Hayek on Health Insurance
I don’t know how, during the long months of this health insurance debate, this quote from Road To Serfdom slipped my mind, but it certainly bears re-emphasis:
I don’t know how, during the long months of this health insurance debate, “Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individuals in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision. Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance – where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks – the case for the state’s helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong… Wherever communal action can mitigate disasters against which the individual can neither attempt to guard himself nor make the provision for the consequences, such communal action should undoubtedly be taken,” – The Road To Serfdom (Chapter 9).
This is why, for all the bluster about “death panels,” and health care reform being an irreversible step on the road to socialism, it is the Randian vision of the world that animating the Right’s position on reform at the expense of the far more rigorous, thoughtful, and classically liberal vision of Hayek. Were the influence of these visions reversed, we would have a situation where the Right would actually make a good-faith negotiating partner on the issue of health care reform rather than leaving it up to liberals to negotiate reform with spineless and philosophically unmoored centrists.
The above-referenced quote does not in the least imply that any system of social insurance is acceptable or will work. An individual-based system supported by tax credits or vouchers? Sure. A system of nationalized re-insurance? Quite possibly. Single-payer insurance? Maybe. But a byzantine system of employer and individual mandates, public options, increased regulation, etc.? Absolutely not.
Yet because the Right is so much more infatuated with the Randian vision rather than the Hayekian vision (even as it so often claims devotion to Hayek), leaving unmoored centrists as the gatekeepers, the reform we will get will be the latter. This, I would submit, is the worst of all worlds from the supposedly free market perspective held by the movement Right – the reinforcement of existing flaws and regulatory regimes; increased opportunities for regulatory capture; large increases in overall government expenditures and an ever-larger national debt; and only marginal improvements in the delivery of health care to the currently uninsured (at a cost that many of them may be unable to afford).
I think the ‘Right’ wants to reform ‘health care.’ What they don’t want to do is have the people that screwed it up in the first place, the Commie-Dems, stick their d*cks back in the soup. Rather they seek a calm, rational, public, open discussion with the goal of finding the process that will serve the citizenry best. We don’t need no stinkin’ Marxist, undocumented pres. ‘leading’ this mess and we don’t need no more commie-dems running rough shod over the legislature, continuing to not only screw up ‘health care’ but threatening freedom and liberty as well.Report
But that’s just it – the general refusal to negotiate over anything, which is what we really do have, combined with the hyperbolizing of just about every Dem suggestion for reform has ensured that the only people with any input in how the reform is going to look are, well, Dems. I mean, Wyden-Bennett is not terribly far from the type of reform that Hayek would have approved of; it’s not perfect, of course, but it would at least be an improvement over the status quo from a Hayekian perspective. At a minimum, some of its more problematic/less-good aspects would have been subject to some amount of negotiation. Yet the response of the Club for Growth to that proposal has been to target Robert Bennett for a primary challenge.Report
Mark, after re-reading my ‘comment’ I must confess to mis-speaking. I meant that this reform of health care can not just be a commie-dem affair, it can not proceed hurriedly, it must be public and open, it must first start with tort reform and the opening of the states to all private insurance opportunities.
The problem is the commie-Dems can not tolerate either tort reform or the insurance thingy, and you know why. So why are we having this conversation….no real reform equals tea parties, demonstrations, and whatever it takes…we can not allow the gummint to have control of our bodies!Report
“it must first start with tort reform and the opening of the states to all private insurance opportunities”
It’s precisely this line-in-the-sand mentality that makes conservatives impossible to negotiate with. It’s not “I would like tort reform and am willing to bargain to get it” – it’s “my way or the highway”. I’m not sure how anyone thinks we can write legislation this way.Report
Oh geez bob—Tort reform has been suggested by the pres and is part of the discussion. When the repub’s win elections, then they get to state where the debate starts. When you lose, you start where the winners want to. I know this may be hard for a fascist-repub, but there has been a years long debate on health care reform. The R’s just haven’t wanted to participate.
I am glad to know that you are pro-choice.Report
His Magnificence may have ‘mentioned’ tort reform but my commie-dem palsy he sure doesn’t want it and you know it!
The commie-dems want CONTROL, they ain’t worried about your health!
Go to the barricades, fight the commie-dems!
If you see me there, wave!Report
Sorry bob I’ve already fed the trolls enough.Report
Mr Cheeks I RESENT the fuck outta you calling me a COMMIE. Where the hell were YOU when I was fighting in Vietnam you COWARDLY CREEP?! My bet you didn’t SERVE!
Signed- a PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRAT.Report
Funny, last time I checked the US Constitution there was nothing in there about the gov’t running health care.Report
There’s also nothing in the Constitution about Medicare, Medicaid, the HHS, welfare, etc. Not only did that horse leave the stable long ago, but none of the reforms I’m suggesting above would even materially expand any of those existing infringements on the original Constitution. Indeed, voucherized or tax-credit based health insurance would even lessen existing government involvement in health care.
Also – virtually no one is seeking government-run health care; health insurance and health care are two distinctly different things.Report
Mark:
Just b/c politicians have already expanded the US gov’t beyond the bounds of it enumerated powers doesn’t make further expansion any more right or past expansion any less wrong. As for government-run health care there seem to be quite a few on the left that want it.Report
It also doesn’t make further expansion any more wrong or past expansion any less right. Funny how these things work.Report
and up is down and black is white. What could possibly be the problem with a huge unaccountable government? The American people will always elect good guys to run it.Report
I have no idea. Trying to figure out what is wrong with something completely in the abstract is a mug’s game. I have no idea why I should fear a “huge” or “unaccountable” government, especially because I’m guessing my interpretation of those words as applied to the US government is somewhat different from yours.
Many of the specific “expansions” we’re discussing are things I consider pretty good things (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, NASA, I-75, etc). Some of them aren’t. But so much of this debate is always “OMG big government bad/unconstitutional and always evil even when it’s not”, which doesn’t interest me. Whether these “expansions” were good ideas or not seems like a far more useful conversation than this bizarro constitutional argument (which most constitutional scholars and virtually all Supreme Court justices don’t agree with anyway!).Report
“Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, NASA, I-75, etc” Hey, lovely programs. Wouldn’t want to be without them. Still, all and all, I’d rather my own State take responsibility for them. I’d rather be bargaining with California on how to match a highway system or implementing environmental controls than including Georgia in the mix.Report
And I’d love to see 50 flags on the moon and the simultaneous, spontaneous construction of a highway that traverses 6 states. But that’s not going to happen. The fundamental difference between the federal government running those programs and the individual states doing it is that one of them actually makes sense and the other is a really terrible, unworkable idea.Report
Once we get done paying for the empire we can talk about the moon. Considering a world where you can’t get from Kansas to Portland in one smooth shot will constitute my fantasy fodder for the afternoon. California is roughly equivalent to France, Washington to Sweden. There are areas where cooperation would be beneficial but claiming that current States couldn’t do better than the hash we have is pure denial.Report
And claiming that individual states could do better than the federal government at any number of these things is pure fantasy.Report
Washington get’s something like $.80 to the dollar on federal spending. We could be %19 less efficient and still come out ahead. And, of course, the social issues….Report
You could be 19% less efficient at the things you’re asked to do. Presumably those don’t include spaceflight, building an interstate highway system, or regulating emissions across state lines. I’m guessing Washington would probably do a much better job of insuring the elderly, providing Social Security, and some other things (because of relative wealth), but that would only make it that much harder for people who live in Alabama to receive those services.Report
Virgin is doing better at space flight than what NASA’s been able to innovate recently. I’m not all that fond of interstate travel, and ‘Bama? In the words of my new home, “let the bastards freeze in the dark”. Taking our school money to pay for their war mongering is socialism at its worst.Report
So the constitution’s limits on the gov’t mean nothing to you? Those expansions may seem “good” to you but it doesn’t mean they are a legitimate exercise of gov’t power. Just b/c the gov’t can do something doesn’t mean it should. Maybe to you it does, I guess as long as whatever the gov’t is doing “good” in your world view then it is okay.Report
No, I just think the “limits” you imagine in the Constitution don’t exist. And it turns out a large majority of people whose job it is to read and interpret the Constitution (especially at the judicial level) agree with me.
There are places where the Constitution explicitly forbids the federal government from doing a whole lot of things – like restricting the freedom of my speech or denying me habeas. Those limits are pretty meaningful to me, and they’re made more so by the fact that I’m not hallucinating their existence.Report
I must bow to your imagined and unnamed majority of legal experts. I know it is easy to claim that everyone agrees with you but come on. The idea of enumerated powers obviously mean nothing to you. You seem to miss the point that just b/c the gov’t may have in the past exceed its powers doesn’t legitimize it exceeding those same powers now.Report
Then you go ahead and tell me what percentage of federal judges are prepared to strike down all the things the federal government has done in “excess” of its “enumerated” powers. If you think I’m making up the majority, I’d love to see you conduct that exercise. Find me the hidden cadre of tenther judges that you seem to believe exists.Report
What? Federal judges don’t want to limit the power of the federal government? Shocking. Can’t industry just police itself?Report
None of the above of necessity expand the authority of the government at all. What is likely to pass due to the Right’s refusal to engage on this, however, will most definitely expand the authority of government in new and unpleasant ways.Report
what have you got against the air force and nasa?Report
The USAF is my favorite thing that is blatantly, totally, and obviously unconstitutional on a tenther reading. But the individual states could presumably have their own air forces. Let’s do that.Report
I’m with you there. California has an Air National Guard. The Guards need to be returned to the States.Report
Brilliant!!!
Are we allowed to say ‘secesh,’ here?Report
Secession is not in the Constitution, so no. We can’t do anything unless the Constitution explicitly allows it.Report
Call me a “Ninther”.Report
Be careful. I can clearly see a right to health insurance in the Ninth Amendment.Report
Funny. I can clearly see a right to not be forced to pay for it nested within.Report
It’s funny how every discussion of rights comes down to useless assertions based on nothing.Report
Perhaps we could point out how all political power comes from the barrel of a gun.Report
What’s with libertarians and guns? Is it a phallic thing?Report
Uh, yeah.
Do you not have a phallic thing?Report
I don’t, but my boyfriend does.Report
A right to health insurance in the Ninth Amendment? It appears someone does not know his Constitution. That said, I love watching the lefties on here butcher my beloved document like some kind of campy horror movie.
Keep up the good work.Report
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
Your continued denial and disparagement of my right to health insurance will be noted in your permanent record.Report
Also, you’re in love with a piece of paper.
Freak.Report
It’s the ideas enshrined in the piece of paper.
The constitution is just a document, like any other document. The ideas, however, are worth loving.Report
Any libertarian will tell you that the 9th Amendment provides you with an absolute right to enter into a contract for health insurance. I have a hard time seeing what kind of interpretation of the 9th Amendment results in a reading that the 9th Amendment provides one with a right to have the government affirmatively provide you with health care at the expense of others. To do so would be to redefine the term “right” in a way that it has never been understood as a matter of Constitutional law. It would, quite literally, also mean that you have a right, enforceable by the government, to obtain health care from someone whether or not they wished to provide it to you. This would seem to be a bit of a conflict with the 13th Amendment.Report
Jay – Some of the ideas are worth loving. Some aren’t. But the constant veneration of a piece of paper and the guys who wrote on it is often just plain creepy.
Mark – Oh, so now we’re discussing how things have been historically understood as part of constitutional law? That seems like a completely different argument than the one the tenthers (or ninthers) want to make. We really need to pick a coherent set of rules here.Report
You’re losing me here Ryan. I think many tenthers rely on traditional notions of meaning/reading/constitutional law. For many the intent is to provide a “coherent set of rules” that the “living tree” reading lacks.Report
The same tenthers who claim that Medicare is unconstitutional and that secession is a constitutional right of individual states? In what way are these people relying on traditional readings of constitutional law?
These are also generally the same people who believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right. I tend to agree with them on that one, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s an incredibly radical re-interpretation of some pretty settled constitutional law.Report
I certainly believe in the right to secession and the right to extreme armament. I don’t believe that medicare is unconstitutional just the way it’s funded.Report
What you believe isn’t the issue. You claim that tenthers rely on traditional/historical readings of constitutional law. There is no such thing as a traditional or historical reading of constitutional law that grants a right to secession or an individual right to bear arms or that considers Medicare (or its funding) unconstitutional.Report
“There is no such thing as a traditional or historical reading of constitutional law that grants a right to secession or an individual right to bear arms or that considers Medicare (or its funding) unconstitutional.”
On the individual RTKBA, you’re just wrong – there was never any Supreme Court-level precedent that found otherwise, and Eugene Volokh has documented a wide number of examples where it was clearly considered an individual right for quite some time after the Bill of Rights was passed.
As for the right to secession, that’s something of an irrelevant question that AFAIK has never been addressed by the courts (and realistically could not be addressed by the courts). It has, however, been settled by a war. Most likely, though, that would be a clear political question for which the Constitution makes a poor reference point.
Medicare funding – under no modern interpretation could one find Medicare unconstitutional. But the question is whether it could be unconstitutional under a traditional/originalist interpretation. Arguably, I suppose it could, although to be honest, I’m not really sure how unless maybe you attacked the funding mechanism.Report
I think reasonable people disagree on whether Volokh’s research is conclusive in any way, but I will somewhat concede that point. It is certainly the case that the courts were at pretty great pains to completely ignore the question of the Second Amendment until very recently, and they certainly never defended an individual RTKBA, so it’s at best a wash.
Whether secession is an irrelevant constitutional question or not, it’s certainly settled as a point of American law. Claiming that the tenther position on secession is anything like traditional is nonsense.
On the Medicare question, we clearly agree. My only nit is that traditional and originalist are not synonyms. Originalism is a pretty new kind of thing – although, since it consists of cherry-picking results to get what you want and then layering over a tendentious veneer of legal speak, it is probably as old as time.Report
One of my favorite things about constitutional interpretation is that one person’s interpretation almost always exactly matches his political philosophy. I think that’s the first clue that the whole thing is wankery.Report
??? I thought it was the other way around. If it doesn’t say it, and my State doesn’t claim it, don’t I get to keep it?Report
Does this mean we have to return the Louisiana Purchase?Report
+1Report
Can we?
Maybe we could use the money to pay off some war debts.
It’s funny how everything eventually comes full circle.Report
Funny, last time I checked the US Constitution didn’t give folks the right to infringe on the state’s ability to regulate themselves either…which is exactly what those on the right advocate for when they “argue” for allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines. Federalism sucks, except when it benefits you, I guess.Report
If you believe government involvement in healthcare is unconstitutional, why are you worried about it? The Court will simply strike it down.
No, that unconstitutional stuff is just what you folks squeal whenever you lose the majority. Suddenly everything you don’t want is prohibited by some interpretation of the Constitution that even the Federalist Society thinks is nonsense.Report
I think you give the Right too much credit. They are interested in one thing and one thing only–attacking Obama to regain political power. They aren’t infatuated with the Randian vision out of principle, but only from political expediency, since it is the only position left from which they can attack Obama on health care.Report
“Rather they seek a calm, rational, public, open discussion with the goal of finding the process that will serve the citizenry best.”
That’s hilarious.Report
One of the reasons the Randroids do this is because of “coverage creep”.
Let’s say that I agree that we, as a society, ought to provide a basic level of insurance for all. You know, basic preventative care, basic dental, and basic optical. Some degree of inevitable stuff for children. You know, the broken bones, the stitches, the shots. We, as a society, have an obligation to provide these things to everybody, after all.
But then, after the camel’s nose comes in, the question comes about the camel’s mouth. What about vasectomies? What about tubal ligation? What about insulin for diabetics? What about penicillin for guys with the clap?
Soon the camel’s eyes and ears are in the tent. I, personally, have argued that Viagra ought not be covered by Medicare/Medicaid and been argued against that I must not believe that sex is a human right. We are no longer discussing whether children ought to be protected against the inevitable when they fall out of the tree they were climbing, but whether there be funding for lifestyle drugs.
The Randroids tend to say that the slope is slippery by design and the only way to keep from hitting the bottom would be to keep from starting down it.
As someone who, indeed, argues that we as a society ought to provide X and Y to everyone but gets frustrated when asked “but what about Z”, I’ll say that it’s hard not to sympathize.Report
That’s a pretty odd argument. If you agree that we have some obligation to provide X and Y but not Z, it seems very strange to me that you would rather not provide X and Y than X+Y+Z. Over-meeting your obligations is worse than not meeting them at all?Report
It’s more the realization that comes in answer to the question “how can you think that Z is not an obligation if you agree that X and Y are?”
“You know what? You’re right!”
I’m not defending it, mind. I’m trying to explain it.Report
So there entire randroid argument is based on a logical fallacy????? To be clear, a slippery slope argument is a form of strawman argument. In healthcare that is pretty darn obvious. There will always be lines drawn by somebody about what is covered and what isn’t. So somehow that is a problem if gov is involved ???? Any solution/idea/concept can be criticized as wrong/bad/evil because it could mutate into something worse. Traffic lights!!!! Lordy if we let the evil gov tell us when we can stop and go, soon they will be telling us when we can leave our houses and where we can live.
Or to put it another way, there will always be disagreements on how to implement some things, so we just shouldn’t do them. The positives that might come from implementing reform are irrelevant because there will always be a disagreement on some things. Unless we have perfect agreement, we cannot do reform. Whether to cover x or y is an implementation question, not an issue about the principle or the concept.Report
Many of the Randroid arguments are based on logical fallacies, Greginak. (Would that the Randroids were unique!)
Again, I see Rand as a response to Stalinism. Looking and Rand outside of this context (as many Randroids do) will result in some wacky conclusions.
My own personal take on health care is that technology costs money but information ought to be free (it *WANTS!* to be free!) and, as such, I believe in two tiers for health care.
Technology that is X years old (sometimes I say 10, sometimes I say 7) ought to be provided more or less at cost to anyone who needs it (and we can subsidize those without even the means to pay for this old tech). Sure, you wouldn’t get the bleeding edge stuff, but you would be promised not only a basic level of health care but a constantly improving basic level of health care.
Then I tend to get asked about “so what if a child (a little girl!) gets a disease that a treatment exists for but it isn’t 7/10 years old yet? You think this little girl should die? Do you want this little girl to die? It’s an easy question to answer: Should This Little Girl Die?”
And it ceases to be a question of providing a basic level of healthcare but a theodicy question where we have it as a given that evil exists and that I have the power of argument to provide health care to prevent this evil… and the fundamental question comes:
“Are you Good?”Report
Good thing the Christian answer to the theodicy question is, “It’s her own fault she’s sick.” That really lets you off the hook there.Report
Let’s laugh and point at the stupid Christians together!
“Ha ha! Where’s your Jebus now?”
I’m so very glad that we aren’t like them. Aren’t you?Report
Inordinately.Report
For the record, the Christian answer to the Theodicy question is *NOT* “It’s her own fault she’s sick.”
There are several different answers to the inconsistent triad and, get this, not all of them end up denying the existence of evil (as “it’s her own fault” ends up denying). Kushner embraced the whole “God isn’t all powerful” answer in his bestseller _When Bad Things Happen To Good People_ (that was subsequently embraced by the mainline protestants). Wiesel’s (amazing, put a hold on it at your local library now) _The Trial Of God_ came to the conclusion that God was not Good (though, indeed, he remained God) (which was pretty much ignored by the mainline Protestants but was still out there enough for someone like me to be able to find it).
While it’s true that the answer that most mainline Christianity comes to is a squishy Max Lucado “we only think it’s evil, we do it to ourselves” denial of the existence of evil, there are some somewhat more robust denials of the existence of evil out there. The whole “we don’t have God’s perspective” argument is one that is fair, I’d think. The whole “this is the best of all possible worlds” argument has a number of holes demonstrated quite ably by Candide but… well… it does feel like Candide’s horse-laugh response doesn’t address the nuances in the argument that ought be looked at fairly. (Of course, sometimes a horse-laugh is sufficient rebuttal.) The whole “we don’t know how it ends, yet” argument is a fair one.
Of course, if you are a moral nihilist (and who isn’t???), you know that it’s a silly question in the first place because God isn’t all-powerful (he doesn’t exist) *AND* God isn’t omni-benevolent (he doesn’t exist) *AND* evil doesn’t exist (outside of being a social construct like ‘gender’).
But, that said, insofar as there is a Christian answer to the Theodicy question, it oughtn’t be described as “it’s her own fault she’s sick”. There are tons of pages of wrestling with the problem in the tradition. Mega-tons.Report
You give Christians too much credit, and your comment is far too long.
That said, anyone who wants to diffuse the theodicy argument by agreeing that God probably isn’t actually one of the three things has my vote for something resembling intellectual consistency. Perspective arguments, though, are completely lazy. They are logically equivalent to “I don’t know how to prove you’re wrong so I’m not going to try.” My own theodicy argument goes something like: you can’t be smart, intellectually honest, and Christian. That pisses off a lot of people who like to think they’re all three, but it’s still true.Report
Yay, dogma.Report
Careful Ryan me lad. You’re starting to sound like the fundies yourself.Report
And you’re starting to sound like Andrew Sullivan. I’ll take Dawkins, thanks.Report
Nonsense, Sullivan is at least thirty times as articulate as I (and thirty times as old, HAH!). Though he and I both are married to men now and spend far too much time on the internets so there are some commonalties. But I hate beards and have never visited P-town.
So you’re a fundamental atheist? Fair enough, no point in me warning you about sounding like one when you are one. I withdraw my warning. Inveigle away.Report
I try my best to be nice to people who believe wrong things – I myself believe a lot of wrong things, I’m sure – but I am not inclined to take the wrongs things themselves very seriously. People who believe Christianity is true deserve respect; Christianity itself deserves to be laughed off the stage for the dangerous, lunatic farce it is. Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile those two things.Report
>”People who believe Christianity is true deserve respect; Christianity itself deserves to be laughed off the stage for the dangerous, lunatic farce it is.” <
Perhaps you could square that with "You can’t be smart, intellectually honest, and Christian"? Seems pretty contradictory to me.
Now, I myself am no Christian, far from it. But if we're going to talk about intellectual seriousness I dare say the only honest answer to the God question is I don't know and neither do you. So from my POV Dawkins is at the same level of fundamentalism and close mindedness as Falwell; just at the opposite end.Report
>People who believe Christianity is true deserve respect; Christianity itself deserves to be laughed off the stage for the dangerous, lunatic farce it is.”
Perhaps you could square that with “You can’t be smart, intellectually honest, and Christian”? Seems pretty contradictory to me.
Now, I myself am no Christian, far from it. But if we’re going to talk about intellectual seriousness I dare say the only honest answer to the God question is I don’t know and neither do you. So from my POV Dawkins is at the same level of fundamentalism and close mindedness as Falwell; just at the opposite end.Report
That’s sort of my point. It’s hard to reconcile the two things. I don’t always do that well. I’m not sure how.
As for the rest, that’s just crazy. It’s like saying the only honest answer to the unicorn-in-a-tutu question is I don’t know and neither do you. You’re technically right, in that neither of us can produce a unicorn in a tutu or demonstrate that no one ever will, but it’s still the same basic lunacy. The only difference is that no one hallucinates unicorns giving them instructions, and definitely no one tries to make anyone else live by the unicorn’s commands.
Dawkins isn’t close-minded; he just doesn’t believe the fever dreams of maniacs should dictate how he lives.Report
Ah but we’re not talking about Unicorns in Tutu’s, we’re talking about the origin of everything that is and why everything continues to be the way it is instead of spontaneously turning into nothing. On this question science doesn’t have an answer and by current philosophical standards can not have an answer because the religious can always ask “And then what?” Suffice to say it’s a more concrete question and yes the only truly honest answer is that we don’t know.
I’ll be the first to agree that organized religions have a serious disconnect between being able to philosophically defend the notion of god and connecting that intellectually defensible God to any notion of revelation or commandments. But that doesn’t give Dawkins (or you) an excuse for heaping such scorn on the poor dears. It’s not like you’re verifiably any more right than they are.
Oh and also telling Jay his post is too long is mean.Report
Imagining an invisible magician who lives in the sky and gives us orders does not strike me as even a reasonable attempt at explaining the cosmology of the universe. It might as well be a unicorn in a tutu. If the unicorn is a crazy thing to believe, why isn’t invisible magician equally crazy?Report
If your point is that it’s not intellectually possible to debunk – or even deeply discredit – the idea that, since the universe must have come from somewhere, it’s equally plausible that is sprang into existence and that it was created by some being, I guess I’m with you. Good luck getting from there to Christianity.Report
In the interests of not inflicting a lengthy post on you (and also it’s off topic) I will spare you the detailed explanation of why characterizing the idea of God as “an invisible magician who lives in the sky and gives us orders” is completely off the mark and horribly simplistic in a manner that doesn’t reflect well on you. Especially since, squishy agnostic that I am, I’d probably get my terminology wrong and then Chris Dierkes would laugh at me and steal my lunch money.
I’ll close by advising that in an argument it is very helpful to know what your opponent’s position actually is. In the very least it gives you something to aim at and makes you sound thoughtful and well informed. Give my warmest to Dawkins.Report
My opponents’ position is that God exists. That alone should discredit everything else that comes out of his mouth. If you wonder why Dawkins is so angry all the time, it’s because he has to live in a world where we’re actually expected to speak in a civilized manner to people who believe this lunacy.Report
I rest my case.Report
The assumption that the other person isn’t seeing a unicorn in a tutu because you don’t see one isn’t necessarily fair.
Someone claiming to have heard the voice of God is certainly not anything near sufficient reason to get you to change your life… but telling them that it’s not near sufficient for them to change their own is a dick move.Report
I’m fascinated by the idea of a long back-and-forth on the existence of God in a post that is about health insurance and a dead economist.
Carry on.Report
It (like many things) is my fault.
I saw an analogy between the whole healthcare argument as analagous to the theodicy argument (“you have the power to save this little girl who has a disease through no fault of her own… will you use it?”) and it sort of took off from there.Report
Jaybird, dude, you’re p*ssing on my reading of Herr Schelling’s comments gleamed by Herr Voegelin in his The Order of Human Consciiousness, that goes, “The considerations that lead to process-theology arise when consciousness is understood to have these two structrues: the capacity for intentional reflection on objects in the world, and the capacity for being drawn beyond the partiality of an egological science toward the impartial view of the All, gained in experiences of “meditation.”
In other words, palsy, your thinking while expressive and expansive is quite derailed.
Can I have an Amen?Report
My experiences with process theology all came at a time when I was not yet a “vector guy”. At the time, it struck me as an attempt to square the circle and pretend that good meant different things to different entities (when, at the time, I *KNEW* that good was a universal thing).
Maybe I should go back to it.
Eh, without a god to go back to it with, there doesn’t seem much point.
That said, I’m sure you will have more “amen”s than a partially covered box of Maruchan.Report
Jaybird,
Well, Herr Schelling gives me a real headache and something like an intellectual woody.
“Maybe I should go back to it,” well yeah! And the “goin’ back” is the anamentic experience because the now doesn’t exist, it’s always the “past” that we, as being, are incorporated in the world of spatio-temporality. It is the ground of being that you recognize in the anamentic experience (the remembering…it’s Plato’s deal), an acknowledgement of-at the very least-the agathon (the good). Schelling and Voegelin recognized the process-theological “attempt as a metaphysics that interprets the transcendent system of the world as the immanent process of a divine substance, is the only meaningful systematic philosophy.”
Here, palsy, “At the time, it struck me as an attempt to square the circle and pretend that good meant different things to different entities (when, at the time, I *KNEW* that good was a universal thing).” …you are expressing the spiritual crisis of the West. And, while it’s a fascinating phenomenon to see among you young ones, it’s sad in the sense that truth, order, being are able to be experienced and known. No sound philosophy of human existence denies the transcendent, denies God.
My prayers for you.Report
Yes rand is a response to stalin. Unfortunately randroids still seem to think stalin is alive and kicking. Marx was response to his times. Each have solid knocks at the evils they faced. But times have changed and the world has evolved, but true ideologues don’t seem to want to see that, instead they want to fit everything into their preconceived notions.
If all you have is a giant, long winded screed fit for use as a doorstop, you see everything you disagree with as communism.Report
Eh, they’re like furries.
It’s not my thing but it’s not my place to tell them to stop. Everybody needs a hobby and they are mostly harmless, if creepy.Report
Fair enough. well just as long as none ever get positions of power where there can influence the financial health of the world. Ooops.Report
Would it be accurate to say that a lot of the misunderstandings of “conservative”/classical-liberal thinkers like Hayek from people on the Left come from taking people on the Right’s misunderstandings as being what they actually say? I mean if your only exposure to Hayek is having The Road To Serfdom shoved in your face by some College Republican calling you a Liberal Fascist…what are you supposed to think?Report
Yes, it would be correct to say that. I seem to remember that a year or so ago, a relatively prominent Lefty blogger took the time to write up a full review of RTS and wound up finding relatively little to disagree with (which is not to say that found nothing to disagree with) once he was able to separate the way in which the book is cited versus what it actually says.
Indeed, if you hadn’t noticed, one of the underlying themes of much of my writing, especially in the earlier days of this site, has been an attempt to “rescue Hayek from the clutches of the Right.”
Which reminds me. This review of a socialist’s take on Hayek is well-worth the read:
http://reason.com/archives/2007/07/01/leftists-for-hayek/1Report
I’d noticed, yes, and I’ve always supported that endeavor.
Thanks for the link – this is something to think about, and I’d like to read that book.Report
Good to hear – the left in my left-libertarianism has been rather silent of late.Report
Beta-blockers are a lifestyle drug.Report
No, I just think the “limits” you imagine in the Constitution don’t exist.
Sounds an awful lot like Dick Cheney there.Report
Let me just say “ouch” in response to this comment.
Nice 1, as the kidz say.Report
Nice quotation, Mark. Thanks for passing it along.Report