Michael Moore rant on GM demise

[JayB]

I'd agree that snake-oil, meaning a factual claim that one can objectively prove to be fraudulent, is something that government should (and in most cases already does) subject to various sanctions. I hope that this means that you've already written your legislators imploring them to apply the same evidentiary standards to homeopathy and other alternative modalities that they apply to pharmaceuticals and scientific medical practice.

 

However, it seems as though the dream-world that you conjure up in bits and pieces via your posts here would include a definition of snake-oil that's far broader than empirically testable fraud claims. One can't help but get the impression that snake-oil consists of any class of desires, pursuits, interests, hobbies, ideas, interests, diversions, etc that's at odds with your own particular conception of what's socially beneficial.

 

Most of us dislike particular aspects of the society we live in, other people's opinions, etc. That's one thing, but wanting to grant the state the power to eliminate anything that deviates from our personal conception of what's permissible is completely at odds with everything about the liberal tradition, and marks the spot where the statist "progressives" and religious fundamentalists of various stripes start staking out some overlapping turf.

 

People have been lying, cheating, stealing, gambling, whoring, drinking, overeating, idling, etc from the dawn of the species onwards. Religious fundamentalists are convinced that they need to get their hands on the levers of power to drive satan out of everyone's lives, and leftists of a particular strip are reaching for the same levers for the same reasons - to keep people from making the "wrong" choices. In this case, it's not the devil that's making people do it - it's...marketing and/or the aggregate of individual choices that we commonly refer to as "the market."

 

so, besides once more falsely claiming that I want to grant government the power to eliminate anything I disagree with where did you actually address what I said?

 

Was the "address what I said" in question this comment:

 

"...making sure that people aren't the captives of snake oil salesmen who create needs by manipulating people emotions."

 

Or the one where you asked me to cite abridgments of civil liberties that had their genesis in times of conflict and war that were subsequently remedied when the crisis had passed. It's a worrisome tendency, but the track record shows that the country has recovered its bearings pretty quickly and has restored the civil liberties that were compromised. In other matters - ranging from the War on Drugs to agricultural subsidies - there's much less cause for optimism.

 

Hint:

 

The most recent post was in response to your "snake oil" post where you stated a desire for the government an unnamed entity to protect people people from the desires that satan and his many foul minions lawful advertising of legal products might cultivate within them.

 

The previous post was in response to this comment:

 

"..what isn't permanent in the loss of civil liberties? the legacy of the red scare and its neutering of the opposition? the spying on peace groups? etc ... I think you are delusional."

 

[JayB]

So we agree that for you it's not about everyone having health-care, it's about the government determining the minute details of who gets what health-care. Thanks for clearing that up.

 

No, I'd be "okay" with giving welfare to corporate vampires masquerading as health-care providers if it would get everybody health care, but I wouldn't be "cool" with it. As far as determining who gets what, I would think it entirely appropriate for the government to set guidelines as to what standard level of coverage would mean in a taxpayer funded health care program. Hayekian boogeymen aside, what's the problem here?

 

If we're talking about guidelines in a strict numerical sense, in the way that they're applied to mandatory minimums in auto insurance, there are no problems per se. That, however, depends entirely on what the people making the rules deem to be an acceptable standard of coverage. In practice, the most problematic unintended consequences of the government calling the shots here are rent-seeking from interest groups and the adverse-selection problem that this leads to.

 

What that means in practice is that everyone from feng-shui practitioners to psychiatrists wants the state to make coverage for their services mandatory in order to protect their incomes, and this drives up the price of insurance for everyone. Relatively healthy people who need health-insurance (and could afford the inflated premuim), rather than a prepaid healthcare plan with annual out-of pocket limits, do the math and decide their better off not paying thousands of dollars a year for services that they don't use. Others are simply priced out of the market and take their chances. This sickest people stay in, the rest bail out, and this drives the price of insurance higher. The concentric price-exclusion spiral goes higher. The typical response from state legislators who see this happening is to eliminate low cost, catastrophic plans and force anyone who wants to protect themselves against the worst consequences of ill-health into kitchen-sink style plans.

 

This doesn't happen in every state, and could easily be remedied by simply allowing people to buy health insurance offered in any state in the US. That is, allowing for regulatory competition between states would provide a mechanism to counter the regulatory problems that I outlined above.

 

You could also counter this problem by outlawing private healthcare and forcing everyone into a government plan. I've already made quite a few posts on the hazards of doing so, and probably won't have the time or energy to restate what I've said before, but you are welcome to avail yourself of the search bar and scroll away if you wish.

[j_b]

I'd agree that snake-oil, meaning a factual claim that one can objectively prove to be fraudulent, is something that government should (and in most cases already does) subject to various sanctions. I hope that this means that you've already written your legislators imploring them to apply the same evidentiary standards to homeopathy and other alternative modalities that they apply to pharmaceuticals and scientific medical practice.

 

However, it seems as though the dream-world that you conjure up in bits and pieces via your posts here would include a definition of snake-oil that's far broader than empirically testable fraud claims. One can't help but get the impression that snake-oil consists of any class of desires, pursuits, interests, hobbies, ideas, interests, diversions, etc that's at odds with your own particular conception of what's socially beneficial.

 

Most of us dislike particular aspects of the society we live in, other people's opinions, etc. That's one thing, but wanting to grant the state the power to eliminate anything that deviates from our personal conception of what's permissible is completely at odds with everything about the liberal tradition, and marks the spot where the statist "progressives" and religious fundamentalists of various stripes start staking out some overlapping turf.

 

People have been lying, cheating, stealing, gambling, whoring, drinking, overeating, idling, etc from the dawn of the species onwards. Religious fundamentalists are convinced that they need to get their hands on the levers of power to drive satan out of everyone's lives, and leftists of a particular strip are reaching for the same levers for the same reasons - to keep people from making the "wrong" choices. In this case, it's not the devil that's making people do it - it's...marketing and/or the aggregate of individual choices that we commonly refer to as "the market."

 

so, besides once more falsely claiming that I want to grant government the power to eliminate anything I disagree with where did you actually address what I said?

 

Was the "address what I said" in question this comment:

 

"...making sure that people aren't the captives of snake oil salesmen who create needs by manipulating people emotions."

 

Or the one where you asked me to cite abridgments of civil liberties that had their genesis in times of conflict and war that were subsequently remedied when the crisis had passed. It's a worrisome tendency, but the track record shows that the country has recovered its bearings pretty quickly and has restored the civil liberties that were compromised. In other matters - ranging from the War on Drugs to agricultural subsidies - there's much less cause for optimism.

 

You are conveniently citing only the policies/legacies of fearmongering that have been reversed and not considering those that haven't such as I have already mentioned. You can of course keep going on with your wordy monologues but until you consider what your interlocutor says repeatedly you aren't likely to discuss anything.

 

Hint:

 

The most recent post was in response to your "snake oil" post where you stated a desire for the government an unnamed entity to protect people people from the desires that satan and his many foul minions lawful advertising of legal products might cultivate within them.

 

You are the only person here who advocates protecting anything, which is the virtual monopoly of the corporate media on the national discourse and consequently, the "reality" of most americans. I am advocating allowing media on the public airvawes that account for all commmunication needs which are much broader than the commercial and political propaganda that perpetuates the interest of corporations. Note again that it doesn't involve curtailing anything but on the contrary involves increasing the diversity of communication.

[Fairweather]

You are the only person here who advocates protecting anything, which is the virtual monopoly of the corporate media on the national discourse and consequently, the "reality" of most americans. I am advocating allowing media on the public airvawes that account for all commmunication needs which are much broader than the commercial and political propaganda that perpetuates the interest of corporations. Note again that it doesn't involve curtailing anything but on the contrary involves increasing the diversity of communication.

 

So you're against the resurrection of the "Fairness Doctrine"? I'm really not sure because your prose is virtually unreadable. Are you presently intoxicated?

[j_b]

what is it that you didn't understand, shit-for-brains?