Every other country spends around less than half what we do on hearhcare and covers everyone, with generally worse wait to see a doctor here and worse health outcomes
The goal shouldn't be dismantling healthcare but fixing it
One Big Beautiful Bill
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@n8nrgim
and covers everyone
Are you Americqan too? Why do you think everyone is covered in Canada?
with generally worse wait to see a doctor here and worse health outcomes
You really have no idea what our province authorizes for healthcare, obviously.
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@n8nrgim
Yes, the expenditure rate for healthcare in the USA is 16.57 percent of GDP, the largest of any country.
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@n8nrgim
Worse health outcomes are explained by many factors independent of the healthcare system differences. I mentioned obesity before: plainly speaking, Americans just eat too much junk, and the obesity rate here is higher than in any other developed country, excepting Qatar and Kuwait. When 40+% of people are not just overweight, but morbidly obese, then the best healthcare system in the Universe will not be able to do much. There are other factors as well, such as Americans moving less than people in many other countries (where people drive less and walk more), abundance and availability of heavy drugs here, and so on and so forth.
You mentioned "dismantling healthcare", the unspoken assumption being that cutting Medicare and Medicaid equates cutting healthcare. But that is no more so than the idea that removing governmental control over press cuts the press. It does not - it frees it. Same here.
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@Debunker
Why are Americans so obsessed with skin color? Do they teach that in your schools?
It is a way here for people to feel virtuous: you point at a racial group deemed disadvantageous and proudly say that you, unlike other majorities, are on their side. That is my take, at any rate. I was genuinely surprised, when I moved here 11 years ago, by how much of a topic race here is. I come originally from Russia, and I thought that the Russian society was generally racist... but you will rarely hear a Russian talk about someone's skin color. Russians will talk about ethnicities extensively, but "brown people"? If you talk about "brown people" in any context imaginable, people will look at you very strangely, then try to quietly distance themselves from you.
The irony of the US is that, generally speaking, the more racist you are here, the more you will vocally oppose racism. It is very bizarre.
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@MayCaesar
why do you think you know better than every other developed country in the world except the USA? that provides healthcare to everyone at half our cost with generally better wait times? you're not acting within the norms of civilized society, from a global perspective... you are being radical. goes with the territory... Democrats are actually pretty conservative from a global perspective, and republicans and conservatives are actually pretty radical and chaotic, and don't stand for much at least for the poor and working class
it seems you should be advocating reform, not dismantling healthcare
it seems you should be advocating reform, not dismantling healthcare
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@MayCaesar
taking people's health insurance frees them? making them unable to afford healthcare frees them?
I recall you earlier saying how the logical next step of providing healthcare to everyone was people dying in the streets. why do you contort yourself into all these pretzel twists to rationalize stripping people of healthcare?
so much ignorance in this thread from the conservatives
here's a bunch of links and information I compiled on healthcare policy
there are free market solutions to universal healthcare, like catastrophic healthcare given to everyone and insurance for the rest. this is also something you all should be advocating, instead of no solutions that you currently given and only criticism.
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@n8nrgim
Why do you keep lying about universal coverage? Canada certainly does not have this. Our OHIP does not cover everything.
Did you learn this in american schools too?
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@MayCaesar
Thank you for the detailed response. There’s a lot to unpack here — and it deserves a serious reply, since many of these ideas are popular, even if often self-contradictory.
⸻
Let’s start with morality.
The claim that “morality is subjective” is meant to sound neutral — as if it grants some kind of philosophical immunity. But the very next sentence calls collectivism “tyranny.” That’s a moral statement. So is calling collectivization “banditry,” welfare “disgusting,” and individualism “freedom.” The argument tries to stand above moral claims while constantly making them. But a neutral frame can’t use loaded language to smuggle in its own values. Either the conversation is about ethics, or it’s not — but it can’t switch rules depending on which side is talking.
⸻
Next is the idea of peaceful negotiation vs. coercion.
In theory, a free market is a space of mutual, voluntary exchange. But in practice, that only works when both parties have the power to walk away. In emergency care, cancer treatment, or housing, that’s almost never the case. When one party is desperate and the other controls the resource, the exchange isn’t peaceful — it’s extractive. It’s not a trade between equals. It’s “your money or your life” with paperwork.
Markets don’t break down because of emergencies — they break down in emergencies. That’s why disaster relief, emergency rooms, and fire departments aren’t run like fast food franchises.
⸻
On cancer research and pricing:
Innovation is essential — no argument there. But much of that innovation happens in publicly funded labs, universities, and research hospitals. Many breakthrough drugs are developed with taxpayer funding, then sold back to the public at enormous profit by private firms. This isn’t rewarding genius — it’s socializing the cost, and privatizing the reward.
Charging a fortune for medicine doesn’t make someone a villain. But calling it “peaceful negotiation” while patients ration insulin or die from lack of care feels disconnected from the real-world consequences.
⸻
The Canadian dental example is a good case study.
No system is perfect — and yes, rationing exists in universal systems. But in those systems, prioritization happens based on medical need, not wealth. No one gets turned away for being too poor. No one is handed a $5,000 bill for a tooth extraction. And no one has to set up a GoFundMe to survive. If the tradeoff is waiting longer for an elective procedure, that’s not ideal — but it’s a far cry from bankruptcy.
⸻
The grocery store analogy breaks down under scrutiny.
Refusing to sell someone food isn’t the same as triaging care in a public system. One is a business decision; the other is a judgment of need in a limited-capacity system. If healthcare were just another product, then yes — people who couldn’t afford it wouldn’t get it. But that’s exactly the problem with treating essential care like any other consumer good. A society that sees no difference between food, phones, and open-heart surgery isn’t imagining a future — it’s ignoring reality.
⸻
On mutual responsibility:
The argument suggests that shared obligations — through taxes, welfare, or public services — are new, tyrannical, and unnatural. But mutual aid is as old as human civilization. From tribal societies to modern cities, humans have survived by supporting one another. Roads, schools, sanitation, libraries, power grids — none of these are private, and none would exist in a purely voluntary model.
Rejecting all collective responsibility in favor of radical individualism isn’t a defense of freedom — it’s a rejection of interdependence. But no one lives independently. Even the most self-reliant citizen depends on countless unseen systems to function. The only question is whether those systems are run for the common good, or for maximum private profit.
⸻
About the “slackers” and obesity argument:
It’s a common talking point that public healthcare subsidizes people who make “bad choices.” But most healthcare spending doesn’t go to people who sit around all day. It goes to working families, kids, the elderly, people with disabilities, and yes — sometimes to people struggling with lifestyle diseases. But judgment shouldn’t dictate access to care. A society that withholds help from the “undeserving” becomes one that dehumanizes the poor and rationalizes neglect.
If concern is really about costs, public systems are cheaper per capita. And if concern is about fairness, then subsidizing billionaires through tax breaks and privatized profit off public research is far more unjust.
⸻
Finally, the Black Book of Communism and the “corpse tally.”
This reference gets thrown around a lot. But it’s important to understand what’s actually counted in that book: not just deaths, but also famines caused by war blockades, military casualties killed by Nazis, civilians killed by Nazis, and even missing births from low fertility rates — all labeled as “victims of communism.”
If that’s the metric, then capitalism’s death toll includes colonial genocides, transatlantic slavery, world wars, famines caused by global markets, medical neglect, and preventable deaths due to poverty. The list grows fast.
If the conversation becomes “which system has the longer death list,” everyone loses. It’s a distraction from the real question: which systems let people live longer, healthier, and freer lives today? On that question, the answer is clear: the systems that treat healthcare as a right — not a product.
⸻
In the end:
Capitalism is not inherently evil, nor is collectivism inherently perfect. But it’s clear that some human needs — like healthcare — simply don’t follow the rules of consumer markets. They require planning, solidarity, and yes, public support. That isn’t tyranny. It’s how societies endure.
And recognizing that isn’t naive. It’s how we make sure people don’t die waiting in line — or worse, alone, without one.
⸻
Let’s start with morality.
The claim that “morality is subjective” is meant to sound neutral — as if it grants some kind of philosophical immunity. But the very next sentence calls collectivism “tyranny.” That’s a moral statement. So is calling collectivization “banditry,” welfare “disgusting,” and individualism “freedom.” The argument tries to stand above moral claims while constantly making them. But a neutral frame can’t use loaded language to smuggle in its own values. Either the conversation is about ethics, or it’s not — but it can’t switch rules depending on which side is talking.
⸻
Next is the idea of peaceful negotiation vs. coercion.
In theory, a free market is a space of mutual, voluntary exchange. But in practice, that only works when both parties have the power to walk away. In emergency care, cancer treatment, or housing, that’s almost never the case. When one party is desperate and the other controls the resource, the exchange isn’t peaceful — it’s extractive. It’s not a trade between equals. It’s “your money or your life” with paperwork.
Markets don’t break down because of emergencies — they break down in emergencies. That’s why disaster relief, emergency rooms, and fire departments aren’t run like fast food franchises.
⸻
On cancer research and pricing:
Innovation is essential — no argument there. But much of that innovation happens in publicly funded labs, universities, and research hospitals. Many breakthrough drugs are developed with taxpayer funding, then sold back to the public at enormous profit by private firms. This isn’t rewarding genius — it’s socializing the cost, and privatizing the reward.
Charging a fortune for medicine doesn’t make someone a villain. But calling it “peaceful negotiation” while patients ration insulin or die from lack of care feels disconnected from the real-world consequences.
⸻
The Canadian dental example is a good case study.
No system is perfect — and yes, rationing exists in universal systems. But in those systems, prioritization happens based on medical need, not wealth. No one gets turned away for being too poor. No one is handed a $5,000 bill for a tooth extraction. And no one has to set up a GoFundMe to survive. If the tradeoff is waiting longer for an elective procedure, that’s not ideal — but it’s a far cry from bankruptcy.
⸻
The grocery store analogy breaks down under scrutiny.
Refusing to sell someone food isn’t the same as triaging care in a public system. One is a business decision; the other is a judgment of need in a limited-capacity system. If healthcare were just another product, then yes — people who couldn’t afford it wouldn’t get it. But that’s exactly the problem with treating essential care like any other consumer good. A society that sees no difference between food, phones, and open-heart surgery isn’t imagining a future — it’s ignoring reality.
⸻
On mutual responsibility:
The argument suggests that shared obligations — through taxes, welfare, or public services — are new, tyrannical, and unnatural. But mutual aid is as old as human civilization. From tribal societies to modern cities, humans have survived by supporting one another. Roads, schools, sanitation, libraries, power grids — none of these are private, and none would exist in a purely voluntary model.
Rejecting all collective responsibility in favor of radical individualism isn’t a defense of freedom — it’s a rejection of interdependence. But no one lives independently. Even the most self-reliant citizen depends on countless unseen systems to function. The only question is whether those systems are run for the common good, or for maximum private profit.
⸻
About the “slackers” and obesity argument:
It’s a common talking point that public healthcare subsidizes people who make “bad choices.” But most healthcare spending doesn’t go to people who sit around all day. It goes to working families, kids, the elderly, people with disabilities, and yes — sometimes to people struggling with lifestyle diseases. But judgment shouldn’t dictate access to care. A society that withholds help from the “undeserving” becomes one that dehumanizes the poor and rationalizes neglect.
If concern is really about costs, public systems are cheaper per capita. And if concern is about fairness, then subsidizing billionaires through tax breaks and privatized profit off public research is far more unjust.
⸻
Finally, the Black Book of Communism and the “corpse tally.”
This reference gets thrown around a lot. But it’s important to understand what’s actually counted in that book: not just deaths, but also famines caused by war blockades, military casualties killed by Nazis, civilians killed by Nazis, and even missing births from low fertility rates — all labeled as “victims of communism.”
If that’s the metric, then capitalism’s death toll includes colonial genocides, transatlantic slavery, world wars, famines caused by global markets, medical neglect, and preventable deaths due to poverty. The list grows fast.
If the conversation becomes “which system has the longer death list,” everyone loses. It’s a distraction from the real question: which systems let people live longer, healthier, and freer lives today? On that question, the answer is clear: the systems that treat healthcare as a right — not a product.
⸻
In the end:
Capitalism is not inherently evil, nor is collectivism inherently perfect. But it’s clear that some human needs — like healthcare — simply don’t follow the rules of consumer markets. They require planning, solidarity, and yes, public support. That isn’t tyranny. It’s how societies endure.
And recognizing that isn’t naive. It’s how we make sure people don’t die waiting in line — or worse, alone, without one.
The Canadian dental example is a good case study.No system is perfect — and yes, rationing exists in universal systems. But in those systems, prioritization happens based on medical need, not wealth. No one gets turned away for being too poor. No one is handed a $5,000 bill for a tooth extraction. And no one has to set up a GoFundMe to survive. If the tradeoff is waiting longer for an elective procedure, that’s not ideal — but it’s a far cry from bankruptcy.
OHIP doesn't cover any of this. This site is full of liars.
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@Debunker
This site is full of liars
A simple google search could beat like 50% of debaters on this site.
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@n8nrgim
why do you think you know better than every other developed country in the world except the USA? that provides healthcare to everyone at half our cost with generally better wait times? you're not acting within the norms of civilized society, from a global perspective... you are being radical. goes with the territory... Democrats are actually pretty conservative from a global perspective, and republicans and conservatives are actually pretty radical and chaotic, and don't stand for much at least for the poor and working classit seems you should be advocating reform, not dismantling healthcare
Countries do not "know" anything: people do. The fact that most developed countries have adopted something does not affect the strength my argument at all: people make mistakes. There was a time when every country in existence featured legalized slavery - you could just as well ask why I knew better than everyone else that slavery was unacceptable.
Not sure what "Democrats" and "Republicans" have to do with anything. I speak for myself and consider both of these parties deeply corrupt and inept. The "left versus right" games I will leave to you, guys, consumers of CNN and Fox and whatever else you copycat views from.
taking people's health insurance frees them? making them unable to afford healthcare frees them?I recall you earlier saying how the logical next step of providing healthcare to everyone was people dying in the streets. why do you contort yourself into all these pretzel twists to rationalize stripping people of healthcare?
No, taking the government out of the healthcare system frees it. As for taking people's health insurance - if they have gotten it as a result of robbery from others, then they do not own it. Taking away the looted goodies from a bandit does not infringe on his freedom.
I have not said anything like what you wrote in the second paragraph. Care to stop the slander and talk to me like a grown adult?
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@Proletariat
I would not say that my views are particularly popular. But I let my arguments speak for themselves: how many people subscribe to an argument has no bearing on its validity.
Let’s start with morality.The claim that “morality is subjective” is meant to sound neutral — as if it grants some kind of philosophical immunity. But the very next sentence calls collectivism “tyranny.” That’s a moral statement. So is calling collectivization “banditry,” welfare “disgusting,” and individualism “freedom.” The argument tries to stand above moral claims while constantly making them. But a neutral frame can’t use loaded language to smuggle in its own values. Either the conversation is about ethics, or it’s not — but it can’t switch rules depending on which side is talking.
"Tyranny", "banditry" and "freedom" are objective characterizations that are moral-independent: one can believe that a particular form of tyranny is moral, but one cannot call a tyrannical government liberal and be correct. As for "disgusting" - that is just my personal felling which I do not force on others. It is not a part of my argument.
Next is the idea of peaceful negotiation vs. coercion.In theory, a free market is a space of mutual, voluntary exchange. But in practice, that only works when both parties have the power to walk away. In emergency care, cancer treatment, or housing, that’s almost never the case. When one party is desperate and the other controls the resource, the exchange isn’t peaceful — it’s extractive. It’s not a trade between equals. It’s “your money or your life” with paperwork.Markets don’t break down because of emergencies — they break down in emergencies. That’s why disaster relief, emergency rooms, and fire departments aren’t run like fast food franchises.
It is a space of mutual, voluntary exchange by its nature. Of course some people will have urgent needs that other people will capitalize on; the transactions are still voluntary. I am not forcing anyone to purchase healthcare services from me, and if I were not on the market at all and everyone was fine with it, then be being on the market cannot be taken against me. If you offer a thirsty man a bottle of water for $1,000, the man is still in a better shape than if the offer was not extended.
For a trade to be voluntary, there is no requirement for any kind of equality between the participants, other than lack of coercion from either side. Naturally, Bill Gates has much more power than me on the market in any imaginable respect - but as long as Billy does not put a gun to my head (figuratively speaking) forcing me to buy something from him under a threat of violence, I can just ignore his offers, and his "power" over me evaporates.
On cancer research and pricing:Innovation is essential — no argument there. But much of that innovation happens in publicly funded labs, universities, and research hospitals. Many breakthrough drugs are developed with taxpayer funding, then sold back to the public at enormous profit by private firms. This isn’t rewarding genius — it’s socializing the cost, and privatizing the reward.Charging a fortune for medicine doesn’t make someone a villain. But calling it “peaceful negotiation” while patients ration insulin or die from lack of care feels disconnected from the real-world consequences.
Two wrongs do not make right. Public funding of labs is just as corrosive as public funding of healthcare, and I will take cuts in either over none at all.
A negotiation is peaceful if there is no threat of violence, by definition. If I do not give someone a ration of insulin and he dies, you may call me a scumbag if you like - but you have no case to make in favor of me being an aggressor, when all I did was to extend an offer. I did not have to extend any offer at all, and the man would die anyway. Or, perhaps, you would argue that the only way to leave peacefully is to cave in before every beggar's demands? Do you even live your own life this way?
The Canadian dental example is a good case study.No system is perfect — and yes, rationing exists in universal systems. But in those systems, prioritization happens based on medical need, not wealth. No one gets turned away for being too poor. No one is handed a $5,000 bill for a tooth extraction. And no one has to set up a GoFundMe to survive. If the tradeoff is waiting longer for an elective procedure, that’s not ideal — but it’s a far cry from bankruptcy.
Sorry, but this is a very naive view. At the end of each transaction of a public healthcare system is a bureaucrat, and if you think that the bureaucrat's heart bleeds over those whose well-being depends on his decision, then, I gather, you have not met any bureaucrats.
I do not see why some guy in Ontario should have a business in deciding what my medical needs are. That is tyrannical, obviously. Should we apply this to other areas of human life, perhaps? Can I, please, have a saying in (for the sake of the argument, I will assume that you have one) how often you get to have sex with your wife? There are a lot of people with unfulfilled sexual needs... Perhaps, your and your wife's need to have sex with each other is trumped by the need of that old beggar to have sex with a beautiful woman? Uh-oh, we are going somewhere dark here.
The grocery store analogy breaks down under scrutiny.Refusing to sell someone food isn’t the same as triaging care in a public system. One is a business decision; the other is a judgment of need in a limited-capacity system. If healthcare were just another product, then yes — people who couldn’t afford it wouldn’t get it. But that’s exactly the problem with treating essential care like any other consumer good. A society that sees no difference between food, phones, and open-heart surgery isn’t imagining a future — it’s ignoring reality.
You will find that what one finds to be "essential" really depends on the person. I have not been to a doctor for nearly 20 years, but my mornings are just empty without a cup of coffee. Every individual has his own list of preferences, and the government-run system simply forces the preferences of the current hot politician on everyone else. There is nothing benevolent about it.
On mutual responsibility:The argument suggests that shared obligations — through taxes, welfare, or public services — are new, tyrannical, and unnatural. But mutual aid is as old as human civilization. From tribal societies to modern cities, humans have survived by supporting one another. Roads, schools, sanitation, libraries, power grids — none of these are private, and none would exist in a purely voluntary model.Rejecting all collective responsibility in favor of radical individualism isn’t a defense of freedom — it’s a rejection of interdependence. But no one lives independently. Even the most self-reliant citizen depends on countless unseen systems to function. The only question is whether those systems are run for the common good, or for maximum private profit.
I am all for mutual aid, which is why I suggested that everyone who wants to be covered in healthcare emergencies, but does not want to shop on the private market, groups together and builds a mutual fund - as people have done for millennia. What is new is the idea that the government should force everyone to partake in such a fund - run by itself, of course.
You will find me to be a very generous person, but what you will never find me do is tell someone that they are morally obliged to help me. I help other people because it makes me happy, and I certainly hope that no one helps me for any other reasons than this. The government makes the latter very... unlikely.
About the “slackers” and obesity argument:It’s a common talking point that public healthcare subsidizes people who make “bad choices.” But most healthcare spending doesn’t go to people who sit around all day. It goes to working families, kids, the elderly, people with disabilities, and yes — sometimes to people struggling with lifestyle diseases. But judgment shouldn’t dictate access to care. A society that withholds help from the “undeserving” becomes one that dehumanizes the poor and rationalizes neglect.If concern is really about costs, public systems are cheaper per capita. And if concern is about fairness, then subsidizing billionaires through tax breaks and privatized profit off public research is far more unjust.
No, that is just basic logic: behaviors that result in rewards are more likely to be employed than those that do not. That is how humans work; that is how, I would argue, any intelligent being works. Even machine learning models work this way.
I have known people who have stayed unemployed for over a decade, collecting welfare paychecks. Regardless of how uncommon this might be, you have to understand people who do not want to sponsor them. I work hard every day, and I work out hard every day - those who do not should not get anything from me without my consent.
Finally, the Black Book of Communism and the “corpse tally.”This reference gets thrown around a lot. But it’s important to understand what’s actually counted in that book: not just deaths, but also famines caused by war blockades, military casualties killed by Nazis, civilians killed by Nazis, and even missing births from low fertility rates — all labeled as “victims of communism.”If that’s the metric, then capitalism’s death toll includes colonial genocides, transatlantic slavery, world wars, famines caused by global markets, medical neglect, and preventable deaths due to poverty. The list grows fast.If the conversation becomes “which system has the longer death list,” everyone loses. It’s a distraction from the real question: which systems let people live longer, healthier, and freer lives today? On that question, the answer is clear: the systems that treat healthcare as a right — not a product.
I trace effects to their causes, not just blindly look at the system and attribute everything to it. Holodomor in Ukraine, not too far away from where I grew up, was very explicitly induced by the ruling regime that collectivized farming and arrested/killed everyone who did not get in line with collectivization. All attempts to do something of the kind resulted in millions of deaths - and it is not hard to see why.
The only example I can think of of millions people dying as a result of voluntary trade is heavy drugs. There though, I would argue, nobody forced them to buy and consume those drugs: they made a poor choice and died as a consequence. The Soviet government though did not give people a choice: "Hey, guys, if you do not want to be a part of our grand experiment, then no worries, just keep living your lives in peace!"
Which brings me back to my earlier point: if you really want to be covered by other people and cover other people - then go ahead and self-organize! Capitalism does not prevent you from building your utopias. But you want to force them on everyone, and that is what I find disgusting.
In the end:Capitalism is not inherently evil, nor is collectivism inherently perfect. But it’s clear that some human needs — like healthcare — simply don’t follow the rules of consumer markets. They require planning, solidarity, and yes, public support. That isn’t tyranny. It’s how societies endure.And recognizing that isn’t naive. It’s how we make sure people don’t die waiting in line — or worse, alone, without one.
I think that "evil" is a childish concept. What is important is the distinction between freedom and tyranny. I am on the side of freedom, and collectivists are on the side of tyranny. I am not saying that I am good and they are evil, or I am right and they are wrong - but they are my enemy, for they threaten my most foundational values. The converse is not true: I do not threaten theirs. I am happy to leave them alone, as long as they leave me alone. But they won't, and that is a problem.
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@WyIted
So let's take social security for example. The goal here is to find obvious cases of fraud like 300 year olds on it and then stop cashing those checks.
Except that this is complete bullshit and any reasonable person should know that. There is no epidemic of 300 year olds collecting social security checks. The system never wiped these folks out of the database, that doesn't mean they were getting paid.
This is such basic common sense to test. Ask yourself, with all the furore over this claim, if it were true, that would mean thousands upon thousands of Americans have been committing fraud for decades... So where are the prosecutions? Do you seriously think if they even found one example of this out wouldn't be all over Fox News and right wing podcasts everywhere?
Fraud is the excuse they give to cover for the fact that all they're doing is saving by kicking real people off of their health insurance. That's what's happening here and you are the reason they're able to pull it off. You're a sucker and they're manipulating you.
The reason we cut taxes on tips and overtime which Democrats voted against was to help the working class
The tax cuts on tips only apply to the first $25k, as in poverty level income. After that they're taxed as normal income. So while this is nice, it's not the big break they're making it sound. Overtime is capped as something like $12k, so even less. But still, it's something. What's remarkable however about what they did is that these tax cuts will expire literally as soon as Trump leaves office. Meanwhile, the tax cuts for the wealthy are made permanent.
This wasn't the republicans fighting for the middle class, it was them paying lip service so that they could put meaningless points on the scoreboard as a way of covering for their true priority.
what we do now is try to mitigate the damage from over spending to help these programs exist for longer
If you want the programs to last longer then prioritize them over making the rich richer. It's not that hard.
It doesn't help the country if we go the direction the left what's to go and turn into Venezuela
This is what Paul Krugman termed a "zombie lie", that is, a lie that gets debunked over and over again and yet it's proponents keep spreading it anyway, like the walking dead.
There is no legitimate comparison to what the left is promoting and what happened to Venezuela, in fact an argument can be reasonably made that what MAGA is promoting mirrors Venezuela more precisely. This is just bad faith, plain and simple.
We don't have like unlimited money. I know it's nice to thing "well we should just give everyone everything for free" but the reality is that harms society look at societies that have attempted it, so the goal is to just be reasonable.
No one is promoting a society where everything is just given away for free. You're again, having a conversation with yourself.
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@MayCaesar
You say u didn't didn't say the next logical step of government healthcare was people dying in the streets. But you did say
"That would be the logical conclusion to collectivism: just guarantee everyone with exactly identical living conditions regardless of their life choices. I find it a disgusting idea, even aside from the fact that, every time anything approximately similar was tried, millions of corpses would litter the ground."
You r trying to take something good and simple and lump it in corpses littering the streets. Bad analogy, much?
It looks like your main argument is free market healthcare is more efficient plus the ol taxation is theft argument
But I say free market is not good at providing healthcare to all, and denying basic resources like that, is denying resources at gun point. The vast majority of people should be able to afford healthcare and if they can't the system is broken. It violates the social contract. You say theft at gunpoint but violence is inherent in the system. If a person can't go out and start a farm or utilize nature without playing by rigged rules, you are depriving resources at gun point.
You're not even on the side of the average person or little guy or the good guy. You r parroting conservative propaganda for corrupt purposes. There's not even much practical reason to be against universal healthcare given every other country does it better at half the cost. You have a radical position. You might want to take a hard look in the mirror and ask yourself if you r even being a human with basic decency
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@n8nrgim
and denying basic resources like that, is denying resources at gun point.
Do you just let anyone into your house and sleeop in your bed?
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@Debunker
There's a difference in what an average person would allow and the wealthy hoarding vast resources like stocks houses and farm land. The point is the excesses of assets
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@MayCaesar
You keep invoking “freedom” as if it’s an objective truth, yet every definition you give centers the individual at the expense of everyone else. But if I may flip your framework on its head — what you’re calling “freedom,” I know as coercion. And what you condemn as “tyranny,” I recognize as solidarity.
Let’s be clear: telling someone they’re free to die if they can’t pay for medicine isn’t liberty — it’s extortion. Telling a person with cancer or a broken limb that they’re free to shop for care — if they can afford it — isn’t freedom. It’s a denial of life disguised as autonomy. What you call “peaceful negotiation” is not a fair trade when one person’s bargaining chip is life or death and the other’s is profit margin.
You’ve said you support voluntary pooling of resources — so do I. The difference is, I believe in expanding that principle beyond your inner circle. When I say “collective,” I’m not talking about a faceless government forcing people into line — I’m talking about communities organizing democratically to protect one another. Mutual aid, workers’ co-ops, community-run clinics, education funds — none of these require a state, but all of them require solidarity. If your definition of freedom excludes that possibility, then your freedom requires my silence, my suffering, or my death. And that’s not freedom — that’s domination.
Now, let’s talk about generosity. You say you believe in helping people, just not being forced to. Would you help a stranger on the side of the road? Someone with a flat tire? Someone bleeding? Then why draw the line at someone with an illness you can’t see, or a debt you don’t feel? And if your generosity truly ends where your familiarity ends, then we don’t share the same values — we just share geography.
You reject “tyranny” when it looks like democratic prioritization of medical need — like a public system treating appendicitis before a toothache. But you don’t call it tyranny when someone is denied that same care outright because they can’t afford it. Why is a wealthy investor deciding who lives and who dies based on credit score not tyranny, but a publicly accountable board making those decisions based on health outcomes is?
You keep invoking “the market” as a neutral system of peaceful trade. But the reality of capitalism is anything but neutral. When you can’t afford to leave your job because losing it means losing healthcare — that’s not freedom. When you can’t pursue education because the only way to fund it is lifelong debt — because grants are reserved for those below a bar set absurdly low by those already in power — that’s not freedom. When you’re working multiple jobs just to keep the lights on and have no time to care for your health, your family, or your future — that’s not a peaceful voluntary exchange. That’s structural servitude.
You say people should just opt out — pool their funds and do it themselves. But that’s what we already did. That’s how we got public roads, public hospitals, universities, water systems, food subsidies, and the entire infrastructure your life runs on. The irony is you already benefit from collective organization — you just don’t want to admit it. If you reject collective obligation, then reject collective benefit. Refuse to drive on the roads, decline any medical treatment from publicly funded research or hospitals, stop eating food grown with USDA-subsidized seed, fertilizer, or farm equipment. Because whether the final product is sold by a private vendor or not, you’ve been supported by public wealth your whole life.
You say you don’t want to pay for others’ bad choices. Neither do I. But the real freeloaders aren’t the poor — their lives are scrutinized to the bone. The real freeloaders are the wealthy, who inherit privilege, dodge taxes, hoard housing, and live off the profits of other people’s labor without lifting a finger. You demand hard work — so do I. But my standard is social contribution, not just survival. I want a world where those who can’t work are cared for, and those who won’t work aren’t allowed to exploit the rest of us.
And no, the answer isn’t more market discipline. Labor is labor — there is no such thing as unskilled work, just underpaid work. We need janitors, garbage collectors, factory workers, care workers, retail clerks, farmhands — none of them are lazy or disposable. They are the ones keeping this whole thing running. And under your system, they get nothing unless they can pay into it first.
Your defense of price-gouging as “peaceful” is chilling. Let’s return to the water bottle example. If you’re dying in the desert, and I’m the only one with a bottle of water, I have two options. I can give it to you because you need it — or I can auction it to the highest bidder. That is the capitalist instinct you champion: sell to the one who wants it most, not the one who needs it most. And if someone richer walks in with more money, you die. That’s not freedom. That’s not moral neutrality. That’s calculated indifference to human life.
What I believe — what we believe — is that the water goes to the one who needs it. Not because some bureaucrat says so, but because the community agrees that no one should die of thirst while someone else sips luxury. That is not tyranny. That is democracy in action. That is freedom.
You say collectivism kills. I say it heals. It educates. It feeds. It uplifts. Every major achievement of humanity — whether going to the moon or eliminating smallpox — was not the act of an individual chasing profit. It was the act of people working together, pooling knowledge and labor, sacrificing ego for progress. There was no profit in space flight. No quarterly return for decoding DNA. These things happened not because of markets — but in spite of them.
Your ideology has a strange definition of tyranny: anything that binds individuals into responsibility for each other. But what is tyranny, really? Is it shared burden? Or is it being forced to compete for survival in a system where billionaires build rockets while diabetics ration insulin? I know which one I find intolerable.
So let’s drop the pretense. Your system is not neutral. It is not peaceful. It is not free. It is just an efficient machine for sorting people by wealth and leaving the rest behind.
My vision is more humane — and more efficient. It removes the profit barrier from healthcare, shortens delays by triaging based on need, and saves billions in administrative waste. It is not about handouts. It is about human dignity and collective power.
We’re not asking you to live in chains. We’re asking you to stop chaining others to your idea of freedom.
Let’s be clear: telling someone they’re free to die if they can’t pay for medicine isn’t liberty — it’s extortion. Telling a person with cancer or a broken limb that they’re free to shop for care — if they can afford it — isn’t freedom. It’s a denial of life disguised as autonomy. What you call “peaceful negotiation” is not a fair trade when one person’s bargaining chip is life or death and the other’s is profit margin.
You’ve said you support voluntary pooling of resources — so do I. The difference is, I believe in expanding that principle beyond your inner circle. When I say “collective,” I’m not talking about a faceless government forcing people into line — I’m talking about communities organizing democratically to protect one another. Mutual aid, workers’ co-ops, community-run clinics, education funds — none of these require a state, but all of them require solidarity. If your definition of freedom excludes that possibility, then your freedom requires my silence, my suffering, or my death. And that’s not freedom — that’s domination.
Now, let’s talk about generosity. You say you believe in helping people, just not being forced to. Would you help a stranger on the side of the road? Someone with a flat tire? Someone bleeding? Then why draw the line at someone with an illness you can’t see, or a debt you don’t feel? And if your generosity truly ends where your familiarity ends, then we don’t share the same values — we just share geography.
You reject “tyranny” when it looks like democratic prioritization of medical need — like a public system treating appendicitis before a toothache. But you don’t call it tyranny when someone is denied that same care outright because they can’t afford it. Why is a wealthy investor deciding who lives and who dies based on credit score not tyranny, but a publicly accountable board making those decisions based on health outcomes is?
You keep invoking “the market” as a neutral system of peaceful trade. But the reality of capitalism is anything but neutral. When you can’t afford to leave your job because losing it means losing healthcare — that’s not freedom. When you can’t pursue education because the only way to fund it is lifelong debt — because grants are reserved for those below a bar set absurdly low by those already in power — that’s not freedom. When you’re working multiple jobs just to keep the lights on and have no time to care for your health, your family, or your future — that’s not a peaceful voluntary exchange. That’s structural servitude.
You say people should just opt out — pool their funds and do it themselves. But that’s what we already did. That’s how we got public roads, public hospitals, universities, water systems, food subsidies, and the entire infrastructure your life runs on. The irony is you already benefit from collective organization — you just don’t want to admit it. If you reject collective obligation, then reject collective benefit. Refuse to drive on the roads, decline any medical treatment from publicly funded research or hospitals, stop eating food grown with USDA-subsidized seed, fertilizer, or farm equipment. Because whether the final product is sold by a private vendor or not, you’ve been supported by public wealth your whole life.
You say you don’t want to pay for others’ bad choices. Neither do I. But the real freeloaders aren’t the poor — their lives are scrutinized to the bone. The real freeloaders are the wealthy, who inherit privilege, dodge taxes, hoard housing, and live off the profits of other people’s labor without lifting a finger. You demand hard work — so do I. But my standard is social contribution, not just survival. I want a world where those who can’t work are cared for, and those who won’t work aren’t allowed to exploit the rest of us.
And no, the answer isn’t more market discipline. Labor is labor — there is no such thing as unskilled work, just underpaid work. We need janitors, garbage collectors, factory workers, care workers, retail clerks, farmhands — none of them are lazy or disposable. They are the ones keeping this whole thing running. And under your system, they get nothing unless they can pay into it first.
Your defense of price-gouging as “peaceful” is chilling. Let’s return to the water bottle example. If you’re dying in the desert, and I’m the only one with a bottle of water, I have two options. I can give it to you because you need it — or I can auction it to the highest bidder. That is the capitalist instinct you champion: sell to the one who wants it most, not the one who needs it most. And if someone richer walks in with more money, you die. That’s not freedom. That’s not moral neutrality. That’s calculated indifference to human life.
What I believe — what we believe — is that the water goes to the one who needs it. Not because some bureaucrat says so, but because the community agrees that no one should die of thirst while someone else sips luxury. That is not tyranny. That is democracy in action. That is freedom.
You say collectivism kills. I say it heals. It educates. It feeds. It uplifts. Every major achievement of humanity — whether going to the moon or eliminating smallpox — was not the act of an individual chasing profit. It was the act of people working together, pooling knowledge and labor, sacrificing ego for progress. There was no profit in space flight. No quarterly return for decoding DNA. These things happened not because of markets — but in spite of them.
Your ideology has a strange definition of tyranny: anything that binds individuals into responsibility for each other. But what is tyranny, really? Is it shared burden? Or is it being forced to compete for survival in a system where billionaires build rockets while diabetics ration insulin? I know which one I find intolerable.
So let’s drop the pretense. Your system is not neutral. It is not peaceful. It is not free. It is just an efficient machine for sorting people by wealth and leaving the rest behind.
My vision is more humane — and more efficient. It removes the profit barrier from healthcare, shortens delays by triaging based on need, and saves billions in administrative waste. It is not about handouts. It is about human dignity and collective power.
We’re not asking you to live in chains. We’re asking you to stop chaining others to your idea of freedom.
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@n8nrgim
A homeless person would say your bed is an exceeseve assett.
Why can't Canadian's spell? Oh, never mind.
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@LucyStarfire
I understand why you’d say that a simple Google search should get you the information you’re looking for. But it’s important to remember that search results aren’t neutral. They’re shaped by your past activity, your location, and even what other people around you are searching—even if you turn off tracking or use incognito mode. That’s the nature of algorithmic filtering. If you’re active on Facebook and surrounded by conservative groups, your search results will lean in that direction. Every link you click fine-tunes the algorithm further.
Even starting from scratch with a fresh Google account doesn’t fix the issue. Results are still geo-targeted and shaped by aggregate local behavior, similar to how ad personalization works. Turn off ad tracking and you’ll still get strange ads—because they’re based on the collective data of people in your area, not just your own.
Beyond personal bias, there’s the institutional one. Search engines like Google have the power to bury certain sources or documents deep in the results. Some information, especially material critical of capitalism or U.S. foreign policy, is effectively hidden unless you already know exactly what to search. For example, try finding the U.S. memorandum explaining that the Cuban embargo’s goal was to impoverish the Cuban people and provoke a revolt against Castro. Unless you already know the name of the file or the phrasing used in it, good luck—it won’t show up easily.
Personally, it took years of deliberately reshaping my media habits before my algorithm started feeding me more leftist, anti-capitalist, or non-Western perspectives. Even then, I still occasionally get pushed back into liberal or conservative content. That’s how persistent and invasive the system is.
Trying to be a leftist online—or even just trying to find reliable leftist information—is hard. Not because the arguments aren’t strong, but because capitalism has so thoroughly colonized the digital landscape that it actively buries, sidelines, or distorts anything that threatens its dominance.
Even starting from scratch with a fresh Google account doesn’t fix the issue. Results are still geo-targeted and shaped by aggregate local behavior, similar to how ad personalization works. Turn off ad tracking and you’ll still get strange ads—because they’re based on the collective data of people in your area, not just your own.
Beyond personal bias, there’s the institutional one. Search engines like Google have the power to bury certain sources or documents deep in the results. Some information, especially material critical of capitalism or U.S. foreign policy, is effectively hidden unless you already know exactly what to search. For example, try finding the U.S. memorandum explaining that the Cuban embargo’s goal was to impoverish the Cuban people and provoke a revolt against Castro. Unless you already know the name of the file or the phrasing used in it, good luck—it won’t show up easily.
Personally, it took years of deliberately reshaping my media habits before my algorithm started feeding me more leftist, anti-capitalist, or non-Western perspectives. Even then, I still occasionally get pushed back into liberal or conservative content. That’s how persistent and invasive the system is.
Trying to be a leftist online—or even just trying to find reliable leftist information—is hard. Not because the arguments aren’t strong, but because capitalism has so thoroughly colonized the digital landscape that it actively buries, sidelines, or distorts anything that threatens its dominance.
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@FLRW
Canadian's spell?
Why can't dumb creepy american men use the possessive correctly? Go away creepy stalker.
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@LucyStarfire
A simple google search could beat like 50% of debaters on this site.
Yes. Too bad people can't or won't use it.
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@Debunker
Well you are an exceeseve assett to a smart old creepy american man.
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@n8nrgim
I said that the logical conclusion to collectivism is guaranteeing everyone exactly identical living conditions regardless of their life choices, and that every attempt to get there in practice has resulted in millions of corpses. That is an objective fact; I am sorry that facts lump your world view with that, but they do.
I have not said that taxation is theft; I have insisted that it is robbery. I am not familiar with any prominent "conservative" who makes this argument, and even if many of them did - what does it matter? You are talking to me, not to them. Please engage with my arguments, not with theirs.
My simple argument here is that there are two modes of interaction between humans: voluntary and coercive. I personally see the former as more humane, but I am not forcing my views on others - unlike people with "basic humanity" who express it via putting a gun to my head and telling me how to live my life. That might be a good characterization: the vast majority of humans throughout history have practiced something of the kind. But I do not, and I respect people who reciprocate it and disrespect those who do not.
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@Proletariat
"Freedom" is a concept describing a relationship between the individual and other individuals, characterized by the absence of the latter controlling the former. "Tyranny" is the opposite. These are not my definitions. English is not even my first language, for that matter.
You are simply practicing a collectivistic world view in which humans by default own each other. Neutrality and indifference you see as acts of aggression - which is utterly ridiculous, of course, but Christianity and other collectivistic ideologies humanity has come up with have made sure that most people remain blind to the cognitive dissonance here.
You have ignored the central point I have made regarding your attributions to the colllective: that you are free to organize with others and build any mutual aid societies you want. I, in fact, highly encourage it. As long as it is done voluntarily, with consent of everyone involved. That is not what public healthcare constitutes. I am not asked nicely to join this mutual society, but I am thrown in jail if I do not. Screw this version of "solidarity".
What the individual chooses to do in his personal life is his business. There are people who, indeed, do not want to help anyone. Then there are people like me who often go out of their way to help a stranger. A strong freedom-loving individual will do as his conscience tells him and accept that other people might do differently - and a weak tyrant will demand that others do what he wants to be done.
I have not "defended price-gouging". In all of these examples I have not made a single comment on how an individual "should" act: that is a matter of consciousness, personal values and so on. But I have explained why punishing someone for not sharing his water bottle makes as much sense as punishing a woman for not sharing her body with sexually starved men.
Then, again, for the vast majority of human history wife-beating was a very common practice. Not everyone has graduated from the mentality that caused people to do so.
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@FLRW
weirdo
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@Debunker
Ok, ok, you are an exceeseve weirdo to a smart, old American man.