Comments on: Acting Like You Mean It: Show Your Work

By: Neil B ?

Neil B ? — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 19:38:03 +0000

No one denies that our current system is simply not working. No one denies that it causes a lot of unnecessary suffering. To be sure, there are disagreements as to which aspects of the system are failing and which are causing unnecessary suffering.

HUH? What planet do you live on? Conservative and some libertarian hacks constantly assure us that the US health care system (including insurance) is the best in the world, that it doesn’t need fixing, and so on! Those people have already derailed the HCR fast track, and maybe the whole thing.

Good lord man, look around. Maybe the sort of people (some prominent) who say it’s fine deserve to be “nobodies”, but unfortunately they sure have a lot of influence on gullible and excitable members of the public.

This sort of posturing pretense, by certain intellectuals, that people really get it and we can somehow ignore the liars and truly ignorant who follow them – knock it off!

By: Silent Cal Conservatism « Vogue Republic

Silent Cal Conservatism « Vogue Republic — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:04:05 +0000

[...] Cal Conservatism I was struck by this comment at the League. Whereas libertarians and conservatives are by anyone’s (including their own) [...]

By: Michael Drew

Michael Drew — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:43:10 +0000

You’re right that school-choicers have the communications advantage of helping concrete, visible people in ways they wish to be helped. Defenders of public schools must defend them by seeking to improve them (primarily through preserving and expanding funding), and currently face a difficult reality on the ground in some places, being at the whim of local voter attitudes and unable to provide the product they would like to be able to do, but that is as it always was and should be.

By: Michael Drew

Michael Drew — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:37:37 +0000

Exactly, and liberals are very embracing of market solutions by anyone’s standard, especially those described by Mark as uncommitted to an ideology, other than the libertarian’s. Whereas libertarians and conservatives are by anyone’s (including their own) standards broadly and with very few exceptions hostile to all government solutions. It is their raison d’etre by their own admission.

By: Michael Drew

Michael Drew — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:33:36 +0000

No one is claiming that public schools work, at least not across the board. The claim is that public schools need to work if they are going to continue to be with us, which they are. To suggest there is any significant amount of denial of the problems among those who want to see better public education is totally divorced from the actual debate.

By: Empathy, Conservatives and Health Care Reform |

Empathy, Conservatives and Health Care Reform | — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 04:41:03 +0000

[...] conservatives also seem to not see the importance of empathy in the same way that liberals do. Mark Thompson gives an example: For years, whenever you see a Dem or liberal discussing the health care issue, [...]

By: Jaybird

Jaybird — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 03:04:26 +0000

There strikes me as *HUGE* differences between health care and, in the examples given, defense/prison work.

Health Care, so it seems to me, relies on people two standard deviations to the right of the mean, if not three, if not four. It is exceptionally important that you have smarter-than-average people providing health care… and, on top of that, the goal of health care will always, always, *ALWAYS* be thwarted by the fact that People Die. They get cancer. They have heart attacks. They have strokes. They get hit by buses. They get hit by lightning. They get hit by spouses. They will die, 100% of them, without exception. The best that quality health care can do is make sure that they die of catastrophic stuff rather than from infections.

Defense/Prisons, on the other hand, seem to not require folks two or three standard deviations to the right. The middle of the bell curve is good enough. You get a big guy, give him training, give him more training, and then give him more training… and you’ve got someone who can do the job asked. Sure, the higher ups are probably one or two standard deviations to the right… but the ratio of “solid and average” to “really, really smart” is huge compared to the ratio of health care (and certainly to the desired ratio to be found in health care). On top of that, what are the tasks in the military or in a prison? Compare to the tasks of health care.

I can see why defense/prisons are outsourcable. They are relatively simple compared to the effort required to keep people alive.

I mean, if the baseline for “decent health care” was a strong-willed person saying “don’t drink so much, eat better, exercise once in a while, and for god’s sake, quit smoking”, we could have decent health care for the masses right now.

By: Joseph FM

Joseph FM — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 02:52:36 +0000

I’d say, ideally, it’s like…a voucher-funded semiprivate school system!

By: mike farmer

mike farmer — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:11:38 +0000

Oh, then, nevermind.

By: greginak

greginak — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:14:59 +0000

uhhh i wasn’t trying to change your life. That quote applies to all, regardless of beliefs. My statement applies to all of us, it wasn’t meant as a criticism of you nor was i suggesting you thought your beliefs were perfect. We all tend to bloviate at bit on the intertoobz.