I hate pork and bean eaters. You know, like that green stuff on the outside of corn? It’s abhorrent. It could just as easily be labeled horsehide. Why not hold them to the same accountability as genuine ham and legume eaters would be?
Well that’s a topic for another thread.
This movie seems entirely relevant to the spirit of this thread.
Vive,
I think you hit on an important point that a lot of libertarians miss which is that the outcome of radical policies instituted too quickly which would lead to unfavorable results in the short term.
I think that you minimize the possible effects of cutting subsidies. There are other benefits such as, at very least, the possibility of a decrease in price, no matter what the other consequences. At least in theory people would still be able to get the healthcare they needed while at the same time not consuming unneeded services. As a simple matter of supply and demand it would be the same as the demand curve shifting to the left. Less demanded and a lower price, more practical and less frivolous usage of medical services. That’s the hope anyway.
My avatar is a picture of the main character from an anime I watched recently called “Elfen Lied”. Fascinating, I know. Here’s a super cool story about it:
So recently I wanted to make a change up with my avatar but none of my preferred options really worked so I decided on my previous avatar. In the past few days I watched the show and I really appreciated it and I thought that it actually did a surprisingly good job of tackling one of the greatest dichotomies which we see within ourselves, others we know, and society as a whole, which is that within us which is cold, efficient, and utterly selfish to the point of committing terrible atrocities, and the part of us which is incredibly humanistic, reverent, playful, and loving. In the first episode the main character, “Lucy” (my avatar) who is a psychotic killer, breaks free of the bonds which have kept her restrained for nearly a decade since her last rampage. Part of her restraints was a large mask which covered her entire head. As she escapes from prison she suffers a wound to the head which breaks her mask, as depicted in my avatar, but which also causes her to develop split personality disorder.
She is eventually found by a family, and for a while the new personality is dominant. It is mentally handicapped, incapable of even rudimentary speech, but it is also incredibly loving and perceptive of the people around her and their emotions. Throughout the series she continually switches between the the “good” Lucy, and the “bad” Lucy, the former more innocent than any other character while being inefficient and stupid, the latter being heartless, murderous, and intelligent. The family is incapable of grasping that the two are indeed actually one, that there could be more to Lucy than they themselves see, just as we ourselves often fail to grasp the evil that we wreak on others and society through our actions and inaction.
We see this on a massive scale. billions of people get along fine every day, give money to help others, show love towards those around them, and help each other in a myriad of ways, while at the same time there is genocide, war, and negligence towards many who need help, whether or not they’re supposedly getting it. Meanwhile on a personal level many people are at very least descent, but harm the ones that they love, cause distress to others, and support causes which, if examined, are thoroughly evil. We cannot be fully selfless and do nothing but experience emotion and care for others, this would lead to futility and leaves our self worth entirely in the hands of others, but without consultation of our emotions and an understanding of the potential worth of every human being we are abusing ourselves as well as the potential joy of love.
As Lucy escapes and her mask breaks the possibility for her full humanity in the praxeological sense of the term is finally realized. For the first time in years she’s actually capable of exercising her own will and discretion, and what side she will choose in her new life, that which is relentless but utterly destructive both inwardly and outwardly, that which is only capable of benevolent idiocy, or the proper synthesis of these two extremes into a human being who can care for herself and others while still being capable of doing what she must in order to defend herself from cruelties of the world.
Anyway, that’s the kind of intellectual mood that I’m in, at the moment I’m straying slightly away from economic theory, I hope to put out my last thread I’ll post on the subject for a while within the next few days, and towards a greater insight into the human condition and the more “humanistic” parts of philosophy, political and personal.
/rant