Just a Question
September 27th, 2009 - 8:27 pm
If it’s wrong to draft people into the armed forces — and I believe it is — then where’s the right in drafting people into the insurance system?
An insurance “mandate” is an insurance industry draft, plain and simple. But there’s no deferment, the certainly no 4F, and running off to Canada would only make things worse.
Seems to me I heard the way to avoid being forced into purchasing an insurance plan is to claim to be Muslim. Did I hear they consider insurance to be a gambling venture, and therefore cannot be forced to participate?
Let’s all be Muslims!
That’s the problem with deductive logic. You can prove anything if the postulates are chosen properly. So yes, IF drafts are wrong so is mandating health insurance. However, if drafts are not wrong neither is mandatory health insurance.
Society doesn’t think that drafts are wrong, the Selective Service Administration has been going strong without uproar for decades. So you’ll have to change everyone’s mind on that point before this argument gains any traction.
Auto insurance rates in states that require auto insurance are higher than states that don’t. Seems to me the insurance companies make out like bandits when insurance is required by law. Why? because they have one less competitor. That competitor being no insurance.
You can prove anything if the postulates are chosen properly.
For instance, if there hasn’t been an uproar in years over having every 18-year-old male return a postcard to the federal government, then the draft – which provoked enormous uproar among the vast majority of our society’s decision-makers, including the violent rise to fame of the president’s ghostwriter, the last time it was in effect – is not something that our society thinks is wrong.
Let’s all be Muslims!
If the president were concerned about suspicions of his religious allegiance, then imposing a de facto jizya on infidels would not be a smart move.
I’m looking for a list of all the policies of the current administration that have, or will, make Americans more free. Can anyone help me find it?
As some of you might imagine if you’ve read this blog more than a week or two, I advocate socialized medicine. But I do not advocate this half-heinied system where the private insurance creeps get subsidized by everyone while the government gets to pretend that they’ve solved any part of the actual problem that is what keeps people from getting insurance in the first place: cost. Deferring cost to the private sector is a bad way to deal with this issue, since the largest problem is that the covered cover the uncovered. What should be done is Medicare for All, and then (just as with about two-thirds of those on Medicare) the people who want extra perks or choices can buy supplemental insurance from private corporations. Yes, that’s what they do in France. Yes, they still have issues. But again yes, I still think that’s a better system than the one we have now. Will costs be contained? No, but they’ll be less uncontrollable. Will there be rationing? Yes, but not more than there is now.
The system we have right now has significant guano-induced mental deficiencies. We should change it, but we should change it to something that would be better, not just a money-infused version of the status quo.
Not only is a draft wrong, I think’s it’s unconstitutional under the 5th amendment. You can’t be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. A draft certainly deprives you of liberty, as well as the potential loss of life and property, all under random chance.
Of course, an individual mandate of insurance is also unconstitutional… just under different reasoning.
My point is… it’s not a matter of right or wrong… it’s a matter of legalities. Of course, if you think something is “right”, you’d be amazed how far people are willing to stretch legalities to make it work, so maybe I should just shut up and stop being so academic.
Nick,
The legality of a draft was a question that led to riots during the Civil War (and those freedom-loving Southerners conscripted men into their army first,) riots in the First World War, some incidents in the Second World War, became part of life through the Korean conflict and afterward, led to an insane amount of legal wrangling (deferments galore for some, alternative placements for others) during the Vietnamese conflict, and pretty much died soon after that.
It took some horrific conflicts in its heyday and some unpopular conflicts at each end of its history in this country, but people loved it or hated it pretty much based on its fairness or its necessity. During the Civil War, rich people paid for others to take their place. During the Vietnam War, rich people could make other arrangements. Yeah, it was pretty unpopular at those times. During World War Two, anyone could have been called to serve (though there were still ways to avoid getting shot at.) Getting drafted was a rite of passage at that time, and generally considered a positive one.
I’m like you and think voluntary is always the best way. But if something like another World War happens, we’ll be in the minority. Legal issues have a way of not being discussed when Europe is getting shellacked with explosives.