[Frieza_Prexus]

But then, oh fuck! Joshua contracted lymphoma and he can't pay his medical expenses. I'm battling an overwhelming urge to say:

"Damn Joshua if you wanted medical treatment you should have worked harder and made more money, or gotten yourself a job with better benefits."

I just can't bring myself to do it through facebook. Nonetheless it brings me great joy knowing this scum is withering away with cancer and he can't afford medical treatment.

You're morally outraged that someone doesn't believe in your view of economics, yet you're happy when the man contracts cancer. Am I the only one seeing a complete lack of moral consistency here?

If I, for example, opposed federal flood insurance, do you believe that it would be morally just when my house floods? Would you take pleasure in this? If so, I think you need to take a hard look at your moral compass.

Libertarianism and objectivism are different shades of the same color. This is a worldview that is obsessed with rational 'self-interest'. Charity is NOT a tenant of libertarianism, it is a footnote that they only allow because it's not managed by the government. Say what you will about libertarianism, it's the bastard hellspawn son of Ayn Rand-- who spent her entire life harping on handouts only to get lung cancer and cash checks from the government to pay for her treatments.

True, some people are concerned only with maximizing their own personal interests. However, to say that altruism is poorly accounted for is ignorant at best. The capitalistic model explicitly recognizes that money will flow where people want it to. This might be hard to understand, but more than a few people want to help others. It is demonstrable fact that private interests tend to have less shrinkage and overhead than public entities. All things being equal, private charity then tends to be more efficient than government service. Also, there is the whole notion that it should be voluntary as opposed to mandatory.

Further, you used Ayn Rand as an example to illustrate your point. In taking government services, it is certainly commendable to abstain, but not morally obligatory. Decrying the wisdom of a policy does not preclude utilization of a policy that exists. If, for example, I felt fire protection was unnecessary in our society, morality would not demand I never call a fire truck. So long as I have contributed to the existence of such a service, through taxes or whatever means, I have a vested right and interest in that particular service.

If the government is so terrible then why not work on making it more efficient instead of just scrapping the whole thing?

We have the government because we need to do things the free market can't do effectively on its own. No matter what, the free market can never be proactive, only reactive. It doesn't act with vision or calculation, it's little more than an anarchic force of nature.

Government tends to be inefficient primarily because it was designed that way. First, there are ethical and constitutional arguments as to what is within the proper sphere of federal power. Secondly, it tends to be more efficient to break services down to the lowest level at which they can be offered. For example, do we want federal home owners associations or zoning laws for our small cities? Of course not. The federal system is too far removed from the consequences of the decision to have a deeper understanding than the locals do.

I agree that some services are very much within the federal domain. No one but the most ardent and philosophically strident will argue otherwise.

Everything objectivism stands for says, "Damn Joshua if you wanted medical treatment you should have worked harder and made more money, or gotten yourself a job with better benefits.", and that's the system you and the other randroids want to achieve. That, instead of a system that encourages the general well-being of fellow human beings. Oh shit, some lazy ass deadbeat welfare queen might get some health treatment. But how many deserving individuals like Joshua would also get treatment they otherwise wouldn't have had?

No. The ideal outcome would be that health insurance would have been affordable for this individual without the need for free market distortion and government intervention.

If someone plans poorly and does not take care of themselves, yes, they very likely will die sooner. This is a tragedy and a terrible consequence, but the consequence is of the individual's own making. If I, for example, engaged in very poor eating habits and have a heart attack would my death be any more or less tragic than someone who got cancer?

You submit that we must provide treatment for an individual who willingly chose not to plan for this event, do you equally propose that we regulate an individual's diet and other health concerns?

It is true that, right now, some people lack the means to plan ahead. Insurance is very very expensive. I submit that the answer is not to provide this scarce commodity through the government, but to remove the government as a major player. This will bring down costs through less fraud and by allowing insurance to compete by selling over state lines.

This is a similar situation to social security. We have a terrible savings rate in this country. You can be quite certain that without SS people would take retirement planning far more seriously.

Yes, I readily admit that there is a POTENTIAL problem where, say, enough of the population is still acting foolishly and a large amount of people end up becoming a ward of the state in their old age due to poor planning. In that case government intervention is possibly a solution.

Just because the government can, doesn't mean it should. The least invasive solutions should always be explored first.

I think, in general, people are willing to rally under the banner of government intervention when a prestige-problem or some glamorous (for want of a better term) issue rears its head. I suspect that most people will NOT accept forcing a fat person to stop overeating even if they're 95% likely to die from heart failure within 2 years. Yet, many are willing to rally the feds over an issue like cancer for someone who chose not to plan ahead where the situation and its mortality rate might be exactly the same as above.

We have already embraced the notion of actions have consequences. Why do we seek to alleviate the consequences in one area, yet we are happy to let them occur in others?

All this does is encourage poor planning.