Thinking of it, to a European such health insurance issue is very much related to making society more secure. We do not only fight crime at the back end, more police etc..., but also at the front end. Creating social conditions in which people get a positive view on society, which reduces the chance they would want to do something against society.
As an example: If we would not have mandatory health insurance, a young family may think they do not need it (yet). If then one of them needs to go to hospital, the family gets in deep debt which may bring their spendable budget as low as that of a very poor family. Children growing up in these poor conditions, while knowing they could have had a better life, can become very negative about society, feeling they are mistreated. Whether this feeling is justified or not, that does not matter. Fact is that we have created people with a negative attitude towards society, who will have little problems with taking something back from that society.
@Skyboat
I am not sure if it is a typical American thing, but i noticed you (partly) arguing along the lines of morality. I think we do that less here, more along the lines of practicality, as you may have noticed from me too.
Kind regards, Vincent
Those Dumb Democrats
Re: Those Dumb Democrats
Well, I am kind of a "mathematical" conservative ... means, if I point out some math failures in a concept, a "liberal" loves, I am called a "bad conservative" wherever that would be in SkyBoat's spectrum description.
So, Obamacare was supposed to give 30 million people who hadn't before access to health insurance. That sounds nice and quite "progressive" in the way, SkyBoat described it as "thinking into the future".
Reality: A lot of people lsot their old insurance and had to go for the so-called Bronze plans. Those include $10,000 co-pay per year. So effectively, now about 90 million people have health insurance only after they paid $10,000 from their own pocket in this year. Most people don't have $10,000 just lying around and only those who would have can afford silver or gold plans.
The second problem is, that Obamacare has endless ists about what is covered and what not. SkyBoat could, if he can overcome his ideological problems with telling it, mayby elaborate on the access to a certain migraine medicament.
The third problem is that Obamacare includes costs for example for contraceptives and also abortions in a number of cases. Whether contraceptives or certain contraceptives are acceptibel on a religious level, I will have to leave to more religious people than I am, but well, the idea to have to pay for someone else's contraceptives first and then, if they didn't use it for killing babies is against my grain. That's maybe a personal opinion, I know a lot of "progressives" who fight hard for even "late abortions" means abortions up to the point of natural term end. See, I am an older guy. Back in the days, if you went for a one-night-stand, gentlemen brought condoms. So, in my sometimes simplified views, we wouldn't have the problem if gentlemen still would bring condoms. I don't know about conservatives, I hear rarely the gfs or wives of conservatives yell for abortion rights because they or their male significant others forgot or messed up with contraceptives. Bt if you go over the boards, you hear always those very "progressive" girls and ladies complain and argue, it's their body (actually the body hacked to pieces in their womb isn't, it's the baby's body) and they can't afford to ruin their life with a child ... okay, I suppose, the chance, a "progressive" girl is more likely to sleep with a "progressive" partner who, opposite to what a gentleman should do, didn't bring the condoms.
So, the lack of manners obviously is now the standard and leads to additional costs in the healthcare system. Maybe a "progressive" gentleman can explain why they don't bring condoms anymore?
Now, a little math on the systematic level:
The costs of health expenses be h, the costs of administration in the health care system (hospital adiminstrators, clerks and so on) be c1 and the costs in government to administrate the overhead of government run health care be c2 then
total=h+c1+c2
Not really complex, right? Here is the rub. We have a limited amount of money, lets call it tmax. Thus
tmax >= total
=> tmax >= h+c1+c2
So, the bigger c1 or c2 grow, the smaller h has to be ... in other words, the additional costs of an additional government level to handle the additional bureaucratic effort cuts directly in the resources available for actual health care. If you for example consider that alone the Obamacare webservice has cost roughly $500 million, then those are $500 million missing in actual health care resources. And the about $50 million costs to operate this webservice per year are another $50 million missing for actual medical treatments per year. And we didn't even talk about the additional government employees to handle all of that. So to save the first dollar with Obamacare, there has to be less costs on the c1 or h levels to the amount of c2. Since h isn't decreasing unless you cut actual services, this means, you could cut maybe a few dollars out of c1, the adminsitration costs in the health care system, but you can go only so far till you reach the point, nobody knows where a patient was stashed away in a hospital. Beyond this point, you can't cut more from c1. Even worse, since Obamacare also burdened the c1 level with additional work (now all the co-pays have to be tracked, there are more forms than ever to deal with the c2 level and all the regulations have to be checked and observed), the minimum of the c1 level amount was increased by Obamacare. And of course an increase in c1 also cuts in the remaining amounts, that is what is left to cover h, the actual medical treatment of patients.
All those problems are the reason, why all countries who have a long history with that kind of solidarity health care systems try to reduce the c2 level. Only the "progressives" (when they voted through Obamacare, they were still calling themselves "liberals" which got in the process an even worse taste here, so they changed to "progressives") in the US established MORE costs on the C2 level.
Get me wrong, I am all for health care for everybody. But I understand as health care actual treatments, not TV ads for political acceptance, a half a billion website (which was made by a company that is led by a college friend of Michelle Obama. The company sits in Canada) and not some ten-thousand additional government employees. And for sure, I don't understand a mandatory plan with usage restrictions that make the use of the insurance bascally impossible for some million people as a working solution.
Looking at the math, the "progressive" solution for health care has a lot in common with the "progressive" approach on terrorism, mass shootings and other kinds of violence. It is loud, lfahsy, useless for the people actually hit by the problem and it creates more systematic victims. Not because the basic idea was wrong, but because things were instead of being done in little steps int he right order in one big flashy "century legislation" to make votes and entries in history books as primary goal. Now, you tell me how this is "liberal" or "progressive" in any way?
So, Obamacare was supposed to give 30 million people who hadn't before access to health insurance. That sounds nice and quite "progressive" in the way, SkyBoat described it as "thinking into the future".
Reality: A lot of people lsot their old insurance and had to go for the so-called Bronze plans. Those include $10,000 co-pay per year. So effectively, now about 90 million people have health insurance only after they paid $10,000 from their own pocket in this year. Most people don't have $10,000 just lying around and only those who would have can afford silver or gold plans.
The second problem is, that Obamacare has endless ists about what is covered and what not. SkyBoat could, if he can overcome his ideological problems with telling it, mayby elaborate on the access to a certain migraine medicament.
The third problem is that Obamacare includes costs for example for contraceptives and also abortions in a number of cases. Whether contraceptives or certain contraceptives are acceptibel on a religious level, I will have to leave to more religious people than I am, but well, the idea to have to pay for someone else's contraceptives first and then, if they didn't use it for killing babies is against my grain. That's maybe a personal opinion, I know a lot of "progressives" who fight hard for even "late abortions" means abortions up to the point of natural term end. See, I am an older guy. Back in the days, if you went for a one-night-stand, gentlemen brought condoms. So, in my sometimes simplified views, we wouldn't have the problem if gentlemen still would bring condoms. I don't know about conservatives, I hear rarely the gfs or wives of conservatives yell for abortion rights because they or their male significant others forgot or messed up with contraceptives. Bt if you go over the boards, you hear always those very "progressive" girls and ladies complain and argue, it's their body (actually the body hacked to pieces in their womb isn't, it's the baby's body) and they can't afford to ruin their life with a child ... okay, I suppose, the chance, a "progressive" girl is more likely to sleep with a "progressive" partner who, opposite to what a gentleman should do, didn't bring the condoms.
So, the lack of manners obviously is now the standard and leads to additional costs in the healthcare system. Maybe a "progressive" gentleman can explain why they don't bring condoms anymore?
Now, a little math on the systematic level:
The costs of health expenses be h, the costs of administration in the health care system (hospital adiminstrators, clerks and so on) be c1 and the costs in government to administrate the overhead of government run health care be c2 then
total=h+c1+c2
Not really complex, right? Here is the rub. We have a limited amount of money, lets call it tmax. Thus
tmax >= total
=> tmax >= h+c1+c2
So, the bigger c1 or c2 grow, the smaller h has to be ... in other words, the additional costs of an additional government level to handle the additional bureaucratic effort cuts directly in the resources available for actual health care. If you for example consider that alone the Obamacare webservice has cost roughly $500 million, then those are $500 million missing in actual health care resources. And the about $50 million costs to operate this webservice per year are another $50 million missing for actual medical treatments per year. And we didn't even talk about the additional government employees to handle all of that. So to save the first dollar with Obamacare, there has to be less costs on the c1 or h levels to the amount of c2. Since h isn't decreasing unless you cut actual services, this means, you could cut maybe a few dollars out of c1, the adminsitration costs in the health care system, but you can go only so far till you reach the point, nobody knows where a patient was stashed away in a hospital. Beyond this point, you can't cut more from c1. Even worse, since Obamacare also burdened the c1 level with additional work (now all the co-pays have to be tracked, there are more forms than ever to deal with the c2 level and all the regulations have to be checked and observed), the minimum of the c1 level amount was increased by Obamacare. And of course an increase in c1 also cuts in the remaining amounts, that is what is left to cover h, the actual medical treatment of patients.
All those problems are the reason, why all countries who have a long history with that kind of solidarity health care systems try to reduce the c2 level. Only the "progressives" (when they voted through Obamacare, they were still calling themselves "liberals" which got in the process an even worse taste here, so they changed to "progressives") in the US established MORE costs on the C2 level.
Get me wrong, I am all for health care for everybody. But I understand as health care actual treatments, not TV ads for political acceptance, a half a billion website (which was made by a company that is led by a college friend of Michelle Obama. The company sits in Canada) and not some ten-thousand additional government employees. And for sure, I don't understand a mandatory plan with usage restrictions that make the use of the insurance bascally impossible for some million people as a working solution.
Looking at the math, the "progressive" solution for health care has a lot in common with the "progressive" approach on terrorism, mass shootings and other kinds of violence. It is loud, lfahsy, useless for the people actually hit by the problem and it creates more systematic victims. Not because the basic idea was wrong, but because things were instead of being done in little steps int he right order in one big flashy "century legislation" to make votes and entries in history books as primary goal. Now, you tell me how this is "liberal" or "progressive" in any way?
Free speech can never be achieved by dictatorial measures!
Re: Those Dumb Democrats
Now Jwocky also goes on the moral path. Must indeed be an American thing then. Saying people should behave in a certain manner (condoms) is not really going to make it happen. The problem does not go away. We do not want to kill unborn children and we do not want children to grow up in an environment where they are not wanted. Dilemma. The balance can go two ways. Currently it is to the not growing up being unwanted.
Pick and choose in health insurance is difficult to do. If everyone had a say, then we would get a very empty package. So i accept that i pay for homeopathic stuff i will never use myself. Probably i use things that the homeopaths would not use. So i trust the balance is reasonable.
And some things seem silly. I can pay for contraceptives myself. But if you hear the argument behind it, it starts to become reasonable. If people have to buy them themselves it is often not going to happen, and we get more of the unwanted babies problem. Then i say, well, never mind i use it myself too, so no real financial harm done here.
The administrative overhead argument can be a very valid one. I do not know the American facts. But that should not lead to abolishing health care for everybody all together. The system must be made better, or a good alternative proposal should be made, of course with the element of health care for everybody in it.
Kind regards, Vincent
Pick and choose in health insurance is difficult to do. If everyone had a say, then we would get a very empty package. So i accept that i pay for homeopathic stuff i will never use myself. Probably i use things that the homeopaths would not use. So i trust the balance is reasonable.
And some things seem silly. I can pay for contraceptives myself. But if you hear the argument behind it, it starts to become reasonable. If people have to buy them themselves it is often not going to happen, and we get more of the unwanted babies problem. Then i say, well, never mind i use it myself too, so no real financial harm done here.
The administrative overhead argument can be a very valid one. I do not know the American facts. But that should not lead to abolishing health care for everybody all together. The system must be made better, or a good alternative proposal should be made, of course with the element of health care for everybody in it.
Kind regards, Vincent
-
SkyBoat
- Posts: 311
- Joined: Sat Sep 12, 2015 3:54 pm
- Location: Eugene, Oregon; Home Airports: KEUG, KPDX, KXTA
- Contact:
Re: Those Dumb Democrats
@Jwocky—
Let’s start where I started in the last post:
Your analysis is, for the most part accurate, but at the same time it is just the old saw Conservatives have been using to justify scrapping the ACA without remembering honestly what the American health care system was like before the law was passed and refusing to admit the successes it has had since it was implemented.
You lack the picture of what the health care system in the United States was like before the ACA was passed. I was here. I lived it. I worked in it.
Prior to the ACA, the health care insurance companies had gotten to the point where they had built themselves a system where they held all the cards. They maintained lists of pre-existing conditions that were unreasonably long where you could be denied coverage. I know that from personal experience. They could, in many cases, in the fine print, cancel your insurance at any time, if they decided you had become too expensive for their bottom line. Getting medications approved often involved a long preauthorization process. The same applied for procedures. Physicians (and I have a good friend who was practicing during this time and he has related to me many horror stories) spent more time ordering tests that were in the category of CYA (cover your ass) to avoid the possibility of malpractice suits, than often treating patients. The list of insurance horror stories went on and on.
If you think the basic level insurance policies are bad now, you should have seen them then. Not only did they have ridiculously high deductibles, often the breadth of coverage was so narrow, the insurance company often got off scot free from paying anything for a hospital stay. And God help you if you had to have care in an ICU. If you didn’t have insurance, the hospital could go after you through collection agencies and millions of people were forced into bankruptcy and lost their homes because of aggressive hospital collection practices.
The fortunate people had insurance through their employers, but there were no controls over the insurance companies over how much they could raise their rates every year, and so it became commonplace for them to jack up their premiums in the double-digits, sometimes in excess of 30%. As a result, smaller companies found it harder and harder to find plans they could afford and/or carriers that would accept them as a group.
And that was only the insurance part of the picture. Healthcare costs from the pharmaceutical companies were also being raised at huge increases, the same with durable medical equipment, hospital supplies, and the list goes on. Hospitals, in turn, were raising their prices and charging ridiculous fees for things like bandages.
In short, the system was out of control and unsustainable. It is not a stretch of the truth to state that millions of people in the country were living with serious illnesses that were going untreated that could be treated, therefore not only ruining their lives, but removing them from being productive members of society, as well as hundreds of thousands of individuals unnecessarily dying because they were denied treatment by insurance companies. Every single year.
Something had to be done to stop this upward spiral before the entire thing collapsed the economy.
The core of the ACA was to get the insurance companies to the table and to get them to agree to a set of rules. Most people don’t know that. Then, the other major players, the hospitals, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, and others were brought in for consultations about what they would contribute to this new law. What they got was a patchwork, but the most important concessions from the insurance companies were agreement for the 4 tier plan, the elimination of pre-existing conditions, the portability of insurance, and agreement to submit their rate increases to the state insurance commissions for approval. Those were the big things. Hospitals agreed to totally revamp the way they structure their fee system. Pharmaceuticals agreed to greater scrutiny—although in my opinion, this is one of the weakest areas of the law.
But, then to take this patchwork of changes, it had to be put into some kind of coherent whole. The idea is based on the proven medical doctrine of “herd immunity.” In other words, with vaccinations, the more people who are immune to a virus, the fewer get the illness, so the fewer who get the illness had the chance to pass it one to someone who hasn’t been vaccinated. The ACA is built on the same principle. The more Americans who have access to health care EARLY in the stages of an illness because they have insurance have a greater chance of it being successfully treated, being cured, being able to return to their productive life, and therefore, reduce the medical costs and the costs to society through lost production, wages, and taxes.
And that, is a Progressive approach to health care.
This is a pretty simple concept, but, because of the Republican’s adherence, in my opinion, to the Kristol Doctrine, they are placing their political ambitions above the health needs of the nation. I find that objectionable in the strongest sense possible.
So, as we have it now, the ACA is an imperfect law. The irony is that in the five years since it was passed, virtually all of the problems could have been resolved, except for the fact of the stonewalling Republican obstructionism, the waste of millions of dollars of tax payer’s money in 50 attempts to repeal the law, but taking no responsibility for that waste.
Nevertheless, the ACA is working. There are millions of Americans now insured who were not insured before, and even though, yes, some of the plans are not stellar, compared to the plans before the ACA, they actually are real insurance. The real reason the projections have not been met lies squarely on the shoulders of the governors and legislators in those states who have refused to participate in the Exchanges, denying their citizens the ease of access to their right to health care insurance. And the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) is reporting annually that the costs of the ACA is actually bending in a positive direction, that it has not been a job killer, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s lying mantra notwithstanding.
Regarding abortions. You may object on moral grounds to abortions. I’m not crazy about them either. But, it is the law of the land. The fact they are included in the ACA is an extension of that but is not by any stretch of rational logic to get rid of the entire law based on one section you do not like. If the Republicans were proposing a reasonable objection to abortion coverage being included in the ACA, they would be working to find a way to have it removed. But their intransigent bullying of trying to kill then entire law has been their own worst enemy, causing the Pro-Choice side to dig in their heels and harden their position just as much.
I’m well aware of the objection to the other issue of Catholics who don’t want to have their taxes going for contraceptives and abortions. I worked in a Catholic hospital for nearly 19 years. But that, in my opinion, is part of the price of living in a democratic republic. We all have to pay taxes for things we don’t like. I don’t like to have my taxes to go to building nuclear bombs or to pay farmers not to plant certain crops, or to subsidize certain gigantic global industries that then go and dodge taxes. I could make a moral argument against each of these things just as strong as the objection to abortion or contraceptives. And this past spring, Pope Francis did just that in his Encyclical. And I agree with him.
As for your views on men and condoms, I’m sure the condom industry is doing just fine. Just check any big box store family care section. However, your views on women and contraceptives, at least here in the United States, are a good 50 years out of date. If you made that argument to a group of women my daughter’s age, you’d get laughed out of the room and told never to come back.
One last thing, JWocky. Your dig about my migraines was completely inappropriate. Don’t ever do that again. Saavy?
@KL-666-- Your observation about our arguing about morals is accurate. We see our nation as being founded on moral as well as philosophical principles, and though we have been arguing about them and which ones are more important since 1776, we will never give them up.
Let’s start where I started in the last post:
Let me be honest, the ACA was a series of compromises because there was not the political support to essentially revamp and expand the U.S. Medicare program to the entire populace. I was well aware of the issues in the ACA because, unlike (I hope they were just blustering) a majority of the Republicans in Congress claimed at the time, I read all 1100+ pages of the thing.
Your analysis is, for the most part accurate, but at the same time it is just the old saw Conservatives have been using to justify scrapping the ACA without remembering honestly what the American health care system was like before the law was passed and refusing to admit the successes it has had since it was implemented.
You lack the picture of what the health care system in the United States was like before the ACA was passed. I was here. I lived it. I worked in it.
Prior to the ACA, the health care insurance companies had gotten to the point where they had built themselves a system where they held all the cards. They maintained lists of pre-existing conditions that were unreasonably long where you could be denied coverage. I know that from personal experience. They could, in many cases, in the fine print, cancel your insurance at any time, if they decided you had become too expensive for their bottom line. Getting medications approved often involved a long preauthorization process. The same applied for procedures. Physicians (and I have a good friend who was practicing during this time and he has related to me many horror stories) spent more time ordering tests that were in the category of CYA (cover your ass) to avoid the possibility of malpractice suits, than often treating patients. The list of insurance horror stories went on and on.
If you think the basic level insurance policies are bad now, you should have seen them then. Not only did they have ridiculously high deductibles, often the breadth of coverage was so narrow, the insurance company often got off scot free from paying anything for a hospital stay. And God help you if you had to have care in an ICU. If you didn’t have insurance, the hospital could go after you through collection agencies and millions of people were forced into bankruptcy and lost their homes because of aggressive hospital collection practices.
The fortunate people had insurance through their employers, but there were no controls over the insurance companies over how much they could raise their rates every year, and so it became commonplace for them to jack up their premiums in the double-digits, sometimes in excess of 30%. As a result, smaller companies found it harder and harder to find plans they could afford and/or carriers that would accept them as a group.
And that was only the insurance part of the picture. Healthcare costs from the pharmaceutical companies were also being raised at huge increases, the same with durable medical equipment, hospital supplies, and the list goes on. Hospitals, in turn, were raising their prices and charging ridiculous fees for things like bandages.
In short, the system was out of control and unsustainable. It is not a stretch of the truth to state that millions of people in the country were living with serious illnesses that were going untreated that could be treated, therefore not only ruining their lives, but removing them from being productive members of society, as well as hundreds of thousands of individuals unnecessarily dying because they were denied treatment by insurance companies. Every single year.
Something had to be done to stop this upward spiral before the entire thing collapsed the economy.
The core of the ACA was to get the insurance companies to the table and to get them to agree to a set of rules. Most people don’t know that. Then, the other major players, the hospitals, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, and others were brought in for consultations about what they would contribute to this new law. What they got was a patchwork, but the most important concessions from the insurance companies were agreement for the 4 tier plan, the elimination of pre-existing conditions, the portability of insurance, and agreement to submit their rate increases to the state insurance commissions for approval. Those were the big things. Hospitals agreed to totally revamp the way they structure their fee system. Pharmaceuticals agreed to greater scrutiny—although in my opinion, this is one of the weakest areas of the law.
But, then to take this patchwork of changes, it had to be put into some kind of coherent whole. The idea is based on the proven medical doctrine of “herd immunity.” In other words, with vaccinations, the more people who are immune to a virus, the fewer get the illness, so the fewer who get the illness had the chance to pass it one to someone who hasn’t been vaccinated. The ACA is built on the same principle. The more Americans who have access to health care EARLY in the stages of an illness because they have insurance have a greater chance of it being successfully treated, being cured, being able to return to their productive life, and therefore, reduce the medical costs and the costs to society through lost production, wages, and taxes.
And that, is a Progressive approach to health care.
This is a pretty simple concept, but, because of the Republican’s adherence, in my opinion, to the Kristol Doctrine, they are placing their political ambitions above the health needs of the nation. I find that objectionable in the strongest sense possible.
So, as we have it now, the ACA is an imperfect law. The irony is that in the five years since it was passed, virtually all of the problems could have been resolved, except for the fact of the stonewalling Republican obstructionism, the waste of millions of dollars of tax payer’s money in 50 attempts to repeal the law, but taking no responsibility for that waste.
Nevertheless, the ACA is working. There are millions of Americans now insured who were not insured before, and even though, yes, some of the plans are not stellar, compared to the plans before the ACA, they actually are real insurance. The real reason the projections have not been met lies squarely on the shoulders of the governors and legislators in those states who have refused to participate in the Exchanges, denying their citizens the ease of access to their right to health care insurance. And the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) is reporting annually that the costs of the ACA is actually bending in a positive direction, that it has not been a job killer, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s lying mantra notwithstanding.
Regarding abortions. You may object on moral grounds to abortions. I’m not crazy about them either. But, it is the law of the land. The fact they are included in the ACA is an extension of that but is not by any stretch of rational logic to get rid of the entire law based on one section you do not like. If the Republicans were proposing a reasonable objection to abortion coverage being included in the ACA, they would be working to find a way to have it removed. But their intransigent bullying of trying to kill then entire law has been their own worst enemy, causing the Pro-Choice side to dig in their heels and harden their position just as much.
I’m well aware of the objection to the other issue of Catholics who don’t want to have their taxes going for contraceptives and abortions. I worked in a Catholic hospital for nearly 19 years. But that, in my opinion, is part of the price of living in a democratic republic. We all have to pay taxes for things we don’t like. I don’t like to have my taxes to go to building nuclear bombs or to pay farmers not to plant certain crops, or to subsidize certain gigantic global industries that then go and dodge taxes. I could make a moral argument against each of these things just as strong as the objection to abortion or contraceptives. And this past spring, Pope Francis did just that in his Encyclical. And I agree with him.
As for your views on men and condoms, I’m sure the condom industry is doing just fine. Just check any big box store family care section. However, your views on women and contraceptives, at least here in the United States, are a good 50 years out of date. If you made that argument to a group of women my daughter’s age, you’d get laughed out of the room and told never to come back.
One last thing, JWocky. Your dig about my migraines was completely inappropriate. Don’t ever do that again. Saavy?
@KL-666-- Your observation about our arguing about morals is accurate. We see our nation as being founded on moral as well as philosophical principles, and though we have been arguing about them and which ones are more important since 1776, we will never give them up.
SkyBoat
"Dream no small dream; it lacks magic. Dream large. Then make the dream real."
Donald Douglas
"Dream no small dream; it lacks magic. Dream large. Then make the dream real."
Donald Douglas
Re: Those Dumb Democrats
Yes, but the problem with morals is that they tend to be very fixed in their position. They will not move to common grounds any time soon. Which is probably the cause of those big divisions in your country. Then i think a bit less morals and a bit more practicalities in the discussions might bring the country closer together. Kind of like with religion. Do the morals in private and the practicalities in public discussions.
Interesting to see that the lines of opinions are at least not completely separated by a wall between ideologies. The unreligious one being vehemently against abortion, and the religious one not completely against it. That leaves some room for hope on a less divided country.
Kind regards, Vincent
Interesting to see that the lines of opinions are at least not completely separated by a wall between ideologies. The unreligious one being vehemently against abortion, and the religious one not completely against it. That leaves some room for hope on a less divided country.
Kind regards, Vincent
-
SkyBoat
- Posts: 311
- Joined: Sat Sep 12, 2015 3:54 pm
- Location: Eugene, Oregon; Home Airports: KEUG, KPDX, KXTA
- Contact:
Re: Those Dumb Democrats
@KL-666--
Well, first take a look at how morality is defined:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality
As the definition states, it is the disjunction between right and wrong. You have within yourself, as it goes on to say, a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy. You tend to frame your code, if I am reading you correctly, as a set of practical principles that are flexible and can change over time, in how you define what is more right and more wrong. So that, by the definition, is your set of morals, which you use both in public and private. But morality and religion are not the same. In fact further down in Wikipedia article, it states:
So, here is an important distinction that most people don't make. Therefore, the debate that JWocky and I are having regarding morality is consistent because, for the most part, we are not advocating for a particular religious dogma. Now, we both mentioned issues regarding abortion that are very important in the Roman Catholic Church, but our comments were not to support Catholicism, but rather to argue two sides of the abortion issue, and the morality of certain kinds of practices that can happen during an abortion.
However, it is a bit ironic regarding your comment about our religiosity:
In America in general, those who are most opposed to abortion tend to be conservative and very religious, both Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians and Roman Catholics, and a few other Christian denominations. The supporters of a woman's right to have an abortion tend to be liberal/progressive and either from what we call mainline Protestant denominations or are not affiliated with any religious group at all. So it is an unusual happenstance that in our situation the religious/nonreligious affiliations are reversed. That, then, is a quick overview of the morals and religiosity issues here in the United States, as I see them.
Well, first take a look at how morality is defined:
Morality (from the Latin moralitas "manner, character, proper behavior") is the differentiation of intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are distinguished as proper and those that are improper: In other words, it is the disjunction between right and wrong.[1] Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion, or culture, or it can derive from a standard that a person believes should be universal.[2] Morality may also be specifically synonymous with "goodness" or "rightness."
Moral philosophy includes moral ontology, or the origin of morals, as well as moral epistemology, or what is known about morals. Different systems of expressing morality have been proposed, including deontological ethical systems which adhere to a set of established rules, and normative ethical systems which consider the merits of actions themselves. An example of normative ethical philosophy is the Golden Rule which states that, "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself."[3]
Immorality is the active opposition to morality (i.e. opposition to that which is good or right), while amorality is variously defined as an unawareness of, indifference toward, or disbelief in any set of moral standards or principles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality
As the definition states, it is the disjunction between right and wrong. You have within yourself, as it goes on to say, a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy. You tend to frame your code, if I am reading you correctly, as a set of practical principles that are flexible and can change over time, in how you define what is more right and more wrong. So that, by the definition, is your set of morals, which you use both in public and private. But morality and religion are not the same. In fact further down in Wikipedia article, it states:
Religion and morality are not synonymous. Morality does not depend upon religion although for some this is "an almost automatic assumption".[38] According to The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics, religion and morality "are to be defined differently and have no definitional connections with each other. Conceptually and in principle, morality and a religious value system are two distinct kinds of value systems or action guides."[39]
So, here is an important distinction that most people don't make. Therefore, the debate that JWocky and I are having regarding morality is consistent because, for the most part, we are not advocating for a particular religious dogma. Now, we both mentioned issues regarding abortion that are very important in the Roman Catholic Church, but our comments were not to support Catholicism, but rather to argue two sides of the abortion issue, and the morality of certain kinds of practices that can happen during an abortion.
However, it is a bit ironic regarding your comment about our religiosity:
The unreligious one being vehemently against abortion, and the religious one not completely against it. That leaves some room for hope on a less divided country.
In America in general, those who are most opposed to abortion tend to be conservative and very religious, both Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians and Roman Catholics, and a few other Christian denominations. The supporters of a woman's right to have an abortion tend to be liberal/progressive and either from what we call mainline Protestant denominations or are not affiliated with any religious group at all. So it is an unusual happenstance that in our situation the religious/nonreligious affiliations are reversed. That, then, is a quick overview of the morals and religiosity issues here in the United States, as I see them.
SkyBoat
"Dream no small dream; it lacks magic. Dream large. Then make the dream real."
Donald Douglas
"Dream no small dream; it lacks magic. Dream large. Then make the dream real."
Donald Douglas
Re: Those Dumb Democrats
Okay, you got me here sitting and scratching my head ...
First, clearing some misunderstandings here:
1.) A came to the US BEFORE ACA. So, opposite to what SkyBoat wrongfully assumes, I knew what health insurance was before. I was also, as writer, self-employed, so I had no health insurance via another employer but myself. I am very familiar with the problem.
2.) I said clearly, and I say it again, this time capitalized so that is doesn't get skipped agian: I AM ALL FOR HEALTH INSURANCE FOR EVERYBODY!!!!!
Don't make it look because I am a conservative, I aim just at killing ACA just for "political ambition". The math shows clearly why this system is bound to fail in the longer term. That is not "political", that is math. You can, as always, ignore math, but you do so at the risk of a whole nation in this case. So pleeeeeaaaase, do allow the hard reality of economical facts and mathematical certainties in this discussion, not only "the wish". That's the wrong order of things.
3.) What has "morale" to do with "manners"? Morale is an ethic estimation about what is good and what is bad, manners are a social consensus. Some manners are good, soem, well, lets say era dependant. I take the freedom to steal Lydiot's buzzline (I think, it was him, who used Martin Luther) as an example. Manners change obviously over time. Farting and belching would today probably not acceptable as an expression of compliment to the cook. So ... well, I spoke about "manners" and somehow it was re-interpreted as "moral". Personally, if you are a bachelor and out on the hunt, I recommend the use of condoms to avoid alimony claims and STDs. But then, that's no moralistic recommendation but a mere reasonable one.
4.) I got a bit confused about what SkyBoat wrote about religious and strongly religious and abortion. But then, from where I stand (I am not really a religious person, so I have some beliefs and I think, SkyBoat can vouch for my Bible knowledge, if needed, I can bring witnesses for my knowledge in other religion's holy books) this shouldn't be a religious problem at all. Because we have or should have a separation of state and church. Actually, form a historically point, it was the church who wanted that in the early days because a lot of the first settlers came to the new world because the felt suppressed in their religion after politicla powers (namely the English crown) basically claimed high priest status and alloweed no other than his very own church in England. Thus no non-Catholic Christian in this country can really claim, he sin't against this separation. The claims of the Catholic church are a different question because the Ecclesia Catholioca claims to be the church for everyone in the sense everybody has to be in it and bow to it, king or peasant. News from the last about 500 years from Rome though seems to indicate not even the popes ride that hard anymore.
So this separation comes at a price because it means, the government can make laws without considering the church or churches. Which puts the problem more in the realm of ethical considerations. Most European nations for example have already laws that allow abortions up to a certain point in a pregnancy. The differences about when tihs point is are mostly based on different interpretations of measurable child reactions. For example, a baby in the womb reacts to external harmonic sounds (for example music, but funny thing, also motor sounds) at around week 20. However the react on temperature changes (ice on the belly or a heating cushion) already at about the 16th. So a lot of people try to figure out at what point between week 16 and week 20 the degree of reaction shows awareness and make different assumptions. Then the idea is very simple. Before awareness, it's not considered as a living human being and therefore abortion is permitted by those laws, afterwards it's a living human being and therefore like any other living human being under the protection of the law. So there is some kind of room for a reasonable compromise and to make that happen,w e don't need to care about what the extreme religious fringe thinks about it because, thanks to their ancestors, we have separation of church and state.
5.) This is about a point not in Vincent's or SkyBoat's posts, but since I touched already the separation of church and state, it should be nevertheless mentioned: If the state doesn't have to care for what a Christian or Claims-to-be-Christian church (think Westboro) thinks, the state and the courts surely have no need nor reason to consider what the next Imam thinks. The current acceptance of Shariah law as "cultural considerable influence" in form of mitigating circumstances in criminal trials in the US is definitively a failure.
Now, why do I put so many apparentkly different subjects in one post? Because they all have some things in common.
- they all need solutions
- for all of them, the way to solutions is blocked by perpetual buzzline fire ("the Republicans blocked it and that is the reason it's a patchwork", "that is the usual saw") while time runs for some of them out. And time runs out for example for ACA because tmax>=h+c1+c2. You can blame Alexander the great, a sack of rice in China or the Republicans or Bush but in the end, it's simple math. You can even blame the math, but math doesn't care, math catches up with you regardless what you think. Time runs out for example for the situation of the police in this country because they are increasingly out gunned and have to do their jobs with both hands on the back. Time runs out in the abortion debate since so-called "progressives" are more likely to have abortions and therefore raise lesser kids as "progressives" and thus, the Democratic parts is more and more forced to catch their votes from minorities. That leads into a conflict between those minorities. Actually, abortion policies of today is one of many contributing factors of policing tomorrow because we see those increasing conflicts already between Hispanic and African-American gangs in cities like Chicago, Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, just to name some examples. If African-American school kids can't go to school anymore because on their way thereto, they are always in danger to become collateral damage in a drive-by shooting because their way to a better future is spiked with a dozen drug dealers, we would need more protection by police there, not less due to political correct racist propaganda.
And so it goes on and on. All those and many more problems are connected and interact on a time line. And to make it worse, the US can't just copy and paste from European countries because the US have specific problems only a few other countries share. Russia has the problem of a gigantic land for example, but we don't want to copy their "solutions". China has the same problem, but we sure don't want to copy their "solutions". And then Russia and China have no problems with ethnic diversity. I mean, okay, some European countries speak a lot about it, because they have cities in which four or five languages are spoken ... well, in New York alone seventy different languages are spoken ... and the US have every skin color you find in the world in her borders. Not just two or three culturally homogeneous groups. Alone black can already mean African-American, Haitian-American, Arabic-Black (yep, some of them are black, not brown). White or, politically correct "Caucasian"? What does someone with Northern-Spanish ancestors have to do with Caucasian. Genetically, they are a mix between the originally Celtic genetic poo0l in South France and the light brown invaders that landed there aboutish 5000 BC. And they are not Hispanics because the -spanic part in most Hispanics stems historically actually more from Middle and Southern Spain including a dash Moors from before the Reconquista in it. Mixed with Native-South and -Central-American. And thus, not onyl genetically but also by cultural roots, they are all different. And, that's another problem, I have with this "progressive" idea of we have to respect every group that isolates itself from America by defining themselves with a "-". When I became a US citizen, I swore an oath to become an American, not a Germano-American, a Frankonian-German-American or a Westfalian-American, just an American. Without any hyphen. And that's good enough for me. The rest is all fishing for voter groups. And the more this splitting is enforced by political needs which comes with more buzzlining, the faster the time runs out and we have another problem that needs a solution fast.
- they all and many more are problems, some politicians think, they can solve with that one big thousand page law, the one for the history books, preferrable with their name on it. Alas, once more: Complex systems can't be changed with crowbars because that leads alwayws to a break down. To solve problems in complex systems, you need thousand and more little steps and you need to do them in the right order. That is boring, not voter-effective and surely hard workers are the last ones to make it in the next media hype or the history books, but that'S the way to solve many of those problems and avoid uneccessary friction we can't afford at this point because additional to all other problems, we are now also broke and have used up the rest of our bearable credit frame.
First, clearing some misunderstandings here:
1.) A came to the US BEFORE ACA. So, opposite to what SkyBoat wrongfully assumes, I knew what health insurance was before. I was also, as writer, self-employed, so I had no health insurance via another employer but myself. I am very familiar with the problem.
2.) I said clearly, and I say it again, this time capitalized so that is doesn't get skipped agian: I AM ALL FOR HEALTH INSURANCE FOR EVERYBODY!!!!!
Don't make it look because I am a conservative, I aim just at killing ACA just for "political ambition". The math shows clearly why this system is bound to fail in the longer term. That is not "political", that is math. You can, as always, ignore math, but you do so at the risk of a whole nation in this case. So pleeeeeaaaase, do allow the hard reality of economical facts and mathematical certainties in this discussion, not only "the wish". That's the wrong order of things.
3.) What has "morale" to do with "manners"? Morale is an ethic estimation about what is good and what is bad, manners are a social consensus. Some manners are good, soem, well, lets say era dependant. I take the freedom to steal Lydiot's buzzline (I think, it was him, who used Martin Luther) as an example. Manners change obviously over time. Farting and belching would today probably not acceptable as an expression of compliment to the cook. So ... well, I spoke about "manners" and somehow it was re-interpreted as "moral". Personally, if you are a bachelor and out on the hunt, I recommend the use of condoms to avoid alimony claims and STDs. But then, that's no moralistic recommendation but a mere reasonable one.
4.) I got a bit confused about what SkyBoat wrote about religious and strongly religious and abortion. But then, from where I stand (I am not really a religious person, so I have some beliefs and I think, SkyBoat can vouch for my Bible knowledge, if needed, I can bring witnesses for my knowledge in other religion's holy books) this shouldn't be a religious problem at all. Because we have or should have a separation of state and church. Actually, form a historically point, it was the church who wanted that in the early days because a lot of the first settlers came to the new world because the felt suppressed in their religion after politicla powers (namely the English crown) basically claimed high priest status and alloweed no other than his very own church in England. Thus no non-Catholic Christian in this country can really claim, he sin't against this separation. The claims of the Catholic church are a different question because the Ecclesia Catholioca claims to be the church for everyone in the sense everybody has to be in it and bow to it, king or peasant. News from the last about 500 years from Rome though seems to indicate not even the popes ride that hard anymore.
So this separation comes at a price because it means, the government can make laws without considering the church or churches. Which puts the problem more in the realm of ethical considerations. Most European nations for example have already laws that allow abortions up to a certain point in a pregnancy. The differences about when tihs point is are mostly based on different interpretations of measurable child reactions. For example, a baby in the womb reacts to external harmonic sounds (for example music, but funny thing, also motor sounds) at around week 20. However the react on temperature changes (ice on the belly or a heating cushion) already at about the 16th. So a lot of people try to figure out at what point between week 16 and week 20 the degree of reaction shows awareness and make different assumptions. Then the idea is very simple. Before awareness, it's not considered as a living human being and therefore abortion is permitted by those laws, afterwards it's a living human being and therefore like any other living human being under the protection of the law. So there is some kind of room for a reasonable compromise and to make that happen,w e don't need to care about what the extreme religious fringe thinks about it because, thanks to their ancestors, we have separation of church and state.
5.) This is about a point not in Vincent's or SkyBoat's posts, but since I touched already the separation of church and state, it should be nevertheless mentioned: If the state doesn't have to care for what a Christian or Claims-to-be-Christian church (think Westboro) thinks, the state and the courts surely have no need nor reason to consider what the next Imam thinks. The current acceptance of Shariah law as "cultural considerable influence" in form of mitigating circumstances in criminal trials in the US is definitively a failure.
Now, why do I put so many apparentkly different subjects in one post? Because they all have some things in common.
- they all need solutions
- for all of them, the way to solutions is blocked by perpetual buzzline fire ("the Republicans blocked it and that is the reason it's a patchwork", "that is the usual saw") while time runs for some of them out. And time runs out for example for ACA because tmax>=h+c1+c2. You can blame Alexander the great, a sack of rice in China or the Republicans or Bush but in the end, it's simple math. You can even blame the math, but math doesn't care, math catches up with you regardless what you think. Time runs out for example for the situation of the police in this country because they are increasingly out gunned and have to do their jobs with both hands on the back. Time runs out in the abortion debate since so-called "progressives" are more likely to have abortions and therefore raise lesser kids as "progressives" and thus, the Democratic parts is more and more forced to catch their votes from minorities. That leads into a conflict between those minorities. Actually, abortion policies of today is one of many contributing factors of policing tomorrow because we see those increasing conflicts already between Hispanic and African-American gangs in cities like Chicago, Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, just to name some examples. If African-American school kids can't go to school anymore because on their way thereto, they are always in danger to become collateral damage in a drive-by shooting because their way to a better future is spiked with a dozen drug dealers, we would need more protection by police there, not less due to political correct racist propaganda.
And so it goes on and on. All those and many more problems are connected and interact on a time line. And to make it worse, the US can't just copy and paste from European countries because the US have specific problems only a few other countries share. Russia has the problem of a gigantic land for example, but we don't want to copy their "solutions". China has the same problem, but we sure don't want to copy their "solutions". And then Russia and China have no problems with ethnic diversity. I mean, okay, some European countries speak a lot about it, because they have cities in which four or five languages are spoken ... well, in New York alone seventy different languages are spoken ... and the US have every skin color you find in the world in her borders. Not just two or three culturally homogeneous groups. Alone black can already mean African-American, Haitian-American, Arabic-Black (yep, some of them are black, not brown). White or, politically correct "Caucasian"? What does someone with Northern-Spanish ancestors have to do with Caucasian. Genetically, they are a mix between the originally Celtic genetic poo0l in South France and the light brown invaders that landed there aboutish 5000 BC. And they are not Hispanics because the -spanic part in most Hispanics stems historically actually more from Middle and Southern Spain including a dash Moors from before the Reconquista in it. Mixed with Native-South and -Central-American. And thus, not onyl genetically but also by cultural roots, they are all different. And, that's another problem, I have with this "progressive" idea of we have to respect every group that isolates itself from America by defining themselves with a "-". When I became a US citizen, I swore an oath to become an American, not a Germano-American, a Frankonian-German-American or a Westfalian-American, just an American. Without any hyphen. And that's good enough for me. The rest is all fishing for voter groups. And the more this splitting is enforced by political needs which comes with more buzzlining, the faster the time runs out and we have another problem that needs a solution fast.
- they all and many more are problems, some politicians think, they can solve with that one big thousand page law, the one for the history books, preferrable with their name on it. Alas, once more: Complex systems can't be changed with crowbars because that leads alwayws to a break down. To solve problems in complex systems, you need thousand and more little steps and you need to do them in the right order. That is boring, not voter-effective and surely hard workers are the last ones to make it in the next media hype or the history books, but that'S the way to solve many of those problems and avoid uneccessary friction we can't afford at this point because additional to all other problems, we are now also broke and have used up the rest of our bearable credit frame.
Free speech can never be achieved by dictatorial measures!
Re: Those Dumb Democrats
Moderation Conclusion:
The parts had reached and agreement. I have no more to say to the topic, but I will definitely quote below a relevant assay by the French Philosopher J. P. Sartre that he wrote in the document "Being and Nothingness" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_and_Nothingness
The assay is relevant here upon how Freedom of the individual relates to the ultimate responsibility of all actions taken. We have to admit that JWocky has provided us with an space where we can exercise the freedom to have our own opinions, but the "wars" on words we end up engaging are ultimately the result of a personal decision and thus, are part of exercising that Sartrean definition of responsibility.
I quote below
http://www.dhspriory.org/kenny/PhilText ... ngness.pdf
(apologies for the spelling but the pdf to text converter is buggy. Feel free to follow the link and read on p 553)
The parts had reached and agreement. I have no more to say to the topic, but I will definitely quote below a relevant assay by the French Philosopher J. P. Sartre that he wrote in the document "Being and Nothingness" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_and_Nothingness
The assay is relevant here upon how Freedom of the individual relates to the ultimate responsibility of all actions taken. We have to admit that JWocky has provided us with an space where we can exercise the freedom to have our own opinions, but the "wars" on words we end up engaging are ultimately the result of a personal decision and thus, are part of exercising that Sartrean definition of responsibility.
I quote below
http://www.dhspriory.org/kenny/PhilText ... ngness.pdf
J.P. Sartre in Being and Nothingness wrote:FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY (pg. 553)
ALTOUGH the considerations which are about to follow are of interest primarily to' the ethicist, it may nevertheless be worthwhile after these descriptions and arguments to return to the freedom of the for-itself and to try to understand what the fact of this freedom represents for human destiny. The essential consequence of our earlier remarks is that man being condemned to be free carries the weight of the whole world on his shoulders; he is responsible for the world and for himself as a way of being. We are taking the word "responsibility" in its ordinary sense as "consciousness (of) being the incontestable author of an event or of an object." In this sense the responsibility of the for-itself is overwhelming since he is the one by whom it happens that there is a world; since he is also the one who makes himself be, then whatever may be the situation in which he finds himself, the for-itself must wholly assume this situation with its peculiar coefEcient of adversity, even though it be insupportable. He must assume the situation with the proud consciousness ot being the author of it, for the very worst disadvantages or the worst threats which can endanger my person have meaning only in and through my project; and it is on the ground of the engagement which I am that they appear. It is therefore senseless to think of complaining since nothing foreign has decided what we feel, what we live, or what we are.
Furthermore this absolute responsibility is not resignation; it is simply the logical-requirement of the consequences of our freedom. What hap pens to mc happens through me, and I can neither affect myself with it nor revolt against it nor resign myself to it. Moreover everything which happens to me is mine. By this we must understand first of all that I am always equal to what happens to me qua man, for what happens to a man through other men and through himself can be only human. The most terrible situations of war, the worst tortures do not create a non human state of things; there is no non-human situation. It is only through fear, flight, and recourse to magical types of conduct that I shall decide on the non-human, but this decision is human, and I shall carry the entire responsibility for it. But in addition the situation is mine because it is the image of my free choice of myself, and everything which it presents to me is mine in that this represents me and symbolizes me. Is it not I who decide the coefficient of adversity in things and even their unpredicta bility by deciding myself?
Thus there are no accidents in a life; a community event which sud denly bursts forth and involves me in it does not corne from the outside. If I am mobilized in a war, this war is my war; it is in my image and I deserve it. I deserve:it first because I could always get out of it by suicide or by desertion; these ultimate possibles are those which must always be present for us when there is a question of envisaging a situation. For lack of getting out of it, I have chosen it. This can be due to inertia, to cowardice in the face of public opinion, or because I prefer certain other values to the value of the refusal to join in the war (the good opinion of my relatives, the honor of my family, etc.). Anyway you look at it, it is a matter of a choice. This choice will be repeated later on again and again without a break until the end of the war. Therefore we must agree with the statement by J. Romains, "In war there are no innocent vic tims. If therefore I have preferred war to death or to dishonor, every thing takes place as if I bore the entire responsibility for this war. Of course others have deelared it, and one might be tempted perhaps to consider me as a simple accomplice. But this notion of complicity has only a juridical sense, and it does not hold here. For it depended on me that for me and by me this war should not exist, and· I have decided that it does exist. There was no compulsion here, for the compulsion could have got no hold on a freedom. I did not have any excuse; for as we have said repeatedly in this book, the peculiar character of human reality is that it is without excuse. Therefore it -remains for me only to lay claim to this war.
But in addition the war is mine because by the sole fact that it arises in a situation which I cause to be and that I can discover it there only by engaging myself for or against it, I can no longer distinguish at pres ent the choice which I make of myself from the choice which I make of the war. To live this war is to choose myself through it and to choose it through my choice of myself. There can be no question of considering it as "four years of vacation" or as a "reprieve," as a "recess," the essential part of my responsibilities being elsewhere in my married, family, or pro fessionallife. In this war which I have chosen I choose myself from day to day, and I make it mine by making myself. If it is going to be four empty years, then it is I who bear the responsibility for this.
Finally, as we pointed out earlier, each person is an absolute choice of self from the standpoint of a world of knowledges and of techniques which this choice both assumes and illumines; each person is an absolute upsurge at an absolute date and is perfectly unthinkable at another date. n is therefore a waste of time to ask what I should have been if this war had not broken out, for I have chosen myself as one of the possible mean ings of the epoch which imperceptibly led to war. I am not distinct from this same epoch; I could not be transported to another epoch with uut contradiction. Thus I am this war which restricts and limits and makes comprehensible the period which preceded it. In this sense we may define mme precisely the responsibility of the for-itself if to the earlier quoted statement, "There are no innocent victims,"we add the words, "We have the war we deserve." Thus, totally free, undistinguish able from the period for which I have chosen to be the meaning, as pro foundly responsible for the war as if I had myself declared it, unable to live without integrating it in my situation, engaging myself in it wholly and stamping it with my seal, I must be without remorse or regrets as I am without excuse; for from the instant of my upsurge into being, I carry the weight of the world by myself alone without anything or any person being able to lighten it.
Yet this responsibility is of a very particular type. Someone will say, "I dId not ask to he born." This is a naive way of throwing greater emphasis On our facticity. I am responsible for everything, in fact, except for my very responsibility, for I am not the foundation of my being. Therefore everything takes place as if I were compelled to be responsible. I am abandoned in thclworld, not in the sense that I might remain abandoned and passive in a hostile universe like a board floating on the water, but rather in the sense that I find myself suddenly alone and without help, engaged in a world for which I bear the whole responsibility without being able, whatever I do, to tear myself away from this responsibility for an in stant. For I am responsible for my very desire of fleeing responsibilities. To make myself passive in the world, to refuse to act upon things and upon Others is still to choose myself, and suicide is one mode among others of being-in-the-world. Yet I find an absolute responsibility for the fact that my facticity (here the fact of my birth) is directly inapprchensi ble and even inconceivable, for this fact of my birth never appears as a brute fact but always across a projective reconstruction of my for-itself. I am ashamed of being born or I am astonished at it or I rejoice over it, or in attempting to get rid of my life I affirm that I live and I assume this life as bad. Thus in a certain sense I choose being born. This choice itself is integrally affected with facticity since I am not able not to choose, but this facticity in turn will appear only in so far as I surpass it toward my ends. Thus facticity is everywhere but inapprehensible; I never encounter anything except my responsibility. That is why I can not ask, "Why was I born?" or curse the day of my birth or deelare that I did not ask to be born, for these various attitudes toward my birth-i.e., toward the tact that I realize a presence in the world-are absolutely nothing else but ways of assuming this birth in full responsibility and of making it mine. Here again I encounter only myself and my projects so that finally my abandonment-i.e., my facticity--consists simply in the fact that I am condemned to be wholly responsible for myself. I am the being which is in such a way that in its being its being is in question. And this "is" of my being is as present-and inapprehensible.
Under these conditions since every event in the world can be revealed to me only as an opportunity (an opportunity made use of, lacked, neglected, etc.), or better yet since everything which happens to us can be considered as a chance (i.e., can appear to us only as a way of realizing this being which is in question in our being) and since others as tran scendences-transcended are themselves only opportunities and chances, the responsibility of the for-itself extends to the entire world as a peopled· world. It is precisely thus that the for-itself apprehends itself in anguish; that is, as a being which is neither the foundation of its own being nor of the Other's being nor of the in-itselfs which form the world, but a being which is compeIIed to decide the meaning of being-within it and everywhere outside of it. The one who realizes in anguish his condition as being thrown into a responsibility which extends to his very abandon· ment has no longer either remorse or regret or excuse; he is no longer anything but a freedom which perfectly reveals itself and whose being resides in this very revelation. But as we pointed out at the beginning of this work, most of the time we flee anguish in bad faith.
(apologies for the spelling but the pdf to text converter is buggy. Feel free to follow the link and read on p 553)
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/IAHM-COL/gpg-pubkey/master/pubkey.asc
R.M.S.
If we gave everybody in the World free software today, but we failed to teach them about the four freedoms, five years from now, would they still have it?
R.M.S.
If we gave everybody in the World free software today, but we failed to teach them about the four freedoms, five years from now, would they still have it?
Re: Those Dumb Democrats
Since we're sharing:
I'm waiting for my dealer to drop by with a new batch of cocaine. Once I've snorted about 65% of it I'll make the determination of whether to read the above posts or just go through Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings and spend the net saved time browsing hobo-porn......
I'm waiting for my dealer to drop by with a new batch of cocaine. Once I've snorted about 65% of it I'll make the determination of whether to read the above posts or just go through Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings and spend the net saved time browsing hobo-porn......
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Re: Those Dumb Democrats
:O
I am very confused that you need so much to decide to read a Sartrean assay, while simultaneously behaving this much Sartrean yourself
Maybe the interesting phenomena of how much scarier is to look a mirror?
I am very confused that you need so much to decide to read a Sartrean assay, while simultaneously behaving this much Sartrean yourself
Maybe the interesting phenomena of how much scarier is to look a mirror?
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/IAHM-COL/gpg-pubkey/master/pubkey.asc
R.M.S.
If we gave everybody in the World free software today, but we failed to teach them about the four freedoms, five years from now, would they still have it?
R.M.S.
If we gave everybody in the World free software today, but we failed to teach them about the four freedoms, five years from now, would they still have it?
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