor when my children were small. My children get free eye tests (as do I because I am so short-sighted) and dentist appointments and treatments - this link shows what is included and who doesn't have to pay: http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/Healthcost ... costs.aspx

One of my grandmothers had a series of strokes and the other deteriorated with dementia. My mother died due to a compromised immune system (a form of leukaemia). My father is currently experiencing various health issues frequently associated with being an octogenarian.

All of this has been difficult and upsetting, and in certain cases there were things which might have changed the issue (going to the doctor a couple of weeks earlier, for example). BUT not ONCE at any point did it occur to ANYONE to think "oh, if only we'd had more money she wouldn't have died".

I am online friends with a diabetic in NY state who is unable to work and has a very tight income. She has frequently posted about not being able to afford medications.

I know which system I would prefer to live under.

On my first trip to the UK (1978), two or three days into a planned two-month stay, I happened to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time and caught a punch meant for someone else full in the face. The impact sheared off part of crown on my front tooth and left the live nerve exposed so I had no choice but to seek medical attention. I was fully expecting to spend everything I had saved up and then go home because I was dead broke. So imagine my surprise when I was fully covered by the NHS, not only for this incident but for the next five years. I didn't have to spend a penny and the care I got through the dental school at Guy's Hospital was pretty damned good.

Now fast-forward to the 90s. Our daughter was born with a neural tube defect, which required extensive testing, 7+ hours worth of neurosurgery, and related tests and follow-ups. At the time, Mr. Sparkles had phenomenal healthcare coverage through his employer (shit job but oh, those bennies…) but we almost never saw a bill. It was an indemnity plan, which has pretty much gone the way of the dinosaur. The following year Mr. Sparkles switched jobs and our healthcare coverage nosedived. The company was self-insured and at the time–-this MAY have changed––unbeknownst to us, that meant that they were exempt from many of the regulations put in place to protect people. So we took our daughter for a follow-up MRI, one that had been previously covered by this company, and found ourselves with a $4000 bill because not only did the company decide to DROP this coverage, but they didn't even have to inform their employees of the change. Thankfully, we were able to negotiate the bill down and make arrangements for future MRIs but it's unconscionable that companies are allowed to be so underhanded. So yeah, ask me if I want fewer regulation because people and companies will do the right thing out of the goodness of their hearts…

Healthcare coverage should NEVER be tied to employment. EVER. You should never have to disrupt continuity of care, you should never have your providers dictated to you, you should never have to worry if what was covered under one plan is covered by another. As far as I'm concerned, healthcare coverage in the US should be as much of a right as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

[browncoatslytherin]

As far as I'm concerned, healthcare coverage in the US should be as much of a right as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

a-fucking-men. can't pursue the right to life, liberty, and happiness when you have health issues.

[Mama Mia]

The quote streams are getting pretty long, but I have a general question.

I understand there are huge problems with libertarianism. I understand that much government regulation is good and necessary. I'm a huge believer in a strong safety net system.

BUT -- I think there are some valid points that libertarians have regarding some issues -- drugs, prisons, corporations as people, many government regulations that do actually greatly favor big business at the expense of others. Also, working in a non-profit that administered many federal contracts -- ever increasing regulations actually got in the way of providing services to many people. There needs to be a balance between accountability and regulated to the point of uselessness.

My question is --- I guess I am surprised by the intensity of disagreement with libertarian ideas on this board. It's a level of animosity I usually see reserved for child abusers. I'm just curious, because libertarianism, in my understanding, really is a mix of what is generally considered liberal and conservative ideas, why there is such strongly ( almost) universal hatred of it?

Again, just a question, because I was surprised at how intense the reaction was.

[Anny Nym]

If you want to know what a political idiology is truly up to, you always need to look first at the possibilities of the bad things it would bring.

Because the good things are mostly common universal phrases, which would go with every form of governance. Not all, but most.

And the bad things that libertarians would inflict, if we would let them, would catapult us right back into the quarters of New York´s slaughterhouse workers, Whitechapel´s Slums or Victor Adler´s social description of the brick bohemians.

My personal strong animosity towards @Sundaymorning was/is strongly tied to a "you should know better" expectation and opposing her blatant lying and twisting things several times for sake of making a pro-libertarian argument... even going as far as doing the Unspeakable.

[formergothardite]

The quote streams are getting pretty long, but I have a general question.

I understand there are huge problems with libertarianism. I understand that much government regulation is good and necessary. I'm a huge believer in a strong safety net system.

BUT -- I think there are some valid points that libertarians have regarding some issues -- drugs, prisons, corporations as people, many government regulations that do actually greatly favor big business at the expense of others. Also, working in a non-profit that administered many federal contracts -- ever increasing regulations actually got in the way of providing services to many people. There needs to be a balance between accountability and regulated to the point of uselessness.

My question is --- I guess I am surprised by the intensity of disagreement with libertarian ideas on this board. It's a level of animosity I usually see reserved for child abusers. I'm just curious, because libertarianism, in my understanding, really is a mix of what is generally considered liberal and conservative ideas, why there is such strongly ( almost) universal hatred of it?

Again, just a question, because I was surprised at how intense the reaction was.

I don't see those things as libertarian issues because I know so many republicans and democrats who feel the same way. I think that there needs to be a complete overhaul in those areas and I'm hardly a libertarian.

According to Sunday and other libertarians I have had online discussions with, to fix the things that don't work we must also get rid of all the things that do work, which makes absolutely no sense in reality. Sunday refuses to acknowledge that one can work on changing laws and regulations that are doing harm while keeping the laws and regulations that help to make society run smoother. She wants to pretend that if we get rid of most of the laws and regulations, including things that are helping society, everything will run perfectly and everyone will step up to the plate and do the right thing. That isn't how the world works and to pretend that it is is just being willfully ignorant.

[August]

This is a bit incoherent, but I'm typing on a virtual keyboard and don't have the energy to retype. Libertarians are worse than any other hate group because instead of having just one group they are against, it's everyone. For some reason (that's not facetious, I'm trying to figure out the reason) I find a person who despises one group particularly to be less offensive than those who hate every single other person except for themselves. Take a white supremacist - they do all this nasty shit, but at the same time, they do have a spark of humanity for some people. Libertarians just want the whole world except for them to suffer. I suppose I can relate more to the single issue person because I myself don't help everyone in the world. For example, today I bought an overpriced soda at a gas station when on a strictly moral basis I should have given the $1.75 to the red cross. Even Republicans allow that free school lunches are better than nothing.

I suppose it's the presence/absence of that spark of morality which puts libertarians beyond the pale for me.

tl;dr

Me: good only to a subset of humanity

Racists, homophobes, misogynists: good only to a subset of humanity

Libertarians: horrible to everyone but themselves.

[Sundaymorning]

This is a bit incoherent, but I'm typing on a virtual keyboard and don't have the energy to retype. Libertarians are worse than any other hate group because instead of having just one group they are against, it's everyone. For some reason (that's not facetious, I'm trying to figure out the reason) I find a person who despises one group particularly to be less offensive than those who hate every single other person except for themselves. Take a white supremacist - they do all this nasty shit, but at the same time, they do have a spark of humanity for some people. Libertarians just want the whole world except for them to suffer. I suppose I can relate more to the single issue person because I myself don't help everyone in the world. For example, today I bought an overpriced soda at a gas station when on a strictly moral basis I should have given the $1.75 to the red cross. Even Republicans allow that free school lunches are better than nothing.

I suppose it's the presence/absence of that spark of morality which puts libertarians beyond the pale for me.

tl;dr

Me: good only to a subset of humanity

Racists, homophobes, misogynists: good only to a subset of humanity

Libertarians: horrible to everyone but themselves.

Look, obviously, me telling you that this isn't true wont change your mind. It would be like arguing with the PP that not all gays are out to molest children.

And look, of course you can say I'm flouncing, so what? I really don't have the time and energy to have a civil discussion with people who are so hostile towards me, I don't think its makeable, it won't bring any new results, and just leads to stupid insults on both sides.

So I say let's just leave it at that. You are entitled to your opinion, I am to mine. Let's just agree to disagree.