Elections Kevin Lee at a Bernie Sanders Rally

[KBE6EKCTAH_CCP]

You guys are talking about Fighter Kevin Lee, right?

You never know. It could be Honolulu Chef Kevin Lee or Swimmer Kevin Lee...

 

[DivineMind]

A, Germany has severe problems due to hate speech laws, high taxation and regulation, and out-of-control immigration. Their economic situation is largely due to us paying for their military.

We CANNOT rule out "that free education and healthcare cause catastrophic levels of unhappiness" because Germany is not a diverse nation of 350,000,000 people. In our country, free healthcare and education would like like a MORE expensive version of California, which is bankrupt and drowning in crime, homelessness and political correctness. So there, you are simply incorrect. It has been tried, see every large Democrat-run city in the US.

Well, in Germany's case, if the free stuff did have a catastrophic impact on happiness, there would have to be something else really happy about Germany, offsetting it to make people more or less happy overall. In any case, you're right in being skeptical of my claim, conservative as it was, because causation is hard to establish. And the factors at play in Germany are different than that of the US, and the factors in 2019 are different than the factors at play in 1990.

But, I think about these things in terms of possibility. I think there's no reason why you can't make things like free education and healthcare work (i.e. why it can't be possible for them to work), if there's the political will to do so and you have competent people in power. But there is only some political will and mostly incompetent people in power. Diversity isn't a reason these programs can't work, it just gets in the way of allowing political coalitions to form that lead to smart policies being implemented and competent politicians elected.

When the people are divided on these issues, crappy politicians get into office that hamstring efforts to make these things work. The way you get them to work is: form a consensus in the population, get good people into office, and then hold their feet to the fire and make sure they act correctly.

This isn't easy, it gets at the heart of the dysfunction of the American political system. The first step is bringing people together, then maybe fixing the rot in Washington.

 

[Negator402]

Well, in Germany's case, if the free stuff did have a catastrophic impact on happiness, there would have to be something else really happy about Germany, offsetting it to make people more or less happy overall. In any case, you're right in being skeptical of my claim, conservative as it was, because causation is hard to establish. And the factors at play in Germany are different than that of the US, and the factors in 2019 are different than the factors at play in 1990.

But, I think about these things in terms of possibility. I think there's no reason why you can't make things like free education and healthcare work (i.e. why it can't be possible for them to work), if there's the political will to do so and you have competent people in power. But there is only some political will and mostly incompetent people in power. Diversity isn't a reason these programs can't work, it just gets in the way of allowing political coalitions to form that lead to smart policies being implemented and competent politicians elected.

When the people are divided on these issues, crappy politicians get into office that hamstring efforts to make these things work. The way you get them to work is: form a consensus in the population, get good people into office, and then hold their feet to the fire and make sure they act correctly.

This isn't easy, it gets at the heart of the dysfunction of the American political system. The first step is bringing people together, then maybe fixing the rot in Washington.

I appreciate your thoughtful response, but I think you miss that free HC/ED is not only unworkable, but actually not a morally healthy position. These are both commodities that have zero-sum-game type effects. Let me lay out some thoughts on both:

Free Education: Education is corrupt by extremely liberal professors and administrators. The only thing limiting their ability to both waste trillions and indoctrinate young people is money: some people refuse to send their kid to Sarah Lawrence to learn Lesbian Studies for $70,000 a year. Make that public, and now WE are funding one of the most politically undiverse, biased, and broken systems in our nation. ALSO, throw in that many degrees are useless. We should be pushing the poor and lower-middle-class away from liberal arts degrees, not paying for more of them. We need supply and demand in education more than anywhere else. Free education is, frankly, evil.

Free Healthcare: Medical professionals, especially doctors, are the most talent and work ethic intense professions possible. They MUST be rewarded maximally. Doctors in the UK make less than lawyers in the US, not to mention US doctors. Medicine, intellectual property in pharma, and services MUST be regulated by the invisible hand of the market. Otherwise, bureaucrats and insurance companies will thrive, the best will stop going into medicine, research, and pharm, and we will have a system where all suffer equally except the VERY rich and very powerful.

The American left is very Bolshevik: boorish and crude self-made elite using the poor to come to power. Old-school tyrannical. The US is a great place first and foremost because we embrace the individual as the most important level of identity emergence. The individual is the most important minority.