Apparently, you think I am a rovebot, Yuri. Sorry to disillusion you. The observation on Lewis was simply a fact, not spin, not a rovian trick.

Leave the last part off. Lewis wrote fiction. As in made up.

Done wasting time, Yuri. Really not worth it.

No, I mean really.

But you do realize that changes in the society can come slowly? And that most totalitarian societies didn’t start as such? How could they win popular support in the beginning if they did?

And I think this book gives a good example of how it could happen gradually (what’s the difference between fiction and philosophy, by the way? I thought one can put ideas into fictional books – most existentialists didn’t write papers, they wrote books of “fiction”. Not trying to compare Lewis and Kamu, just an example of bright thoughts put into books)

Fraud?!

My grandfather died in the Gulag. He was accused of treason, tortured and “confessed” to make the pain stop. My grandmother was put in Gulag, her only offense being “member of the traitor’s immediate family”. My father was banned from big cities for many years just for being their son. Don’t tell me I’m a fraud, I’ve seen things that you have obviously have no good understanding of.

Look, you may not like it, but the kind of rhetoric that I heard from this White House is very similar to what I heard in the USSR. The punishments are less severe in this country – although by Brezhnev’s times there were only a few people who went to psychiatric hospitals, mostly people were afraid of being demoted, loosing a fulfilling job, loosing money (kinda like Dixie Chicks) this type of thing, but it’s the fear that I recognized. These things happen slowly and gradually, if you want a great example, read Sinclair Lewis’es “It Can’t Happen Here”.

“You might want to consider your sources more carefully – The Daily Mail is filthy rag not worthy of scrutinizing (unless you are a Man in Black )

As for bureaucrats becoming the civil masters, I really do not think that it’s the bureaucrats that one has to be afraid of. The way Bush administration quashed dissent, and their rhetoric of fear-mongering, on the other hand, felt very much like good old Soviet Union to me, honestly.”

That would be a give away. I see how a person from the USSR could confuse the Gulag and the psychiatric hospitals that dissidents were put into there with the vicious “quashing” of dissent by Bush which is….

Nonexistent.

Olberman is not in a hospital, the Dixie Chicks are not in the Gulag, nobody is in prison for their views or opinions here. The reporters are not breaking rocks in a prison yard. Dissenters who claim they are being stifled go on nationwide television to whine about how they are treated.

Yeah, Yuri. You know what you are talking about, alright.

On the internet, nobody knows if you are a dog. But sometimes they can tell you are a fraud.

“You makes statements like “this is what always amuses me in you conservative blokes” then complain when others “put words into your mouth.”” – touche, my apologies.
hard to resist sometimes, and I get carried away…

I agree that some of the bureaucrats are just incompetent. But then again I have a lot of friends in the corporate system, and they complain about the incompetence there, too. Apparently if you’re a big company like Allstate, for example, it’s hard (and/or expensive) to fire a senior person, from what I heard about as hard as to fire a tenured professor.

So, bureaucrats have their egos, private sector has their profit margins, and I have to choose whom to trust… It is kinda tough, but I lived in Europe for a while and know first hand the French health care system, and I really trust it much more than the American (I still choose to live in the States, mind you). I do believe in good human intentions more than I believe in greed, so my choice would be the government.

Two parting shots( I just can’t shut up, can I):

You might want to consider your sources more carefully – The Daily Mail is filthy rag not worthy of scrutinizing (unless you are a Man in Black )

As for bureaucrats becoming the civil masters, I really do not think that it’s the bureaucrats that one has to be afraid of. The way Bush administration quashed dissent, and their rhetoric of fear-mongering, on the other hand, felt very much like good old Soviet Union to me, honestly.

Ennis, please tone it down. Attack the argument.

Yuri, first off, I don’t “hand pick” examples – I blog about what pops up at the media outlets I monitor. Socialized medicine happens to be one of the things I post about rather often. Uncle Pinky pointed that out.

You’re very quick to judge others by your assumptions. You makes statements like “this is what always amuses me in you conservative blokes” then complain when others “put words into your mouth.”

Ever thought that through?

I believe (not trying to put words in Martian’s mouth, mind you) that his point is that government is not the solution in most cases. You think that “there is no shortage of competent educated people who want to serve the people of this nation for salaries below our new gilded age standards. People with belief system like that are pushed out of the private system, though, since they do not generate the “correct” profit margin. But they care about what they do.” Fine. But have you at all considered that those people you champion as selfless might be motivated by a desire for job security above all? Have you even contemplated the thought that they might actually be unfit for the corporate world because they are not competent in it? Have you ever wondered if what drives them is not self-sacrifice but self-aggrandizement – that is a need for power?

I believe – just me, not a monolithic “conservative” cog in the machine – that most government is basically incompetent by its very nature. There are a few functions they can do better – mostly by default – but I am not a fan of big government in general.

Because those civil servants tend to try to become civil masters rapidly. If you, as you say, came from the USSR, you should already know that.

You don’t trust the nameless, faceless bureaucrats that run health care now, but are willing to throw yourself to the tender mercies of the nameless, faceless bureaucrats that you assume operate to different standards.

I do not subscribe to that assumption. And what is lost under socialized medicine – likely forever – is the ability for you or I to choose which bureaucrat to trust.

Yes, Yuri, I do get the point. What you don’t understand is that there are lots of “services” provided by the government that I am happily willing to do without – like government run health care. When taxes are cut, it doesn’t mean that the government gets to pay less for services, but it can and hopefully does mena that maybe the government can be forced to cut paying for all the extra crap and just pay for the “services” that are really the responsibility of government.

And anything “free” is still generally worth what you pay for it – as a former citizen of the USSR you should be painfully aware of that. As my favorite author once said, “TANSTAAFL – There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch”.

I really hate it when people put words in my mouth. I didn’t say that the government is an answer to all ills, and I do not think that’s the case (I did grow up in the USSR after all).
But we were addressing a narrow subject here – healthcare.

so, coming back to it:

No-one here yet gave me an intellectually-satisfying answer on why a system where health care is dominated by companies that have their primary obligation to shareholders to produce profit is good for patients.

Sometimes I really have to wonder what goes on inside the minds of liberals.

damn straight. make more tax cuts, this will improve your government

In any society things are pretty much worth what you pay for them.

Maybe if I’m good this year Santa Gaius will bring me a preview button.