There are varying schools of thought on your subject. I happen to agree with you - most of the time. Keep it up….

Thanks for the post. I couldn’t agree with you more….

There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you. ~ Will Rogers…

Please keep these excellent posts coming….

Rage since you admitted that, which frankly surprised me, maybe it shouldn’t though, I admit I made a mistake also.
I was used the ‘wrong’ “The Tragedy of the Commons” in my argument. I had used the first one above by John Stossel and when back-tabbing to Google I click on wiki did a quick visual scan and chose something out of it instead of sticking to my intended argument. I can understand and sympathize with what that said alright, but I have never said there should not be responsible management of resources to the degree they are squandered or harmed. My argument is that socialism/communism doesn’t work, and it can be proved over and over.
Now off to other things to do.

It did and it has, there are a lot fewer people in HMOs today including me. HMOs operate similar socialized medicine, and have aspects of funding similar to socialized medicine. They are the cheapest and poorest form of health care coverage. They stink except for band-aid level medicine.
Capn stated, “‘And before you say, “it did because I changed policies”, well dimwit that is exactly how the free market works and it did work for me and others. What, are you so helpless on your own you couldn’t do the same? Your using ‘what-ifs’ to challenge my ‘what actually happened’ loses every time, so dummy I’ve won that argument. Next.
Again the dummy says, “And that’s the difference–you want to let profit-driven billionaire CEO’s decide who lives or dies. I want government responsible to the people to decide.” Idiot, the government will be a hell of a lot less responsive to you than will a private company. You can’t fire the government, you can’t switch from them, they will do with you what they want. Your argument of the free market system not being responsive is so incredibly weak, it has worked and a gigantic government bureaucracy would be much worse. You just want somebody else paying for your health care and will sacrifice quality for that.

Yes Rage, it did read that way because that is exactly what you meant….a very childish attitude and response. But very typical, and you prove it.
And Rage, I most certainly did answer your question, you simply are incapable of understanding. My premise IS, and that is not negotiable as that was the statement you ask for an answer about, is that the foundational function of government is the protection of private property. And, that private property is the sum total of a persons labors, physical, intellectual, etc. So, now I’ll slow down here, and you go get someone to help you read if necessary. The taking of a person’s private property to give to someone else is THEFT.

Right to Work Laws–yes there is an argument against right to work in that it interferes with a union and employer’s rights to contract. BUT, a much more important aspect with those laws insures the right of the EMPLOYEE to contract to work. Much more important in a FREE society. I don’t need or want your union. Got it?
You guys are losers. Quit relying so much on unions and government, suck it up and face the world on your own, or at least when you grow up.

The tragedy of the commons is a major argument against unregulated free trade.

From Wiki, The metaphor illustrates how free access and unrestricted demand for a finite resource ultimately structurally dooms the resource through over-exploitation. This occurs because the benefits of exploitation accrue to individuals or groups, each of whom is motivated to maximize use of the resource, while the costs of the exploitation are distributed among all those to whom the resource is available (which may be a wider class of individuals than that which is exploiting it). This, in turn, causes demand for the resource to increase, which causes the problem to snowball to the point in which the resource is exhausted.

*****

A more modern interpretation of this is socializing the costs / privatizing the profits”.

Examples abound. For example, the coal suppliers and power companies profit by providing electricity in places like Holcomb. But they do NOT PAY THE COSTS of polluting the air we breathe. That cost is paid by children who ingest mercury and have lower IQ’s as a result or who have asthma or allergies from particulites or who get cancer from radiation (from uranium also present in coal) which is released into the air.

But as for this:

Rage went into a rage above, calling me a moron, about my use of the term private property in the discussion, along with my statement that government’s primary function is the protection of private property. I quote, “and how, exactly, is that sanely relevant to anything?”.

It’s ironic that you complain about that painfully obvious and fair question, as you never even attempted to answer it, even with several posts after I called it a night.

And, I, too, would recommend that people look into the “tragedy of the commons,” a very important issue. But it doesn’t mean anything close to what you seem to think it does (hint: try sctually reading the Wikipedia link you gave).

Interesting.

Boxlock has had personal experience with at gouging, manipulative HMO and from that he extrapolates that “this is exactly what I envision socialist health care to be.”

Jeenyous Boy sees no conflict between his championing of the “free market system to regulate itself” and the bad HMO that took his money and screwed him over.

Why didn’t the “free market” self-correct for your problems, BL? And before you say, “it did because I changed policies,” what would have happened if you had an otherwise terminal disease that needed aggressive treatment before you discovered they were bad?

You’d be dead.

And that’s the difference–you want to let profit-driven billionaire CEO’s decide who lives or dies. I want government responsible to the people to decide.

“The Tragedy of the Commons is a type of social trap, often economic, that involves a conflict over finite resources between individual interests and the common good. It states that free access and unrestricted demand for a finite resource ultimately structurally dooms the resource through over-exploitation.”

Link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

November 21, 2007
The Tragedy of the Commons
By John Stossel
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/11/the_tragedy_of_the_commons.html

“The failure of Soviet communism is only the latest demonstration that freedom and property rights, not sharing, are essential to prosperity. The earliest European settlers in America had a dramatic demonstration of that lesson, but few people today know it.” ……

“The communal system failed because it treated the older and wiser the same way as the young and brash. It failed because it rewarded the less productive as much as the more productive. It failed because members of the community found that they could do less and still get the same benefit. All of these problems arose in a very religious community in which gluttony and laziness were considered sins and drunkenness was rare. How much more would communism fail in a larger society where such problems are rampant! By returning to a system in which the older and wiser are respected, and by reorganizing so that one’s benefit was directly tied to his production, the Pilgrims ensured the survival of their colony. Governor Bradford, however, ultimately attributes the failure of the “common cause” to something much deeper:….”
To the likes of BlueJay, Predestined and the Capn., et. al., I say we’ve tried it, socialism/communism, it failed miserably, it has failed miserable every time, so get out of my ‘house’ and my ‘pocket’ and get to work. Leave me alone to personally decide who I help, it’s not your decision.

If this is so easily proven, prove it here.

“And what irks me is the taxing or taking, legalized theft, from the producers for the purchase of votes from non-producers.”

Sorry, while you may be a good person, you have so vigorously consumed from the conservative Kool-Aide, you cannot be counted on to think clearly.

Night… And good luck to you — you will surely need it.

Ha, what an excuse, shifting blame from yourself to me, saying I caused, or am causing, you some discomfort you brought on yourself. I can hear it now, “he made me do it, it wasn’t my fault”.
Good grief, now I’m blogging with children.

Capn, you’re right, I don’t know JR. I should know more before forming such a negative opinion. I have suspected he is disabled, but instead of admitting he needs help, which I fully believe in, he calls for redistribution of the fruits of others labor, which I don’t believe in. I have a hard enough time providing for my own.
By the way, I have excellent health care now, and always have except for the period of time I chose a lousy HMO. Which is exactly what I envision socialist health care to be. It was horrible and I had to practically threaten a law suit to get a referral.
Now, good night and I mean it.

A coward.

The world goes beyond the end of your nose or the privacy fence of your yard there too “Boxlock”

But do the country a favor and get yourself an island. Maybe the coconut milk will loosen ya up!

Huh?

Just what do you produce or build behind the wheel there Box o Scotch?

Cool it. You don’t know, JR. I do. He’s not lazy.

As far as this comment, “I don’t want a one size fits all health care I have to wait on or get permission to use.”

Hey, jeenyous, you have to ask permission right now to get the treatment you want from your so-called “health care provider.”

And you know what else, jeenyous?

If they don’t want to give it to you, you don’t effing get it, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.

It’s called “free enterprise.”

Uhm, right, Boxthought: We obviously need the government to step in and stop private contracts between employees and employers–new employees are losing their “right to work” under a different private contract! (one, which, conveniently, excludes the union).

Wow: you really want deep governemtn intervention into the economy, don’t you! You’re not satisfied with regulating contracts–you want make some impossible! What a socialist !

But, ya know, the most “closed shop” on the planet is the one where the management calls the shots, and the workers have no recourse, no matter what management does. Unions don’t just happen, for no reason.

Spare me your crocodile tears.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, asshole, thanks to you, I will probably be burning the midnight oil, so to speak. Have a nice day!

AND you are rising in anger. Are you drinking?

I work for myself too. But I just happen to believe that the world is a little bit bigger than me.