Sigh... I am heartless, cruel, self-centered etc because I disagree with government funding of medical research

Economics Economics Questions
1

Predictable. Lupus, or SLE, is a terrible disease that killed two people in my life: my father and my piano teacher, who was a lifelong friend.

So, on Facebook (which is lame in so many ways, but is really my only means of constant, reliable contact with my family and friends when I am on the other side of the world) I am a ‘member’ of a group dedicated to finding a cure for SLE. Yesterday, on my FB homepage, I saw a message asking members of the SLE group to petition Congress for more research funding. They provided links on how to contact your senators and representatives. I was the first to post, and I said, “I disagree with governments funding research. Sorry, I won’t be calling.”

Holy cats, did the insults fly! I was told that I if someone I love is ever afflicted with lupus, I would have a different opinion. I was called selfish, droll, misinformed, uneducated and pretentious.

I then stated that two people very close to me died from lupus, and that the reason I want the government out of the funding of research, is because I want a cure to be found, not because I don’t want a cure to be found.

Well, then I was called self-centered, selfish, negative, heartless, uneducated (again) and delusional. It was also implied that I was lying about my father and friend dying of lupus.

One of the things I mentioned was that a cure was found for polio without a single nickle of government money. In fact, I mentioned it twice, and no one took notice. If these people are ‘average’ Americans, then I must conclude that the average American cannot understand how medical research can possibly be done absent government funding.

I have two questions:

  1. Is it true that the research that led to the polio vaccine was totally unfunded by government? I heard that somewhere, and I haven’t seen anything that refutes it.

2a) Should I have handled this differently? Other than not engaging these people at all, is there something I could have said that would have made at least some of them see my point of view?

2b) Is there an article on the economics of medical funding from a free market perspective? I found one, but it was in a scholarly journal, and it was way over my head.

One possible error I made was when one lady, who claimed to have a master’s degree in psychology, declared me to be “delusional.” My response would have been more suitable in the context of a chat room:

Nicole, if you have a master’s degree in psychology, and you declared me to be delusional based on one post on the internet, it means that either:

1) you are lying and don’t actually have a degree in psychology or…
2) psychology is an idiotic pseudo-science or…
3) you are a shit psychologist

That thread petered out. Here is a link to another on the same FB page, asking if we (the members of the group) contacted our congressmen. On this one I have also made a comment that, I am sure, will be met with the same attacks as the previous one.

2

Their name calling really isn’t an argument, just saying.

But then again, why wouldn’t state funding help that particular cause? Is that really your main concern? Or is it a moral concern?

In other words why do you care where the money comes from as long as it’s funding something you care about?

3

The state can never do anything right. These statists are brainwashed by leftist professors.

4

Seems pretty average to me. You attacked the holy of holies, the government.

5

And rightist professors, and centrist professors.

6

The polio vaccine was directly funded by the government though not exclusively. I don’t understand why you think government funding is counter productive to progress? What other entity ,human or company, can fund the sciences like the government can? Also why are you asking “What should I post” facebook advice here?

7

Government provision of scientific funding will be less efficient (in terms of maximisation of overall public utility) because government will naturally be less respondent to consumer demand due to it’s status as a compulsory monopoly on the provision of goods (and in the event it relinquishes it’s monopoly to any degree, it is still compulsory). To put it in layman’s terms, a hot dog vendor who the people are legally mandated to buy from will not be as incentivized to serve his consumers than if he was subject to free competition, in which case people would be able to set up their own vendorships and flock to superior hot dog providers, in which case the vendor is forced to serve the consumer better to avoid going out of business.

This, combined with other squandering of resources through bureaucratic corruption funneling development funds into the pockets of administrative officials rather than the intended (for an example of this in international policy, look at how most foreign aid is used for personal luxuries by the leaders of the countries in Africa it goes to) leads to a shortfall in the supply of goods, which is catastrophic in the medical sector in more than one sense. It precipates social engineering (such as the passing of fat taxes and “safety” laws) in order to minimize the costs citizens provide to government health services, and eventually will lead to the rationing of these resources to those the government deems most fit (the military, for example, gets first dibs on foodstuffs produced in North Korea, and there has been recent discussion in the United Kingdom about prioritising younger and more able bodied people for NHS treatment).

8

I haven’t seen any evidence whatever that the government funded the research that led to the polio vaccine. Your say-so doesn’t count as evidence. If there is evidence, I will retract my claim, and correct anyone making it in the future, but I haven’t seen any such evidence.

The reason that government funding is shit is because it’s wrong to fund anything through theft. Moreover, the money is generally directed to politically connected researchers, and there is the possibility that the researchers will fudge the data to keep the largesse coming.

Why not?

9

Ok, so if this is a moral issue, did you tell the people you were talking to that you were objecting on moral grounds?

10

Yes, I mentioned both moral and practical objections.

This link should take you to the original thread.

11

Sometimes I wonder if man is bossier because of the state, or if the state was created by bossy people. Both are probably true, through a feedback loop -a biconditional.

12

That’s because it wasn’t.

They have no argument, just their own subjective moral judgments. Emotion is the rejection of reason, which makes argumentation entirely superfluous.

13

Their arguments are garbage. “You don’t have it, so you don’t care” is just ad hom. I don’t think it’s much different from what most people tell me which is “you’ve never been poor, so you have no right to talk.” Just a bunch of nonsense. Your moral position is perfectly sound imo. Could extra government funding help lupus research? Maybe, maybe not. I don’t honestly know. But what they’re essentially saying is “if you’d ever been hungry, you wouldn’t condemn someone stealing to feed themselves.” Could be true, but wouldn’t change anything.

14

Esuric’s signature pretty much sums up what I think you’re trying to say.

15

Thanks for the responses. I know they have no argument. I guess what I am asking is, given the level of state-worship that all of them (but one) demonstrate, is there anything I could have said differently to make them see my point of view, in your opinions.

I personally think the answer is no. I think it was Rothbard who used the example of shoes, when he said that, had the government been in charge of making shoes as far back as anyone could remember, and some smart-ass libertarian said that we should get the government out of the shoe industry, the response would be along the same lines. Things like ‘you don’t care about the poor’ and ‘how would shoes be made and distributed by greedy capitalists’ etc.

I seriously think there is no magic bullet for people like this. I think that nothing I could have said would have made them conclude that I was anything other than an inhuman monster.

16

Agreed. Who said that?

Oh wait: google [;)]

17

I agree, their minds are already made up. But then again, it’s the internet, how often have you seen anyone do a complete 180 in a thread? I don’t think I’ve ever seen it happen tbh.

18

It’s pretty easy for them to be generous when they are dumping their pet charitable cause upon the taxpayer.

19

"It is easy to be conspicuously “compassionate” if others are being forced to pay the cost. " - Attributed to MNR, although I can’t find the source. Any help would be good.

20

Not one thread, of course, but I foolishly thought I could at least plant a seed. This is something that knight_of_baawa was very good at. When I first encountered BAAWA in yahoo chat c. Jan 2000, I was a terrible state-worshiper. I held democracy up as the highest possible human ideal, and my hero was Ralph Nader. After literally years of very friendly debate, BAAWA finally planted enough seeds that I was inspired to start considering the opinions of the other side.

I posted on that thread hoping to plant a seed. I failed. However, I think that it wasn’t my fault that I failed.