Quote:
Picture yourself having no money, having nothing on your resume that could give you a good job, having no knowledge of what's required of you out there to succeed, how are you going to do it? Picture yourself in a poor person's situation. Picture yourself as one. What would you do?
Make a choice to gain the knowledge I need or do the work I need to advance.
Quote:
Then imagine, just when you just started to succeed and make a better life for yourself you suddenly found you had a health condition which if only you had medical insurance you wouldn't have to spend every last penny you earn on it.
Well isn't that hell? I can't count the times I've saved up money and then lost it due to sudden home repairs, vehicle maintenance, etc. It's a risk of living, but in answer to this scenario - I would spend every last penny and then get to work on making more pennies right away.
Quote:
At the moment money is taken from your pocket to fund social services such as postal services, fire departments, police, library services. Is it also unjust that you have to pay for that? You don't necesarily use them all the time, why should you be paying? What about roads? You don't neccesarily use those all the time as well, espeically if you don't have a car. Is it unjust that money has to be taken from your pocket to pay for them?
Yep, but I use all of these, so I have no quarrels. I can vote for officials who will in turn, vote for, create or modify bills which affect the operations of each of the examples you listed. Let me know if you hear of a candidate who says he is going to make a law which requires people eat only certain foods along with banning "unhealthy" food businesses and mandating that, under threat of punishment or fines, one must exercise regularly.
Quote:
And how about this. Money is being taken from your pocket to fund a war in another country. Is it just or unjust that you are paying for this war when you could've just spent that money on universal health care instead to make your health care system more fair?
I helped put some of the officials who voted for the war in office by voting. I made a choice, and now I am living with the consequences. It's hard to say what sort of attacks (if any) we would be facing here in the United States if we had not responded in such a manner. We'll probably see more as a result of our actions. But I would be pretty upset if I walked cheerfully out of a free hospital visit with a clean bill of health only to get torched in some sort of bombing.
Quote:
And it's a system that makes health care distribution more fair for all citizents in your country.
I have no problem with people who have a lot of purchasing power being able to afford things I can't. Life isn't fair and I can live with that. Can you?
Quote:
Imagine iffire department operated in the same way as health care system in your country? Imagine your neighbour's house burns down and noone responds. Then fire spreads, your own house catches on fire, by the time someone responds to your call you'll have nothing left. You can apply the same logic to health care. If you don't consider being empathic as a moral duty, consider diseases how much easier these could spread if tens of millions of people are simply refused treatment if they are uninsured.
Imagine a privately owned fire department. They will respond damn quick if they want to keep my business. They will have to offer a better service and reasonable price compared to the fire department across the street for me to sign on in the first place.
Quote:
You have them partly because of the efforts of the poor, of the people who on the daily basis provide services doing crappy unrewarding jobs. Don't you think you have a social responsibility to make sure these people have at least basic health care?
I also owe a huge "thank you!" to the rich who took the time and energy to dream up, plan and set successful businesses in motion. They provide me with a job!
And social responsibility?
Don't get me wrong, Mish, I love to volunteer and I will donate money on occasion, but how can a responsibility be altruistic?
~Sphinx