I think funding the elderly is a lofty goal, but I don't see a good intellectual argument for FORCING our children to pay for our healthcare. You shouldn't view your child (nor your neighbor's child) as your own personal piggy-bank to extract from when you get ill.
IMO our goal should be to hand down resources from parent to child, not the opposite direction.
If I made this story a bit more personal and wrote ("I am too ill to work anymore, so I drove to my son's house and took $200 off his counter to buy my medication) HN would be reacting with outrage.
You are helping others & others help you. What's the problem?
> If I made this story a bit more personal and wrote ("I am too ill to work anymore, so I drove to my son's house and took $200 off his counter to buy my medication) HN would be reacting with outrage.
How about making the story more fitting the reality here: You drive to your sons house and ask him to help you with your health bill and he helps you because...why wouldn't he?
It kinda is voluntary. If you don't like it, you can leave the country which wants you to pay.
I don't get why you have a problem with that. It sounds to me like some anti-social behaviour pattern. Don't you pay for taxes or Government services too? This is how a civilized society works. The attitude you display here has become a bad joke when people talk about the US health system. You must be aware of that.
What do you expect people to do which can't afford to pay their health bills because they've been unlucky or something like that? Are they supposed to just die?
> It kinda is voluntary. If you don't like it, you can leave the country which wants you to pay.
Voluntary would be staying where you are and still not being forced to pay. When a mugger presents their victim with a choice like "your money or your life" they're not paying voluntarily just because there was another option. You don't have the right to evict people from their homes any more than you have the right to take their money.
> It sounds to me like some anti-social behaviour pattern.
The attempt to normalize theft is the only "anti-social behaviour pattern" here.
The funny thing here is that your obviously anti-social behaviour only works in a society where being anti-social has been normalized. You'd be dead in a social society because as a lone, greedy individual, you're weaker than a group where the strong care for the weak.
But even you must be aware that your model is coming to an end. The anti-social aspects of it have become a topic. Something which hasn't been the case in the past decades because the downsides of this model became so obvious.
You are part of a finally dying thought system and the parts you didn't answer to speak for themselves.
You're either trolling or completely clueless. I suspect the former is more likely but I'll try to give you the benefit of the doubt.
> You'd be dead in a social society because as a lone, greedy individual …
You're obviously reading way more into my comment than I actually wrote, which says more about you than me. I am 100% in support of groups working together voluntarily and looking out for each other. The system you advocated for is not that, and opposing it does not make one "lone" or "greedy".
> … you're weaker than a group where the strong care for the weak.
Imposing a "choice" of compulsory payments or eviction is not the strong caring for the weak, but rather the strong preying upon the weak.
> … the parts you didn't answer to speak for themselves.
I didn't address the rest of your prior comment because it wasn't worth a response. But since you insist:
> Don't you pay for taxes or Government services too? This is how a civilized society works.
Civilized society persists despite taxes, not because of them. Theft is not civilized, and treating it as legitimate is corrosive to any civilized society.
> What do you expect people to do which can't afford to pay their health bills because they've been unlucky or something like that? Are they supposed to just die?
Obviously they aren't supposed to just die. That question was not asked in good faith. Taking other people's stuff isn't the answer either; the products of their labor are not for you to spend. People are expected work to provide for themselves and to plan ahead for the future, setting aside a portion of the surplus during good times to sustain them through the bad times. Working together with others makes this much easier but it is first and foremost an individual responsibility. For the truly unlucky cases there is plenty of honest, actually-voluntary charity to go around.
> You're either trolling or completely clueless. I suspect the former is more likely but I'll try to give you the benefit of the doubt.
Wrote the person who just repeated some random Ayn Rand bull. Seriously? You are accusing me of trolling? With that material? :D
> I am 100% in support of groups working together voluntarily and looking out for each other. The system you advocated for is not that, and opposing it does not make one "lone" or "greedy".
I wonder if you are really so naive or if you got so used to repeating that as an excuse. If we'd live in a society where voluntary donations would suffice, we'd not need laws or regulations.
> Imposing a "choice" of compulsory payments or eviction is not the strong caring for the weak, but rather the strong preying upon the weak.
You must be from the US where there are two parties and you can buy into a political position form the national to county level. In other parts of the world, there is still democracy and yes, none of those are perfect but if you consider any serious statistics on where people are most happy, it's those (really) democratic countries with a wide ranging social system [0]. So please...spare me that Atlas Shrugged Fan Fiction...
> Civilized society persists despite taxes, not because of them. Theft is not civilized, and treating it as legitimate is corrosive to any civilized society.
Oh so taxes are theft now? And you accuse me of unworthy comments? This is hilarious.
> Obviously they aren't supposed to just die. That question was not asked in good faith.
Nothing...seriously not a single sentence you've issued here is something someone with a healthy moral compass would consider "in good faith". Your answer here is literally: they should have a go fund me to save their lifes...I mean...lol...I don't even know how to answer to so much crap. I really hope I'm talking to a child because I have worked in some really terrible Fortue companies and I haven't met anyone who'd fall so deep down the "Wolf of Wallstreet"-LARP.
Edit: ok, I've had to look you up and it wasn't that hard because you 'muricans have no sense of data protection (or any laws for that) and hell, where do you even get those ideas from? You are some random tech guy and an aerospace company with a career which didn't even touch areas where this kind of talk would be something to come close to. Who the hell do you think you are? Some random financial crisis would throw you onto the street. Who do you think will make a go fund me for you? Your colleagues? You probably even vote for the red party...I don't even...
>Who the hell do you think you are? Some random financial crisis would throw you onto the street.
And here the true colors emerge. You pretend to care about supporting others, but you take the first opportunity to denigrate someone for your perception that they are not rich enough to weather a storm.
No one here has shit-talked you because of your finances. No one here has lambasted you because of your occupation or station in life. No one here has accused you of wanting compulsory social securities, or not wanting them, on account of your occupation or finances.
>You are some random tech guy and an aerospace company with a career which didn't even touch areas where this kind of talk would be something to come close to
And what? Does one have to have special qualifications to comment on the topic of how their own earnings are to be spent?
>You probably even vote for the red party
You go on about democratic ideals, yet you criticize someone for engaging their civil liberties to vote in that system?
> And here the true colors emerge. You pretend to care about supporting others, but you take the first opportunity to denigrate someone for your perception that they are not rich enough to weather a storm.
No, that's what you want to read because what I actually wrote would hurt your world view too much. That's why I repeat it again: THE SYSTEM AND IDEOLOGY YOU LOVE WOULD CRUSH YOU.
> No one here has shit-talked you because of your finances...[yahda no you yahda]
So now that I used your own world view on yourself, you're hurt so much that you not only drop the whole topic but roll on the floor crying? Already? Look at you how desperately you try to twist my simple words so it somehow might make you look better. Look how weak you are. Your personal crisis in your own world didn't even start and you're broken already. Look how easy it was. And you think you can survive in this evil and anti-social society you cherish so much if you hit a true bump?
Pathetic.
Luckily in true democratic and social systems there would even be a space for a broken and weak person like you who had a bad luck, lost his job or health. A whole nation would come to help you out with everyone giving a bit of their wealth. Lucky for you, you can move to one of those countries since the one you're in now will kick your ass if you fall and if you open your eyes on your way home in a few hours, you might see those victims of your greedy and selfish vision. Victims without gofundmes who will die in poverty without you giving a damn. Even though it could easily be you.
>you're hurt so much that you not only drop the whole topic but roll on the floor crying?
>Look how weak you are.
>Your personal crisis in your own world didn't even start and you're broken already. Look how easy it was.
>his evil and anti-social society you cherish so much
>a broken and weak person like you
Lol and I'm supposed to be the "anti-social" one, after you've written this drivel?
I've survived in a number of nations and varying societies, from US to Syria to Paraguay. I've survived homelessness, war, unemployment, and other challenges without turning to involuntarily funded social security. I've voluntarily spent tens of thousands to support loved ones. I'm trying to live the voluntary life I preach, or at least move closer to it; of course both you and I are flawed.
I'm not sure what the full range of systems are under which I would survive, or at least not be 'CRUSH'ed under. But I do know I will survive just fine without reading further your anti-social ramblings. Good day.
> I am too ill to work anymore, so I drove to my son's house and took $200 off his counter to buy my medication
Maybe it is because we come from different cultures, but I see absolutely nothing wrong with this. In fact, I recently paid for my parent's hospital bills and did it happily.
My country doesn't have universal healthcare, but I'll be happy if we did. At the end of the day, we live in a society, and one of the imperfections is that we end up paying for things we don't like regardless of our opinions. I think healthcare should be a priority...
>In fact, I recently paid for my parent's hospital bills and did it happily.
Yes and I recently paid thousands of dollars for my wife's hospital bill, would you like a cookie? That's how it's supposed to work: you voluntarily decide to help your loved ones and the payment is made.
How it isn't supposed to work is that the elderly make a moral judgement that the youth are less deserving of investment than themselves, and involuntarily they extract that money from the youth without their consent. I have no problem with a society where you voluntarily pay your parent's hospital bill, in fact you can do that in most any country already. Congratulations, your goal is already achieved.
>we end up paying for things we don't like regardless of our opinions
In this case you seem to mean we are made to pay for others without our consent.
>I think healthcare should be a priority..
Maybe I think hookers should be a priority; sex is correlated with good health. You wouldn't mind if I took a couple hundred from you for my health would you?
> Maybe I think hookers should be a priority; sex is correlated with good health. You wouldn't mind if I took a couple hundred from you for my health would you?
Well, different priorities, and that’s fine.
But, let’s assume in a democracy, the majority of people decide to vote for free hookers and blow for everyone, why not :)
>But, let’s assume in a democracy, the majority of people decide to vote for free hookers and blow for everyone, why not :)
Majority of _what_ people. The majority of people within my square mile? This continent? The majority of people in my house? I merely reduce down 'democracy' to its logical smallest element, the individual. I vote what I will spend my earnings on, and as the only voter my vote wins. Of course, my vote has no effect on obligation of others, as they are not part of my own 'democracy.'
Very few people want a pure democracy. Pure democracy is 5 people in a house, and 4 vote to beat the shit out of the fifth. Pure democracy is when 60% whites vote to make blacks their slaves. Pure democracy is voting to intern the Japanese in camps.
Voting is fine, involuntary extraction of resources from others is not.
Literally any other option than telling our children they must involuntarily pay, like they're our own personal piggy bank. Saving, asking nicely, charity, debt/mortgage the house, and other forms of voluntary transactions sound acceptable. If you truly have no other options then you can make the moral judgement whether you want to involuntarily take from our children because you think the investment on yourself is worth more than the investment on the youth.
IMO our goal should be to hand down resources from parent to child, not the opposite direction.
If I made this story a bit more personal and wrote ("I am too ill to work anymore, so I drove to my son's house and took $200 off his counter to buy my medication) HN would be reacting with outrage.