The healthcare debate has revealed that Americans suffer from a compassion deficiency. Many of us would prefer that our fellow citizens go without medical care rather than make even the slightest of sacrifices.
Hey, wow, got it in one, bleeding-heart boy!
Where'n'hell do you get off, tellin' me I have to make sacrifices 'cos other people have made bad choices or had bad luck? Saying things like, "Apparently, there are a lot of folks who would choose to have young mothers with cancer go without chemotherapy, instead of giving up a bit of that disposable income that is our badge of freedom and individualism," is not the way to move me. You know how much of my freedom and individualism I'll give up? Zero. None.
If you wanna pass the hat for Young Mothers With Cancer, I'll toss in a fiver -- which I don't have to spare -- but that's not actually what nationalsocialized health care is about; rather, it is about taxing me (or the family I work for, which turns out to come to the same thing, since if you hit them harder, they'll just ask me to forgo my my next raise in addition to the one all my co-workers and I had to pass up not to long ago) to support yet another bunch of droning bureaucrats who will pass on some small fraction of my tax money to some percentage -- less than 100%, count on it! --- of cancerous young mothers.
But as it turns out, that's not this fellow's real problem; nope, what bugs him the very most about us cold, uncaring Americans and our attitude towards being taxed even harder so bums can get heart transplants free for nothin' is that he wants "...the peace of mind that comes with knowing that they don't have to think of their less fortunate but sick countryman going without medical treatment."
Yes, friends, you and I ought to be forced to shoulder the burden of paying for other people's health care so our self-appointed betters don't have to sit up all night in a pool of their own tears, their little bottoms sodden and cold. How dare we make him all sad and diaper-rashy like that!
He's all fretful 'cos the plight of the poor does not motivate me, or at least the plight of poor children who are, in some crazy world in his mind where ERs are not required to treat whatever staggers in the door, not getting medical care; I dunno if he is worried about the ones starving to death, or freezing, or who have become dried-out husks in the desert, or who have been beaten to death, nor do I know just how much more heavily he is prepared to tax me and you and invade our freedom and privacy to save them; but I know one thing, I know there is no damn end to it once they get goin' down that sorry road.
You can't make this stuff up. If you did, nobody would believe it was real.
Update: Protest etiquette tips!
"The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience."
ReplyDelete- Albert Camus (1913-1960)
Was forced to watch CNN last night as they were debating the question of whether or not certain types of care should be denied to people at end-of-life. Things like $60K pacemaker implants at age 87 when the guy then ups and dies of undiagnosed cancer six weeks later.
ReplyDeleteI kept asking, "OK, but who makes that decision?"
If it's the government, or anybody but myself or my designate, to hell with that.
wv: emotomb. Sounds like a good place for some of these lefty whiners.
That editorial made my blood boil!
ReplyDeleteHere's what I wrote to the CSM:
"It's not a question of compassion, it's a question of choice.
Do I want a young mother of two to get life-saving chemotherapy? Yes, I do!
Do I want my own mother, at eighty years of age, to get life-saving chemotherapy? Yes, I do!
But what if there is only enough money for one patient, and a government medical board has to make the difficult decision as to who gets the treatment?
In that case, I lose my choice AND my mother.
I am willing to mortgage my home to pay for my own mother's treatment. Are you suggesting that I should do the same for a stranger? While it would be highly moral for me to choose to do that, is it morally right for the government to compel me to do it, at the threat of imprisonment if I refuse? They'll call it "contempt of court", or maybe "tax evasion", but really all it is, is taking care of my own family first."
- (signed) Turk Turon
P.S. Lorimor: Great quote!
Turk writes: "I am willing to mortgage my home to pay for my own mother's treatment. Are you suggesting that I should do the same for a stranger? While it would be highly moral for me to choose to do that..."
ReplyDeleteI disagree; it would not be highly moral for you to impoverish yourself in an attempt to save a stranger not in immediate danger. Not at all and even less so considering you have an aged parent and children of your own to think of.
It might be altruistic of you to do so -- the same sort of altruism that once lead Aztecs to bare their chests to the sacrificial blade. I do not believe altruism is a virtue.
A century and a half after they lost the last civil war, the pro-slavery crowd is pushing, pushing, pushing to start the next one.
ReplyDeleteLovely bunch of compassion fascists, ain't they?
M
"compassion fascists" Excellent!
ReplyDeleteFTFA:
"As much as the Danes moan about taxes, not many of them would prefer having extra euros over the peace of mind that comes with knowing that they don't have to think of their less fortunate but sick countryman going without medical treatment."
O RLY? Did you ask them?
"For a country that loves to moralize..."
Seems to me most of the loud moralizing I hear comes either from whiny liberals out to coerce the citizenry into handing over more of its liberties to the central government or from Democrat shills playing "gotcha" with Republican lapses.
"The pandemic lack of compassion..."
Evidenced by all those bake sales...
"many of us are not appalled by children dying for lack of medical treatment
First: Speak for yourself. Second: Who are all these "children dying for lack of medical treatment"? Not in America, because we can be sure that if there were a bunch of "children dying," the MSM would have their stories all over the news. (Witness the coverage of the mostly-phony problem of "homelessness.")
More same-old same-old
There's a big difference between altruism and martyr complex-driven stupidity.
ReplyDeleteAlso: Remember last summer, when a kid from Noblesville needed $400,000 for a bone marrow transplant and the community raised it in something like three or four days? He died before he could get the treatment, but that's not the point. There is no lack of compassion in this country. There is, however, an extreme dislike of being told to fork over your brownie that you brought from home so that everyone gets the same cup of cafeteria jello.
ReplyDeleteheres a little cluebat for bleeding heart boy: try making it so the 'haves' can-you know- HAVE, at which point they'll be pleased to VOLUNTARILY help the have nots.
ReplyDeleteYou have to remember that the author of the piece is a philosophy professor, which means that he is a knowledgeable expert in, uh,
ReplyDelete(crickets chirping)
Help me out here, people...
Bullshitting, BobG?
ReplyDeleteIt's not about compassion for the uninsured. The left will throw the uninsured in the chipper the very same way they abandoned Cindy Sheehan once they used her story to win Congress in 2006. She used to have throngs come out to her cause, now she can't buy a supporter.
ReplyDeleteNone of this is about helping those uninsured or under-insured. It's to use them the same way they used and abused that emotionally devastated grieving mother, in order to gain control through health care in a way they couldn't through the three branches of government so far. That is all - simple.
If not passing this bonndoggle, screwed up, redistribution of wealth makes the entire moonbat left, sad pandas, then so be it.
ReplyDeleteIf not passing this bonndoggle, screwed up, redistribution of wealth makes the entire moonbat left, sad pandas, then so be it.
ReplyDeleteMyself, I'm generally in favor of just about anything that makes the barking moonbat left sad pandas.
When it also amounts to a massive government intrusion into private life,m and a huge re-distribution of wealth, among other things, I am really in favor of it not happening.
Why, pray tell, should I feel bad because I do not want to be required to pay any more than I already am to care for those who do not look after themselves? I refer to the two gentlemen who overindulged in the juice of the barley one night, took a curve in a rural road that is not there and ended up costing a rural county over a million dollars. Both men were paralyzed - one a quad - and later deported back to their nation of origin. What about the liver transplant for our local 40 year old street alkie who has no desire to dry out?
ReplyDeleteI support portable health insurance, tort reform, and serious prosecution for medicare and medicaid fraud. I'll buy brownies and add a little something for the local children's hospital and hospice. But do not call my desire for personal choice and privacy a lack of compassion.
LittleRed1
"As much as the Danes moan about taxes, not many of them would prefer having extra euros over the peace of mind that comes with knowing that they don't have to think of their less fortunate but sick countryman going without medical treatment."
ReplyDeleteI'm Swedish, not Danish, but this is just not true. Everyone knows that people go without care here, there are regular articles about it, and lots of people are scared they wont get care if they get sick. There's no peace of mind with government healthcare.
People generally support it because they feel they cant pay for health insurance with the taxes they allready ar paying. The option of not paying taxes and instead get your own insurance have never been given.
Most people here that think government healthcare is great has usually not been sick, or they are the connected types that tend to breeze through all the queues like magic and get straight to the best doctors.
Perhaps this maroon (in the finest Bugs Bunny sense)should actually work instead of bloviate for his daily bread. (BTW - the tie-knee snark WRT Nantucket just MIGHT refer to the present "rulers" of our republic). Or head back to Denmark. It appears they aren't the same as they were when "danegeld" was an operative term... I b'lieve he needs a rope and instructions how to micturate up it. But that's just my opinion. Gordie is going to find that his philosophy doctorate won't mean an income after all the producers in America go Galt.
ReplyDeleteSucks to be him.