Pharyngula

Posted by: Bob | July 28, 2009 10:01 AM

They're even wrong about it having the most liberal drug laws:

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html

Posted by: Chris | July 28, 2009 10:03 AM

Amsterdam is a fantastic place! I had so much fun there, and not cause of the drugs...

Posted by: Dianne | July 28, 2009 10:10 AM

Since corruption was specifically alleged, I'd like to point out that the Netherlands ranks #7 on Transparency International's index whereas the US ranks #18.

Posted by: Bronze Dog | July 28, 2009 10:13 AM

Awesome.

Posted by: Savior Breath | July 28, 2009 10:14 AM

This reminds me of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's account of her arrival in the Netherlands. Instead of epic levels of chaos and decadence, she found peaceful people enjoying life. She marveled that, among other things, the buses arrived on schedule.

The monotheistic faiths get a lot of mileage out of the false claim that civility suffers when decadence sets in.

Posted by: randall | July 28, 2009 10:16 AM

I spent a few days in Amsterdam in the summer of 2004. It was a beautiful, quaint place with residents who were nice and educated. I walked back to my hotel alone at night and wasn't even approached by so much as a panhandler (which, I guess, is good or bad, depending on what you have in mind).

We could use some of that kind of anarchy in the USA.

Posted by: XD | July 28, 2009 10:23 AM

And if legalisation attracts organised crime, why did the criminalization of alcohol in the early 20th Century U.S. result in an upsurge of organised crime?

And as the article Bob links to mentions, the legalisation of drug use in Portugal meant that the police could focus their resources on organised crime more effectively.

Posted by: Budbear | July 28, 2009 10:25 AM

I have been visiting the Netherlands regularly for the last 10 years and have strongly considered moving there myself. If there is a friendlier, kinder, more practical, more industrious, or more clear thinking people in the world than the Dutch, I haven't met them. Compromise is their standard for human interaction. If that is "anarchy" then someone needs to change the dictionaries. The country is a prime example of democracy (within a constitutional monarchy no less) in action as well as theory. This sometimes causes the wheels to turn slowly but rash action is not a Dutch trait. Go into the 'coffeeshops' and sit for a while (for research purposes only, of course). You will see a constant stream of customers that are British, American, German, Spanish, French, Italian, etc. with a handful of locals every so often. Cannabis is a money maker that mostly brings in foreign currency. We in the USA could stand to learn a few things about what freedom really means from the Nederlanders. I guess for anyone from Faux News, anarchy means not goose-stepping to the orders of an all-powerful führer...er, I mean, unitary executive.

Posted by: nigelTheBold | July 28, 2009 10:28 AM

Since when did truth actually matter to anyone? Seriously. Who wouldn't want to live in O'Reillyland, where the bluebirds sing on your shoulder, the drug-crazed over-sexed liberals are kept peacefully at bay by the gates of the exclusive rich neighborhood in which he lives, but represents all of Glorious America (save the afore-mentioned liberals).

It's a proven fact that every criminal in America is liberal. It's a proven fact that America is the best country ever. (Where else could an ignorant vacuous windbag with delusions of self-worth become a fabulously-wealthy ignorant vacuous windbag? I fuckin' love America!) It's a proven fact every Democratic President has been/is a philandering pedophile drug addict with the single desire of bringing down this great country.

If Bill O'Reilly says Amsterdam is a cesspool of corruption, organized crime, and anarchic violence, then by god, it is a cesspool. (And believe me, O'Reilly knows his pools of cess. He is a connoi-sewer. Ha! I crack me up.)

It's a fact that without the selfless sacrifice of the likes of Bill O'Reilly, risking his life daily on the Iraqi-like battlefields of Fox News, America would be just like Amsterdam!

All of these things are facts.

In O'Reillyland.

Posted by: tripwire | July 28, 2009 10:29 AM

Gee whiz, I think we're the new France for Fox News. I recommend a full length mirror for the vacuous hatemongers at Fox, before they start spewing their hate and misinformation at a country they could maybe learn something from. I'm not claiming the Netherlands (or Amsterdam) is a perfect paradise, but it's not at all what they claim it is.
Now excuse me while I'm off to eat some special brownies at my neighbourhood brothel.

Posted by: NewEnglandBob | July 28, 2009 10:32 AM

We all know the Bill O'Reilly is a cesspool. He is a traitor and a liar. I think we should send him back to the sewer that produced him.

Posted by: Peter Mc | July 28, 2009 10:35 AM

John M: there are pockets of civility on the UK. My North Yorkshire clifftop cottage. And the whole damn surrounding county come to think of it.

Posted by: Pascalle | July 28, 2009 10:39 AM

Oh gosh.. it's a bit hard to make a whole city of 1 million muslim in a few generations.

At this moment, only 5% of the netherlands are muslim and not all the kids are as religious as their parents. Besides that, more and more old muslims who were drawn here in the 70's to do the dirty work we dutchies didn't want to do (like now.. and now we get the polish people to do those jobs), want to return to their country of birth.

Freaking scare tactics piss me off every time.

Posted by: Cronan | July 28, 2009 10:43 AM

Bob in #2 spotted that Portugal has the most liberal drug laws of any country - in 2001 they decriminalized the purchase, possession and use of all illegal drugs. All of them.

The use of drugs has declined around 10%, with the biggest declines seen in teenagers. The rate of HIV infection from needles has also fallen, mainly due to addicts with HIV no longer feeling afraid of seeking help.

Mark Easton at the BBC wrote a good article:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2009/07/how_portugal_treats_drug_addic.html

Posted by: daveau | July 28, 2009 10:44 AM

Gee, I don't know. I heard Amsterdam is a cesspool of corruption...

Posted by: SciencePundit | July 28, 2009 10:46 AM

I'm shocked! Shocked to find out that Bill "Oh Really?" has been caught lying again.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space | July 28, 2009 10:50 AM

It would appear that the ruling class in the US are sufficiently aware of how badly they've screwed up the country that they know they have to keep the propaganda machine going 24/7 to keep US citizens from voting with their feet.
So, will the last person in the US please turn out the lights before you leave?

Posted by: Dan | July 28, 2009 10:57 AM

Love Amsterdam: been there, several times.

However, the video quotes stats for the countries as a whole. It is still possible (although unlikely) that Amsterdam has a concentration of drug-related problems. I'm not saying that it has, just saying that the stats in the video do not completely refute Fox's accusations.

Posted by: Knockgoats | July 28, 2009 11:00 AM

You better hurry. In a couple of generations it will be completely Muslim. - andyet

Christard is racist liar shock!

Posted by: Andyman | July 28, 2009 11:02 AM

check and mate, Faux News, the blonde bimbo's could do with a little love themselves.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | July 28, 2009 11:07 AM

andyet, do you think faith is a genetically transmittable disease? because that's pretty much the only way it even matters that atheists have fewer kids than religious people. as it is, the religiobots may outbreed us, but non-believers are still the ONLY growing segment of the U.S. population (according to recent surveys), and in other countries the numbers are relatively stable.

children of religionists who live in liberal countries often adapt very quickly and well, so only a small percentage of them remains religious... and then their children might fall away from religion, or become a cafeteria-religionist etc. such is the effect of a liberal society. deal with it.

Posted by: Dianne | July 28, 2009 11:10 AM

At this moment, only 5% of the netherlands are muslim and not all the kids are as religious as their parents.

Historically, people of many different religions have moved to the Netherlands for the religious tolerance. Some of the more fanatic groups felt that this move backfired a bit: their children started growing up all Dutch and tolerant. One particular group decided that it wasn't going to stand for that and left the Netherlands to head out to some gawdawful place on the other side of the world...which we now call "Massachusetts." It's a reasonable place today but took a while to get there. Maybe the Dutch will have better luck integrating any radical Muslims who move there than they had integrating and civilizing that particular bunch of radical Christians.

Posted by: Ploon | July 28, 2009 11:11 AM

Andyet, Fortuyn was assassinated by an animal rights activist with Asperger's Syndrome. I'd say you were thinking of Theo van Gogh, but that might be too much credit...

Posted by: Watchman | July 28, 2009 11:14 AM

"andyet"

So in a Darwinian sense theists are far superior to atheists. Ironic, no?

What a shallow, short-sighted thinker you are.

Posted by: andyet | July 28, 2009 11:17 AM

Ploon, Fortuyn was assassinated during the 2002 Dutch national election campaign by militant animal rights activist Volkert van der Graaf, who claimed in court he had murdered Fortuyn to stop him from exploiting Muslims as "scapegoats". As evidenced by...

"One of Fortuyn's fears was of pervasive intolerance in the Muslim community. In a televised debate in 2002, "Fortuyn baited the Muslim cleric by flaunting his homosexuality. Finally the imam exploded, denouncing Fortuyn in strongly anti-homosexual terms. Fortuyn calmly turned to the camera and, addressing viewers directly, told them that this is the kind of Trojan horse of intolerance the Dutch are inviting into their society in the name of multiculturalism".- "Murder in Holland", Rod Dreher, National Review, May 7, 2002.

Theo Van Gogh is also an excellent example.

Posted by: Gruesome Rob | July 28, 2009 11:20 AM

Even Ireland would be a suitable bolt-hole for a smart American prof., looking for an out.

Um, no.

Posted by: andyet | July 28, 2009 11:20 AM

Only if you conflate quantity with quality.

Quantity has a quality all its own. Darwisim doesn't care about "quality" (evolution is directionless and purposeless, remember?). What matters in any species competition is numbers.

Posted by: andyet | July 28, 2009 11:22 AM

So,why exactly don't atheists breed?

What exactly is the problem?

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | July 28, 2009 11:24 AM

Darwisim doesn't care about "quality" (evolution is directionless and purposeless, remember?). What matters in any species competition is numbers.

oh, so that's why mammals, which only birth a few young at a time, are less evolved and successful at the whole survival thing than fish and other sea-critters, which have hundreds if not thousands of young...

oh wait, no, that's not true.

you're an ignorant idiot. please educate yourself before trying to have an opinion on things.

Posted by: Alyson Miers | July 28, 2009 11:25 AM

I enjoy the funky music they use in the video. I'm also especially interested in the drug statistics. It's almost as if...liberal drug laws make drugs appear less glamorous! And then people are less interested in using them! And when they do use them, they know how to do it responsibly, so they don't OD or spread disease! Amazing!

Posted by: XD | July 28, 2009 11:26 AM

@ #54

Wow, you must worship Salp.

Posted by: XD | July 28, 2009 11:29 AM

Salp = salps

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | July 28, 2009 11:30 AM

So,why exactly don't atheists breed?
What exactly is the problem?

what "problem"? we've got quite enough people, we don't need more. plus, some of us do prefer quality over quantity, you know

Posted by: andyet | July 28, 2009 11:31 AM

so that's why mammals, which only birth a few young at a time, are less evolved and successful at the whole survival thing than fish and other sea-critters

The most succesful organisms on the planet are simple bacteria. They rule the planet, not us.

Posted by: XD | July 28, 2009 11:33 AM

Ahem

So, andyet, if theists 'out-breed' atheists, how do you account for the increase in atheism in developed countries over the last century.

Posted by: nigelTheBold | July 28, 2009 11:34 AM

All hail our mighty bacterial overlords!

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | July 28, 2009 11:35 AM

Andyet, still waiting for your to show hard evidence you aren't a delusional fool by you presenting physical evidence for your imaginary deity. An eternally burning bush would be nice...

Posted by: LadyH | July 28, 2009 11:37 AM

"So,why exactly don't atheists breed?"

I did my part.

Posted by: Richard Eis | July 28, 2009 11:40 AM

andyet,

Superiority in 'darwinism' is a pointless phrase. If you understood (and didn't call it darwinism) you would know that.
Without purpose. There is no Win or superior... and even if you try to use such a word in the short term, who knows what will happen later to tip the balance in the "inferior's" favour.

Posted by: andyet | July 28, 2009 11:42 AM

I did my part.

Did you have 9 kids like my Mormon neighbors down the street?

Posted by: LadyH | July 28, 2009 11:43 AM

Less adapted = dead before breeding = inferior
well adapted = surviving to reproduce = superior

Posted by: andyet | July 28, 2009 11:44 AM

Superiority in 'darwinism' is a pointless phrase.

I couldn't agree more. Go back and actually read my posts.

Posted by: gg | July 28, 2009 11:46 AM

As an American who lived two years in Amsterdam, including one year in the city center (half my salary went to rent), let me say: fuck Bill O'Reilly and FOX "News".

I found Amsterdam's city center to be one of the safest I've ever visited in the world, and that includes the Red Light District (which is more or less right in the center and serves as the shortest route from east to west). The most dangerous parts of the city are in poor outlying areas, and generally have little to do with the 'corruption' of the RLD. The biggest crime that you'll typically have to fact in the city is pickpocketing.

One thing I was always struck by while living there, and the video points out succinctly, is that the Dutch themselves are not avid users of the available 'products'. The coffeeshops were always filled with foreigners, not Dutch natives.

I myself never bothered to sample any of the wares while living in the city, much to the disbelief of my friends. Why bother? Amsterdam has so much more to offer, including some of the best art museums in the world, some of the best and most unique restaurants in the world, amazing parks, and fascinating historical sites. It also has one of the best public transportation systems, coupled with bicycle-friendly thoroughfares. It is also one of the most American-friendly cities you'll find, as the majority of Dutch folk speak English fluently, even better in fact than the morons at FOX News.

Posted by: Kismet | July 28, 2009 11:49 AM

My crystal ball tells my andyet soon will be banned like all the other boring bigot haters.

Posted by: Benjamin Geiger | July 28, 2009 11:52 AM

Jadehawk:

Actually, if you think about it, you could easily say that a bacterium always has two 'children', but always dies in childbirth. (Otherwise, which of the halves is the parent, and which is the child?)

Posted by: nigelTheBold | July 28, 2009 11:55 AM

Of course evolution has direction. It is not "directionless." The direction of evolution of a population is in the direction of whatever extant trait is best-suited to the environment.

Evolution has no constant direction. As the environment changes, so does the direction. There's even some nifty feedback, in which emerging populations change the environment (as all organisms are part of the environment). Isn't that cool? As one population emerges as better-adapted to the environment, it is changing the environment! It's all quite beautiful, and also very stochastic.

When people say that evolution is "directionless," they are referring to the lack of constant direction of a cognizant director. It's all just a big fractally-emergent system in which some inputs are random.

Posted by: Jeremy | July 28, 2009 11:58 AM

Even if atheists don't have as many offspring as the religious, the fact remains that atheism is increasing. Disproportionately.

This just goes to show that no matter how many kids religious people have, and how hard they work to indoctrinate them with their inane fairy tales, common sense will prevail.

So see, andyet, we don't need to spread our genes, we only need to spread our memes.

As for why atheists generally don't reproduce as rapidly as the religious, I can only speak for myself: Overpopulation and lack of resources are problems. There are already too many kids without parents, food, shelter, etc. I personally find it sickening that the religious spit out kids like rabbits and contribute to the problem. If my wife and I ever decide to have kids, we already know that we're adopting.

But what do I know, I'm an immoral heathen.

Posted by: LadyH | July 28, 2009 11:59 AM

"Did you have 9 kids like my Mormon neighbors down the street?"

No, but that's alright, the odds of the later children being gay increases the more children you have. For the record, two was plenty for me. Replacement numbers without going overboard.

Posted by: charley | July 28, 2009 12:01 PM

Let the fundies incur the cost of raising large families (roughly $125K-250K per child in the US according the USDA). With the internet we can deconvert them for about $19.95 each.

Posted by: Walton | July 28, 2009 12:02 PM

There is also a thing I cannot possibly understand about conservatism. How can it be compatible to establish anti-drug laws in the name of public health, and in the meantime to be opposed to single-payer schemes with universal coverage. A true small-government conservative (e.g. Milton Friedman) would trust in people abstaing from drugs and getting a proper health coverage by themselves instead of being in the eternal care of a nanny-state. A true paternalistic (and quasi-fascist) conservative would combine anti-drug laws with a social security scheme (Dolfus' Austria, Salazar's Portugal, Franco's Spain, etc.). That would show us how far from true American conservatism are all that bunch of Fox conservatives. They only defend big money.

True. I, as a consistent advocate of small government, support the legalisation of marijuana and also oppose government-run healthcare. Health should be a private matter.

Posted by: nigelTheBold | July 28, 2009 12:02 PM

Did you have 9 kids like my Mormon neighbors down the street?

Mormonism is genetic? Wow! You learn something new every day.

Posted by: Feynmaniac | July 28, 2009 12:09 PM

For some reason, atheists just don't breed.

We don't need to breed. We go after your children. Boo!

Actually we do breed but that's hardly important since religion isn't genetic. In any case, somehow after being raised by dumb religious shits like you many turn from their religion or from it all together. Polls show that between 1990 and 2008 you guys, Christians, went from 86% to 76% of the population in the US. Also, the number of people answering claiming no religion were 15% in 2008 and "increased in numbers and proportion in every state, Census Division and Region of the country from 1990 to 2008. No other religious bloc has kept such a pace in every state."[Source]

Keep up the good work!

Posted by: Stephen Wells | July 28, 2009 12:12 PM

Walton, the existence of infectious disease means health is not a private matter.

Next time you want to post a libertitbit - take a deep breath and _don't_.

Posted by: Patricia, OM | July 28, 2009 12:16 PM

Why don't atheists out breed the religious? We understand the concept of overpopulation. We don't believe gawd is going to give us a new earth when the idiot faithheads destroy the environment on this one.

If you continue to get stupider every day andyet, you should be back to diapers by Friday. You're babbling now.

Posted by: John M | July 28, 2009 12:17 PM

@#100
"I, as a consistent advocate of small government, support the legalisation of marijuana and also oppose government-run healthcare. Health should be a private matter."

You've obviously never been in a life-threatening medical situation with insufficient insurance/funds to cover the treatment. That would crystallise your thinking most wonderfully.

Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 28, 2009 12:20 PM

Health should be a private matter.

You mean that you have a way to ensure only people without health insurance will be infected by community based infections ?

Posted by: Patricia, OM | July 28, 2009 12:33 PM

Walton doesn't England have national healthcare? I suppose you have refused coverage and are paying for private health insurance out of your own pocket?

Posted by: uncle frogy | July 28, 2009 12:38 PM

I would like to have some more information on the demographic statements made by andyet.

of the countries which are the highest in birth rates and religious belief what is the level of education?
what is the level of prosperity level of the country as a whole?
What is the prosperity level of the population fraction with the highest birth rate? What is the education level?
What is the retention of religious belief in the offspring of the religious when analyzed / compared with prosperity and education.

Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 28, 2009 12:42 PM

W

alton doesn't England have national healthcare? I suppose you have refused coverage and are paying for private health insurance out of your own pocket?

The whole of the UK has a national health service, free at the point of use. England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all administer their own systems within guidelines set down by the UK Government.

Posted by: toth | July 28, 2009 12:47 PM

@38: "You better hurry. In a couple of generations it will be completely Muslim. - andyet
Christard is racist liar shock!"

Islam is a religion, not a race.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | July 28, 2009 12:52 PM

and "hell-bound" was of course supposed to be "hell-bent"; but the other is, arguably, also correct (just as it is fo all of us), what with him not being a good Christian ;-)

Posted by: Draken | July 28, 2009 12:58 PM

@Dan, #36, However, the video quotes stats for the countries as a whole: I somehow have a suspicion that O'rly thinks Amsterdam is a country with Denmark as its capital.

@Jadehawk, #39: nobody forces you to wear orange on Queen's Day. The European Football Championship, though, that is another issue altogether...

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | July 28, 2009 1:02 PM

@Jadehawk, #39: nobody forces you to wear orange on Queen's Day. The European Football Championship, though, that is another issue altogether...

dude... I'd have my German citizenship revoked if I ever did THAT!

Posted by: Watchman | July 28, 2009 1:03 PM

andyet:

Superiority in 'darwinism' is a pointless phrase.

I couldn't agree more. Go back and actually read my posts.

Ok, I'll go back and "actually" read your posts. Here's what you "actually" wrote:

So in a Darwinian sense theists are far superior to atheists. Ironic, no?

How do you defend this blatant self-contradiction?

Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 28, 2009 1:10 PM

Then once again Walton is going on about something he knows nothing about. Which makes as much sense as me bitching about life in a convent.

Well I am pretty sure if you were put in a convent you would bitch about it :)

That or cause the nuns to revolt and come out as atheists,

Posted by: robinsrule | July 28, 2009 1:11 PM

andyet:

They [bacteria] rule the planet, not us.

Theology fail (now there's a tautologous statement,) unless your god is bacteria:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. Genesis 1:26 KJV

Posted by: Matt Heath | July 28, 2009 1:21 PM

Islam is a religion, not a race.

I don't actually think it's fair to assume that andyet's hysterical Eurabia duckspeak is necessarily coming from racism. It could be purely opposition to Islam as ideology. But I'm sick of hearing the claim that rants against "the Muslims" are automatically not racist. Usually it's a code word for "members of whichever ethnic group most local Muslims belong to": North Africans in France, Turks in Germany, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis in Britain. For American readers, it's roughly like racists talking up fear of "immigration" when they mean Hispanics or "inner-city crime" when they mean African Americans.

Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 28, 2009 1:27 PM

In other words, I am denied the chance to make rational economic decisions for myself based on my own needs and what I can afford.

You mean you object to people not letting you get away with being a selfish bastard ? Well tough, get used to it.

Posted by: andyet | July 28, 2009 1:28 PM

Concerning the question atheists compensating for lack of offspring by "converting" the children raised by theists,we do have some date such as the following from my original link:

Earlier this year a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that nearly three-quarters of American adults professed the religion in which they were raised.

And remember, that 25% conversion rate works both ways. 1/4 of atheists children will convert to a religious belief (the son of Madlyn Murray O'hare being a prominent example). Nor does a 25% conversion rate translate into gains for atheists. The vast majority of these converts pick another religion. Furthermore inost of the world outside of Europe the conversion rate in traditional societies (Hindu, Islamic, etc.) is far lower. Combine this with the birth rate differential:

According to the World Bank, the nations with the largest proportions of unbelievers had an average annual population growth rate of just 0.7% in the period 1975-97, while the populations of the most religious countries grew three times as fast.

Do the math. Start with equal numbers of theists and atheists if you want. Work out the growth and conversion rates for several generations. Hint: atheists don't come out ahead.

So why then has Europe experienced an increase in secularism (and why is it the only place on the planet where this has occured)? Again from the link:

Eberstadt argues that part of the reason why western European Christians have become more secular is that they have been forming fewer stable families, and having fewer children when they do. This, she suggests, may help to explain some puzzles about the timing of secularisation in certain places. In Ireland, for example, she notes that people started having smaller families before they stopped going to church.

As for existing numbers of atheists, that has been grossly overstated (http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-4275-DC-Secularism-Examiner~y2009m7d25-Nonbelievers-will-get-called-out-for-fudging-the-numbers):

. . . they dramatically overestimated the number of unbelievers. According to the American Religious Identification Survey, 15 percent of Americans are not currently members of any religious organization. This finding led to the claim that one in six Americans is now an unbeliever. But the data actually show that three quarters of the people in that 15 percent are “in between” religious commitments. . . At any given moment, 15 percent of us may be unaffiliated, but most of those are believers. In a recent Pew Forum survey, in fact, only 1.6 percent of respondents identified themselves as atheists.

As the author of the piece notes:

I'm pretty confident about that range based on responses to the various surveys' questions, but when even these numbers have to be used delicately, since those who actually outright deny the existence of God never rise above 3% or so in any of the recent major surveys. ARIS has us squashed to a meager 0.7% for those who explicitly call themselves "atheists." ... As proponents of rationalism, we have to deal with reality on its own terms, not as we would like it to be. Stop telling people that nonbelievers make up 15% of the country, because we don't

Now recrunch those numbers, but start with 2 atheists vs. 98 theists (instead of equal numbers of each as in the first calculation). Let me know what you come up with.

Posted by: Alyson Miers | July 28, 2009 1:31 PM

Would it be desirable if the hairdressing industry were nationalised and tax-funded, so that everyone's haircuts cost the same - forcing me to pay for other people's blonde highlights and straightening? Would that be fair?

Um...can we say analogy FAIL here? Healthcare is to hairdressing as drinkable water is to vodka. I would say oxygen to perfume, except we still manage to get oxygen for free, however desperately polluted it may be now due to the omnipotence and loving wisdom of the Free Market.

I must admit some admiration for the way you manage to hijack just about any thread on behalf of the virtues of libertarianism and the evils of big government, with such cursory effort, that said. Hats off, you do it so easily. You even got me to participate. Where the heck did I leave my popcorn?!

Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 28, 2009 1:33 PM

Why is Andyet quoting from a Pew survey on US religious attitudes in support of a claim he made about Amsterdam becoming predominantly Muslim ?

Has he got a bit confused over where Amsterdam is ?

Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 28, 2009 1:35 PM

So in other words Walton you believe there is no place in society for the concept of "the common good"?

No, No, No Patricia.

Walton does believe in the common good. It is what is good for him and sod everyone else.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | July 28, 2009 1:40 PM

So, in a free market, I would insure against catastrophic and long-term illness - which wouldn't cost me too much, considering my comparatively low risk - while paying for simple doctors' appointments (which I haven't needed in years) and routine care out of my own pocket.

I don't know about the UK, but in the us, "routine care" is not something most people would be able to afford out of pocket. here's a few examples, from memory:

being let past the secretary: $200
peeing in a cup: $100
swab: $50
ultrasound: $150 per shot
bacterial culture: $90
eye exam: $345
dental exam: $215

on average, a trip for routine checkup costs about $500 - $600 dollars.

So if I am earning the same salary as Bob, a morbidly obese chain-smoking 70-year-old with a family history of heart and lung problems, then I pay the same for my health coverage as he does - despite the fact that he's far more likely to need regular expensive medical treatment than I am.

that's the whole fucking point. explain to me again why bob should be punished for being old and having a family history of heart and lung problems? That sounds suspiciously like social darwinism to me.

Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 28, 2009 1:43 PM

No, the question had to do with conversion rates and whether they would compensate for the inability of atheists to breed. What information is available would indicate this is not the case. However, if someone knows of a similar study in Europe I would be interested in seeing it.

Until then the 75% retention rate seems to be a good rule of thumb for industrialized countries, and is probably much higher in traditional countries.

The context was The Netherlands, not the US.

Given the vastly different religiosity of Western Europe, especially the more liberal parts, and the US, it would be unwise to extrapolate using US data.

In fact more than unwise. Positively dishonest.

Posted by: Michelle R | July 28, 2009 1:44 PM

I have to go to Amsterdam someday. That video convinced me.

What a beautiful city.

Posted by: beermoth | July 28, 2009 1:50 PM

John M #17 Really - I do think you are being a bit harsh about the UK. My bit of England - Warwickshire, near Shakespeare's birthplace - is a nice place to live.

As for Amsterdam - it's lovely! O'Reilly's hysteria was funny - and hopefully ensures that the batshit right wing American nutters stay out of Europe for some time to come. I hope so.

Posted by: andyet | July 28, 2009 1:51 PM

I hope this helps you clarify your thoughts.

Thank you, Captain Literal!

BTW you also don't believe in anyting supernatural (ghosts, witches, angels, souls, vampires, etc.).

It's a bitch getting schooled in atheism by a theist, ain't it?

P.S. You aren't Aspergers are you? You seem to have problems picking up on subtle nuances.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | July 28, 2009 1:53 PM

andyet, you're confusing "skeptic" with "atheist". stop talking about things you know shit about.

Posted by: Alyson Miers | July 28, 2009 1:53 PM

It's easy to imagine the boundless freedom and joy of free market health care (i.e., buy the poor, old and sick a dildo and let them fuck themselves) when you've lived all your life in a country with socialized medicine.

I'm a non-poor, late 20something American with a largely healthy lifestyle, and I haven't had dental coverage since I finished my Peace Corps assignment, which means I haven't had my teeth checked in a year. I know how quick those charges can stack up on the dental bill, even after insurance pays their part. This is good for me, HOW, exactly? And having large numbers of people like me going without routine care and possibly suffering much more serious problems further down the road is good for America, HOW, again?

Posted by: Jonny Music | July 28, 2009 1:55 PM

Fox News lies again... big surprise !

Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 28, 2009 1:57 PM

Alyson,

Well there is a problem with dental coverage here in the UK. Where I live there are currently no dentists taking on NHS patients. It is either private or nothing.

As a result people have started drinking a load of vodka and taking a pair of pliers to a painful tooth. I guess Walton would be impressed at their resourceful attitude.

Posted by: Canuck | July 28, 2009 1:58 PM

Well, it was about 24 years ago the last time I was in Amsterdam, but I had a fine time. Enjoyed the food, the museums, the canals, the markets. It was a lovely time. So good I was there again a few months later. I have to confess that the red light district was somewhat depressing, because it wasn't all that clear that the brothel employees were doing so voluntarily. I don't have a problem with brothels, but I do have a problem with women forced into that situation, as some of these immigrant women seemed to be.

But the worst thing about Amsterdam was the very obnoxious drug pushers who followed us down the street trying to pedal cocaine. If I could just add one little thing to kind of give the situation perspective... These drug pushers were a bunch of jive talking black Americans. Nothing racist implied or intended; just the fact that this is what I experienced. And if there's one thing you don't want messing up your european holiday, it's some punk ass jerk from Bedford-Sty trying to sell you white powder on the street and not taking "get lost" for an answer.

The Dutch, on the other hand, were wonderful. I even had an old man buy me a beer in one pub because I was Canadian. They still remember the liberation, and they teach that history in the schools. I thought Holland was a great place.

Posted by: Alpinist | July 28, 2009 2:03 PM

the most subversive and disturbing thing i experienced in amsterdam was a dread-locked black fellow on waarmostrat (sp?) saying to everyone who walked by "coke ecstasy... coke ecstasy...coke ecstasy"

it was very traumatic.

Posted by: Alyson Miers | July 28, 2009 2:05 PM

It's a bitch getting schooled in atheism by a theist, ain't it?

*splutters*

But, but...I thought we godless heathens were the arrogant ones!

Go school yourself.

Posted by: GMacs | July 28, 2009 2:07 PM

So, safe sex is bad? Tolerance of others' way of life is bad? Promoting self-control and moderation is bad?

Fox News: Endorsers of Totalitarianism

Posted by: No Bs | July 28, 2009 2:08 PM

Andyet,

I'll be your boyfriend for a night if you have that itch to be bred.

Posted by: Stu | July 28, 2009 2:16 PM

It's a bitch getting schooled in atheism by a theist, ain't it?

Holy crap. Could you send me a picture of yourself, so we can submit it to be included under the header "delusional" in the next Webster's Illustrated?

Posted by: Walton | July 28, 2009 2:18 PM

Matt - Oh, now I see. For a moment I thought the heat had addled my brain, and maybe he wasn't the selfish, smug, aristocratic little prick I thought he was. ;)

I'm not remotely aristocratic. I have no idea why some people here seem to have formed a distorted image of me as some sort of pampered latter-day Bertie Wooster, blithering aimlessly through life while being waited on hand-and-foot by the servile peasantry. It is entirely inaccurate. For the record, I went to an ordinary state school.

"Smug and selfish" I will ignore.

Posted by: Walton | July 28, 2009 2:21 PM

but we need to be careful which lifestyle choices we decide are "not defendable", lest we actually end up telling other people how to live

I agree - and this is the best argument for not subsidising anyone's lifestyles.

Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 28, 2009 2:25 PM

I'm not remotely aristocratic. I have no idea why some people here seem to have formed a distorted image of me as some sort of pampered latter-day Bertie Wooster, blithering aimlessly through life while being waited on hand-and-foot by the servile peasantry. It is entirely inaccurate. For the record, I went to an ordinary state school.

"Smug and selfish" I will ignore.

Well you come over as someone used to privilege. It is unwise of you to ignore the comments about you being smug and selfish, since you are both.

You are aware that for some people, those on some benefits, £19.50 represents nearly half their weekly income. No doubt you will claim they can get free dental treatment. Well they can, if they happen to be lucky enough to find a dentist who will take them on as an NHS patient.

Posted by: El Guerrero del Interfaz | July 28, 2009 2:27 PM

Just 2 words in Spanish:

¡Envidia cochina!

Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 28, 2009 2:29 PM

So Walton, again: since YOU don't want to, who pays for the dock worker who gets diagnosed with MS?

I don't suppose Walton even cares.

Posted by: Walton | July 28, 2009 2:34 PM

I don't suppose Walton even cares.

that social darwinism again. it does not look pretty.

Of course I care. Now you're all trying to push me into a position where I end up sounding callous and cruel, or at least clueless in a "Let them eat cake"-esque sort of way. As you may have noted, I advocated some form of "health stamps" or health benefits for the poor and medically uninsurable - giving them the resources they need, while ensuring that everyone retains the right to choose their own healthcare providers in a free market. This is not backtracking; I advocated it from the start.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | July 28, 2009 2:39 PM

*sigh*

except that your cute little model is precisely the clusterfuck we have here in the U.S. and it doesn't work. socialising the risks but privatizing the profits of the health industry is PRECISELY why the U.S. system is broken; and yet, it's precisely what you're suggesting.

Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 28, 2009 2:40 PM

Of course I care. Now you're all trying to push me into a position where I end up sounding callous and cruel, or at least clueless in a "Let them eat cake"-esque sort of way. As you may have noted, I advocated some form of "health stamps" or health benefits for the poor and medically uninsurable - giving them the resources they need, while ensuring that everyone retains the right to choose their own healthcare providers in a free market. This is not backtracking; I advocated it from the start.

We are not the ones making you look callous and cruel. You manage that all on your own. Please take credit for your own achievements.

You come across as a spoilt brat who has no idea what real poverty is like. You claim you want choice over healthcare, well when it comes to dental cover we have in the UK. There are people pulling their own teeth out with pliers because they cannot afford to see a dentist. That is what your reality would be like.

Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 28, 2009 2:46 PM

I would add that even with private health insurance you do not get to choose who provides your healthcare. You go where your insurance can get the cheapest rates. You do not get to decide on a particular doctor and then demand your insurance company pays their fees. You end up with a worse system than the NHS. Not only do you not get to see who you might actually want to see, the people making the decisions are not accountable to you.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | July 28, 2009 2:50 PM

Now you're all trying to push me into a position where I end up sounding callous and cruel, or at least clueless in a "Let them eat cake"-esque sort of way.

Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 28, 2009 2:50 PM

Would you really suggest that a National Food Service, rationing, and government control of food distribution would produce superior results?

Actually that was tried in the UK during the Second World War. And it did produce good results. The state of the nation's health improved in no small part as a result of improved nutrition.

Posted by: Knockgoats | July 28, 2009 2:53 PM

And remember, that 25% conversion rate works both ways. 1/4 of atheists children will convert to a religious belief (the son of Madlyn Murray O'hare being a prominent example).

[citation needed - one example does not suffice]

In a recent Pew Forum survey, in fact, only 1.6 percent of respondents identified themselves as atheists.

Likely to be an underestimate in a country where atheists are routinely denigrated. In any case irrelevant to far more secular Netherlands, which your original lie concerned. You've been trying to change the subject ever since you were called on it.

Eberstadt argues that part of the reason why western European Christians have become more secular is that they have been forming fewer stable families, and having fewer children when they do.

If falling birth rates are the cause of secularism, it will clearly triumph in the course of this century, as birth rates have been falling pretty much everywhere (including the most religious countries, although they lag behind), since the 1960s.

Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 28, 2009 2:53 PM

Surely "real poverty" is that endured by the poor of North Korea, who die in their thousands every few years when their government's disastrous policies cause yet another famine? Or that endured by the rural poor of Africa, who are kept in abject poverty by the US and EU governments' agricultural protectionism and other tariffs?

No, I don't have any idea what that kind of poverty - living in hovels on the edge of starvation - is like to experience. And neither, I would venture to suggest, do most people on this site.

So a mother going without food in order that her children have shoes is not real poverty ? How about an elderly person freezing to death because they cannot afford to heat their home ? These things happen Walton, and they happen right here in the UK. And they happen partly because of smug self-satisfied tossers like you.

Posted by: andyet | July 28, 2009 2:55 PM

Why do you believe in which ever god you believe in?

Well now, that was an uncommonly thoughtful and intelligent question. I have to reasses my opinion of you. Please accept my apologies for any negative thoughts or words directed your way.

Let us start with what I don't believe.

I'm not a fundy or a bible literalist. Genesis is literature, not history or science. The creation story is a metaphor, a myth originally intended for a group of primitive desert tribesmen. But it is a myth in the classic sense of the term - a story that relates a deeper truth. As for evolution, I agree with Pope JPII when he declared it to be "more than a theory". Acceptance of evolution is official Catholic doctrine.

And has been since the 4th century. A literal interpretation of Genessis is contray to Christian tradition beginning with St. Augustine. From a review of Augustine's philosophy as expressed in his book, "The
Literal Meaning of Genesis": "In the beginning there were created a few species of beings which, by virtue of intrinsic principles of reproduction, gave origin to the other species down to the present state of the existing world. Thus it seems that Augustine is not contrary to a moderate evolution, but that such a moderate evolution has nothing in common with modern materialistic evolutionist teaching." Given his lack of fossil evidence and the tools of the scientific method, it would be too much to expect him to express a modern theory of evolution — though he was on the right track.

So I see no contradiction between faith and evolution. That argument belongs with the ideological extremes - atheists and fundies.

I also see no conflict between faith a reason, rather they are complmentary. Frankly, I've never seen why there should be a conflict between religion and science, except when they mistakenly tread on each others turf. "Non overlapping magesteria" (IIRC) is how Gould phrased it, and IMHO his critique of Dawkins as an atheist version of a Fundy is dead on accurate. To ask whether religion or science is most important is an apples to oranges comparison, each has a different function. A complete intellect requires both, atheists and Fundies are mirror images of each other — and equally limited and wrong in their world views. Each is blind in one eye, a different eye, and are forever arguing about which eye is best. I prefer to use both.

Faith and Reason are the two shoes on your feet. You'll get farther wearing both than only wearing one. By wearing both I avoid the willful ignorance of the fundy and the inherent nihilism of the atheist.

As for the God of the Old Testament (a favorite around here) and some of the terrible things he has done, I am in agreement with CS Lewis when he wrote the following:

"The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not 'so there's no God after all,' but 'So this is what God is really like. Deceive yourself no longer.' Believing in a God whom we cannot but regard as evil, and then, in mere terrified flattery calling Him 'good' and worshipping Him, is still greater danger. The ultimate question is whether the doctrine of the goodness of God or that of the inerrancy of Scriptures is to prevail when they conflict. I think the doctrine of the goodness of God is the more certain of the two indeed, only that doctrine renders this worship of Him obligatory or even permissible."

As a non-fundamentalist Catholic I don't have to believe that Genesis is literally true, that Exodus occurred exactly in the manner described, or that the historical books are more accurate than any other oral history written down at a later date (the book of Joshua may be no more "accurate" than the Iliad). So you can either believe God is good or believe the scriptures are inerrant. You can't believe both.

But then only fundies and atheists take the bible literally.

So one has to very careful when projecting back our values on the peoples of the OT so as to avoid an anachronism. Slavery is often sited as an example. While the OT condones slavery, as did every other society until the industrial age, it also is the first book to limit its harshness and impose rules on the slave master (such as the year of the jubilee). Joshua's campaigns were brutal, but they were the norm for the times, and those of the Assyrians were far worse.

Furthermore, it was only through the efforts of Christians (particularily the Quakers) that slavery was ended. Unfortunately it was revived by the atheistic totalitarians of the 20th century and expanded to an industrial scale in their death camps and gulags.

As for Jesus of Nazareth, yes he was an actual person. The Jesus Myth hypothesis is no more credible (and is based on less "evidence") than Von Danikan's ancient astronauts. The idea has been laughed out of consideration by credible scholarship (the kind that doesn't have an ideoligcal axe to grind). And yes, I beleive that He sacrificed Himself for me and every other sinner.

Every other faith requires it followers to make sacrifices to their god(s). Christianity is the only faith where God sacrifices himself for our sake. I find that a profound concept. But does its profundity make it a true concept? Of course not.

That's where faith comes in.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | July 28, 2009 2:59 PM

Surely "real poverty" is that endured by the poor of North Korea, who die in their thousands every few years when their government's disastrous policies cause yet another famine? Or that endured by the rural poor of Africa, who are kept in abject poverty by the US and EU governments' agricultural protectionism and other tariffs?

1)you make it sound like there's no real poverty in the developed world. which makes you heartless and clueless

2)it's not EU and US farm subsidies that are ruining the rest of the world, it's the insistence that THEY play by free market rules, forbidding them from stabilizing their own food supply, while at the same time allowing themselves oversized subsidies that's the problem: hypocrisy and imperialist is the problem, not subsidized base agriculture. (subsidized non-base agriculture is a different issue...)

Posted by: Anonymous Coward | July 28, 2009 3:09 PM

Don't paint Amsterdam too heavenly; for a different perspective I recommend the song ‘Amsterdam is een bananenrepubliek’ (Amsterdam is a bananarepublic). Although in some areas a bit dated, some of it still rings true today, and more importantly it's a funny song.

@Matt e.a.: maybe his comment is a bit pessimistic, but that doesn't automatically make him xenophobic or racist. Just scared of muslims, who are neither a race nor necessarily foreigners. So I think your comment says more about your own preconceptions than about his. Also, if you want to refute him, you have to do more than just saying ‘you're wrong’ without argumentation, as you all did, because now it looks to an external observer who isn't part of the discussion like you're wrong and Andyet might be right.
@Dan: Unlikely perhaps, but true. Although things are picking up a bit, there was a time when the government was hardly in control of the city.

Posted by: Feynmaniac | July 28, 2009 3:27 PM

that nearly three-quarters of American adults professed the religion in which they were raised.

And remember, that 25% conversion rate works both ways.

There's no indication that this rate has been constant (my guess is it was higher in the past) and that it will remain constant. It's also unclear if that they considered "atheists" or "no religion" a religion. Finally, the 3/4 number is the total figure. Even if "atheist" and "no religion" was taken into account it doesn't mean that 3/4 of people raised like that will remain so. All your extrapolations are useless.

According to the World Bank, the nations with the largest proportions of unbelievers had an average annual population growth rate of just 0.7% in the period 1975-97, while the populations of the most religious countries grew three times as fast.

For the last time religion is not genetic.

But the data actually show that three quarters of the people in that 15 percent are “in between” religious commitments

No it doesn't. 15% checked off "None" when it came to religion, and it was the largest growing group in every state. Meanwhile Christianity lost 10% of the population in 18 years. The growth of "None" isn't a good thing for you.

Now recrunch those numbers, but start with 2 atheists vs. 98 theists

A century ago in Europe you'd probably have had similar conditions to those.

Posted by: Patricia, OM | July 28, 2009 3:33 PM

Walton - I have thought of you as a Wooster for so long that when I read your posts I hear Hugh Laurie's voice. But even there you fail to stand up to the mark. Living by the Code of the Woosters would never occur to you.

Posted by: Marc Abian | July 28, 2009 3:43 PM

the average citizen of a developed country today has access to a fantastic range of fresh food from all around the world, at reasonable prices, in his local supermarket. Our ancestors would have been slack-jawed with envy. This is what global consumer capitalism has done for us - delivered us a standard of living vastly higher than that of previous generations.

Are you sure that's global capitalism and not the advances in human knowledge bearing fruit?

I also see no conflict between faith a reason, rather they are complmentary.

Talk of eyes and shoes aside, how are these two things complimentary?

Posted by: Patricia, OM | July 28, 2009 3:45 PM

andyet - catholic, yahweh, jesus, is that the short answer?

Posted by: Who Cares | July 28, 2009 3:52 PM

@Jadehawk(#183):
$50k for an ambulance ride and overnight stay?
That is sick (no pun intended). I don't know exactly what happened to you but with the prices for that kind of stuff where I live (the Netherlands) I'd have to add in a profit margin way over 100% to even get close.

@Walton:
cannot compare agriculture VS medicine like you do. The amount of each needed (and the level of specialization required) is quite different allowing medical specializations to be turned into an oligopoly or even monopoly where in agriculture it is easier to to the next farmer to get the goods.
As an example I offer my home town. 5 hospitals with 15/20 minutes drive. If I suffer a heart attack after stabilization and diagnose I will be rushed to the only one to specialize in the cardiovascular system. Within the same driving distance I have at least one market 6 days of the week, 8+ different supermarket chains and several dozen farmers selling fresh produce.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | July 28, 2009 3:53 PM

anyway, here's some data:

one in 10 American households experience food insecurity in any given year (highest rate was New Mexico, at 16% of households)

the child poverty rate is 22% in the U.S.
13.6% of Americans live on $11 a day
2.5%of the population suffers from undernourishment

and, lastly, people living in poverty in the U.S. also suffer from 3rd world level health problems, such as "Neglected Infections of Poverty", i.e. diseases that only occur among the poorest parts of the populations, aren't profitable to fix, and lower the ability of the suffering communities to "pull themselves out by their bootstraps.

Posted by: E.V. | July 28, 2009 3:58 PM

No, but it is memetic, as is atheism. The primary transmitter of memes to children remains their parents.

Posted by: Matt Penfold | July 28, 2009 4:03 PM

Matt e.a.: maybe his comment is a bit pessimistic, but that doesn't automatically make him xenophobic or racist. Just scared of muslims, who are neither a race nor necessarily foreigners. So I think your comment says more about your own preconceptions than about his. Also, if you want to refute him, you have to do more than just saying ‘you're wrong’ without argumentation, as you all did, because now it looks to an external observer who isn't part of the discussion like you're wrong and Andyet might be right.

Well it might look that way to an uneducated and ignorant observer, but to be honest I do not really care what you think.

Posted by: Pauline in UK | July 28, 2009 4:21 PM

I LOVE Amsterdam, for all the reasons people have mentioned here, but most of all because in a continent awash in great, and merely very fine, orchestras, Amsterdam has the greatest of them all – the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Posted by: Walton | July 28, 2009 4:29 PM

anyway, here's some data:

one in 10 American households experience food insecurity in any given year (highest rate was New Mexico, at 16% of households)

the child poverty rate is 22% in the U.S.
13.6% of Americans live on $11 a day
2.5%of the population suffers from undernourishment

and, lastly, people living in poverty in the U.S. also suffer from 3rd world level health problems, such as "Neglected Infections of Poverty", i.e. diseases that only occur among the poorest parts of the populations, aren't profitable to fix, and lower the ability of the suffering communities to "pull themselves out by their bootstraps.

Well, I'm not sure whether you'd like me to invent some perfect magic solution that will instantly eliminate poverty; but we both know that there isn't such a solution. But the amount of absolute poverty in the United States, and the rest of the developed world, is far less than it has ever been at any other time in history. And the world we live in is getting better and better - because of international trade and commercial innovation.

Posted by: E.V. | July 28, 2009 4:33 PM

I don't call him STUPID for believing what he believes, because only an immature, socially retarded, total dick would do such a thing.

Posted by: andyet | July 28, 2009 4:35 PM

How about the Gospels? Are they meant to be taken literally? Did Jesus really die and come back from the dead? Did he really perform all those magic tricks or were they too "metaphors"?

As for the historical reality of Jesus, I refer to historian Will Durant:

"...in essentials the synoptic gospels agree remarkably well, and form a consistent portrait of Christ. In the enthusiasm of its discoveries the Higher Criticism has applied to the New Testament test of authenticity so severe that by them a hundred ancient worthies — e.g. Hammurabi, David, Socrates — would fade into legend. Despite the prejudices and theological preconceptions of the evangelists, they record many incidents that mere invention would have concealed — the competition of the apostles for high places in the Kingdom, their flight after Jesus arrest, Peter's denial, the failure of Christ to work miracles in Galilee, the references of some auditors to his possible insanity, his early uncertainty as to his mission, his confessions of ignorance as to the future, his moments of bitterness, his despairing cry on the cross; no one reading these scenes can doubt the reality of the figure behind them. That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so lofty an ethic and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospels."

As for those who claim Jesus was an invented myth, I have this refutation by historian Michael Grant:

"More convincing refutations of the Christ-Myth hypothesis can be derived from an appeal to method. In the first place, Judaism was a milieu to which doctrines of the deaths and rebirths of mythical gods seems so entirely foreign that the emergence of such a fabrication from its midst is very hard to credit. But above all, if we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned. Certainly there are all those discrepancies between one Gospel and another. But we do not deny that an event took place just because pagan historians, for example Livy and Polybius, happen to have described it in differing terms. That there was a growth of legend around Jesus cannot be denied, and it arose very quickly. But there had also been a rapid growth of legend round pagan figures like Alexander the Great; and yet nobody regards him as wholly fictitious. To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ-Myth theory. It has 'again and again been answered and annihilated by first-rank scholars'. In recent years 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus' — or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary."

As for whether Jesus was just a good (but only human) teacher I have CS Lewis' Trilemma:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

As for the resurection, there is at least one little detail which doesn't add up if the resurrection story were mere fiction. Women in first century Palestine were not considered competent witnesses under Jewish law, and were forbidden from testifying in a court of law since there testimony was considered worthless (it being assumed that they were mentally inferior to men). Yet the authors of the resurrection story state that it was the women who witnessed the empty tomb and informed the cowardly apostles of the risen Jesus.

Now what I can't figure out is why a "fictional" story would be written as to reduce the credibility of the tale by having women, not men, find the empty tomb. The highly unflattering portrait of the apostles cowering behind closed doors while the women go boldly forth to tend to Jesus' cadaver is not something a writer of fiction would include — especially in the strongly patriarchal society of first century Palestine.

An author once said that the only difference between truth and fiction is that fiction had to make sense. A fictional account of the resurrection would have been written very differently.

As for the impact of His resurrection on his followers,we know that Jesus was one of perhaps dozens of wandering rabbis and certainly not the only one who claimed to be the Messiah. Evidence exists that many of these would-be Messiahs were put to death either by the Jewish leadership or by the Romans.

Invariably, the followers of these dead men (assuming they were not executed as well) would either find a new religious leader to follow or return home to try a restart their lives. The same pattern has been seen in modern apocalyptic communities and religious fringe groups where the leader predicts the end of the world. When that end fails to come, or if a Jonestown type tragedy occurs, the remaining followers typically lose faith and slink home.

What makes Jesus unique is that his movement did not collapse with his humiliating execution. Quite the contrary. Instead of scurrying back home in embarrassment to live lives of safe obscurity, the Apostles were emboldened and motivated by Jesus' hideous and humiliating death on the cross. They were inspired to the point of risking (and often losing) their own lives in order to spread Jesus' teachings. Since nobody ever dies or risks their life for what they know to be untrue, this strongly suggests that something unique happened after what should have been a typical crucifixion to produce an atypical result.

Something very unique.

So to answer your question, I take His resurrection as a literal event (not a myth) based on available evidence, hitorical context and common sense.

Posted by: Gruesome Rob | July 28, 2009 4:36 PM

@andyet:

So why Yahweh and Jesus? Why not Zeus? Why not Thoth? Why not Xenu? Why are their holy works that also claim to be words of the respective gods any less of a divine inspiration than the bible?

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | July 28, 2009 4:39 PM

In the enthusiasm of its discoveries the Higher Criticism has applied to the New Testament test of authenticity so severe that by them a hundred ancient worthies — e.g. Hammurabi, David, Socrates — would fade into legend.

uh.... I don't know about Hammurabi, but David is almost certainly fictional, while Socrates' existence is not proven or all that well evidenced, but it's inconsequential enough not to warrant excessive debates over it, so people just go with the assumption that he was probably real.

Posted by: Madrigalia | July 28, 2009 4:41 PM

For some reason, atheists just don't breed.

Idiocracy

Posted by: comfychair | July 28, 2009 4:45 PM

Remember that time the Netherlands invaded Iraq and a million civilians wound up dead? Those liberal morons are outta control, I tell ya!

Posted by: Walton | July 28, 2009 4:47 PM

no Walton, I merely would like you to stop dismissing poverty in the developed world as something not worth considering a serious problem (or alternatively, a well deserved consequence of something)

I apologise. I didn't mean to sound dismissive. I do recognise that it is a serious problem.

I want you to stop pretending as if we wanted to turn the world into another soviet union.

Again, I apologise - it wasn't my intention to caricature your views in that manner. The only reason I refer to the Soviet Union so frequently is to illustrate the inherent inefficiency (and creeping authoritarianism) of state bureaucracies. I realise that you aren't campaigning to abolish capitalism, and I wasn't suggesting that your political ideas amount to Soviet-style socialism; they certainly don't.

Posted by: advertisinglies | July 28, 2009 4:48 PM

Oh you tricky troll! You responded to the post while my comment was being written/posted! I cry conspiracy! Just like your BS about Jesus.

Posted by: Patricia, OM | July 28, 2009 4:51 PM

E.V. - Yesterday I guessed facillis.

Posted by: Grant | July 28, 2009 4:55 PM

So how do we get a version of this video on as an advert on Fox?

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | July 28, 2009 4:55 PM

Andyet is still pointless and non-cogent. Just another delusional godbotting fool. Andyet, if you don't like what we say, go elsewhere. I'm still waiting for your evidence that we both know you don't have...

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | July 28, 2009 4:57 PM

those were supposed to be insults...?

wow, andyet, you really suck at insulting people

Posted by: Paul | July 28, 2009 4:58 PM

@238

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/05/there_are_no_marching_morons.php

I was going to say more, but I'm not all that eloquent and that post covered my feelings well.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | July 28, 2009 5:01 PM

I apologise. I didn't mean to sound dismissive. I do recognise that it is a serious problem.

only in theory. in practice, you find being taxed and expected to be a member of society too unbearable to do the things that have been proven to alleviate social ills. lip-service to compassion from libertarians is worth as much as lip-service from Christians on neighborly love.

Posted by: nigelTheBold | July 28, 2009 5:05 PM

Andyet,

I believe the self-refuting nature of your intelligence (as demonstrated in your contradictory, scattershot posts) is insulting enough.

Posted by: Feynmaniac | July 28, 2009 5:09 PM

Shorter Anydet:

It's okay insult Muslims and atheists, but it's not okay to insult Christians and Jews. That's how I define respect.

Posted by: Watchman | July 28, 2009 5:10 PM

Oh, but Bobber - he didn't mean it, he was just showing us how to do it. No harm, no foul. ;-)

Posted by: Walton | July 28, 2009 5:16 PM

only in theory. in practice, you find being taxed and expected to be a member of society too unbearable to do the things that have been proven to alleviate social ills. lip-service to compassion from libertarians is worth as much as lip-service from Christians on neighborly love.

Well, I don't know quite what to say to that. I'll think about it overnight and come up with (hopefully) a more satisfactory reply.

Posted by: advertisinglies | July 28, 2009 5:25 PM

#262 - Exactly the passive aggressive move I'm waiting for.

I'd just like to point out that if I were to try to show a group how insults are crafted without intending to insult the group I was talking to, I would make sure to not insult anything obviously indicative of the group as that would constitute an underhanded attack on my part.

Posted by: Stu | July 28, 2009 5:27 PM

We might as well argue over whether Rand al'Thor is really insane

Naah, just a bit of a pussy.

Posted by: pascalle | July 28, 2009 5:30 PM

@ Walton,

The Netherlands has a free market for health insurance now. It was an idea of the liberals a few years ago.

Before that free market i had the cheapest package available. It cost me 20 guilders a month (which would be 10 euros now).

At this moment i have the cheapest package available and it costs me 85 euros a month.
So i'm paying over 8 times as much as i did before, while they promised us it would be cheaper.

I live of welfare, and though i'm glad i am insured, this 85 euros is 10% of my total income.

So, i would suggest YOU start paying an extra 10% of your income, on top of your taxes and we'll talk again about healthcare and free markets.

Posted by: Stu | July 28, 2009 5:33 PM

For the record, "liberals" in the Netherlands means something completely different than in the US.

Posted by: LadyH | July 28, 2009 5:38 PM

"Having children is an act of faith, hope, and selflessness"

No one else has done this so I'll step up.

BWAAAAAAAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHahahahahahah. . .haha. . . .. haha

Sorry, that was just too hilarious

Posted by: 'Tis Himself | July 28, 2009 5:51 PM

I will not get involved in a discussion of the L-word.

(Now those are insults a man can be proud of.)

Not just delusional, but delusions of grandeur as well.

More like delusions of adequacy.

Posted by: AJ Milne | July 28, 2009 6:00 PM

FWIW, I think andyet is significantly brighter than Silver Fox. His writing is more lucid and sophisticated, and his thinking is somewhat more coherent.

Oh, but give it time...

I'm not so worried about anyone's ability actually to construct functional sentences falling apart or nothin', but me, I actually find it a bit painful watching the inevitable, painful descent into incoherent hedging and muddied, hastily-trod circles folk of this stripe seem inevitably to follow, once the ravening horde here start pushin' em on just howinhell they do manage to reconcile their favourite iron age birth-death-rebirth figure with, say, reality... Starts with these loops and whorls, and then those get pulled out too rapidly into hairpin turns, then reef knots. You start out by thinking: okay, could be sillier, I guess... and then you get to know 'em too well...

There's a certain pathetic inevitability about the process, now. I expect I'd have to be far more of a sadist than I am actually to enjoy it, really... I mean, geez, man, s/he's already cited Lewis. So I'm getting the unpleasant feeling this just isn't gonna be pretty. And already feeling this compulsion to switch away to something a little less grisly...

Like maybe a video presentation on advanced cases of genital herpes, or somethin'...

(Types 'horrid, enormous pustules' into image search bar, clicks away...)

Yep. This is the soft option, really...

Posted by: Smoggy Batzrubble | July 28, 2009 6:05 PM

Dear Brother Andyet @ 243

Please resile from your harsh tone towards the deluded hell-bound atheists, you are doing nothing to strengthen our mission to convert them to God's love! I have been sent to this blog by Jesus to preach His Good News. Your negativity is setting back the cause of the Gospel!

I certainly wouldn't want to see the Atheists insulting you. Indeed, I would chastise anyone who might have the temerity to describe you as a "credulous god-botherer, so enmeshed in the conditioning of your childhood, and so mindlessly terrified of dying, that you'd rather cling to the discredited myths of brutal, bronze-age desert dwellers than think for yourself as a citizen of a modern, technologically advanced society."

Nor would I allow the Atheists to call you "a sexually stunted Christurbator, desperate to conceal the stinking depths of your own depravity and degeneracy that manifest as filthy secret desires flooding from your dark soul like the ropes of semen you guiltily spill in surreptitious masturbation."

And I’d ask God to smite any Atheist who dared to describe you as "a social misfit, so terrified of anything different enough to rattle the narrow little cage you live in, that you lash out in puerile desperation using discredited stereotypes that we know you know are simple reflections of your own repressed desires and insecurities."

Dear, dear Brother Andyet, you may be a sad excuse for a human being, but you are God’s sad excuse for a human being and He loves you, and thus I do also. And so I am truly sorry that you feel so inferior to people who find your delusions risible. It is true that atheists pity you, rather than hate you. But still, I will not let them insult you.

Yours in Christ-love
Smoggy

PS Jesus wanted me to say, that a man like you might be proud of your insults, but as The Son of God he thinks they are really piss-poor. He asked me to say, in a spirit of Christly love, that he thinks you are "the stench-breathed illegitimate offspring of a raddle-faced, bow-legged whore and a pox’d pederastic priest, and he looks forward to the day when you finally pull your head out of your arse and stop talking shit long enough for someone to find your brain amids’t the excrement and put it out of it’s misery by cremating it in a matchbox."

Oh yes, and He said "Your reward will be in Heaven…SUCKER!!"

Posted by: Pascalle | July 28, 2009 6:27 PM

@Stu,

I know how bad health insurance stuff in the usa can get.
I'm very glad it's not even close to that bad here.
Thing is, we have made the first steps to head that way too and i hate it.
I would like to see that we go back to social healthcare system again, because the one we have now won't improve, it'll only get worse.

Posted by: Smoggy Batzrubble | July 28, 2009 6:35 PM

You are right, brother Andyet,

The insults here are shocking. Words are so cruel.

What a shame the Atheists aren't inclined to use all the instruments of torture and modes of death that our Christian forefathers invented and used with such abandon to spread the faith.

Posted by: E.V. | July 28, 2009 6:40 PM

Payback's a bitch.

You underestimate your impact. You're just regurgitating the same tripe we've heard over and over before and from many who are more articulate than yourself (but just as deluded). Keep impressing us with your mighty grasp of reality and command of logic, Andyet, while I log out and cook dinner.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | July 28, 2009 6:42 PM

So how does it feel to be on the recieving end for a change?

"for a change"? being an actual minority, and the most disliked minority in the U.S., means we're always on the receiving end of insults by christians.

your persecution complex is showing. it's not the christians who had a VP and presidential candidate tell them they shouldn't even be considered citizens, and it's not christians who are barred from running for public office.

Posted by: E.V. | July 28, 2009 6:44 PM

1 for Smoggy Batzrubble.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | July 28, 2009 6:50 PM

FWIW, I think andyet is significantly brighter than Silver Fox. His writing is more lucid and sophisticated, and his thinking is somewhat more coherent.

Posted by: Gruesome Rob | July 28, 2009 7:12 PM

@andyet:

Please reconcile the following statements

I take His resurrection as a literal event

But then only fundies and atheists take the bible literally.

Posted by: Bobber | July 28, 2009 7:37 PM

Andyet said:

Patricia, you are surrounded by people who daily hurl the vilest insults at believers and you have the nerve to tell me to stop? How dare you?

Payback's a bitch. Obviously you all can dish it out but you can't take it. So how does it feel to be on the recieving end for a change?

I am forever amused by the ability of people to resort to the very tactics of those they claim to despise in order to "make a point."

But, as we can see from that unhinged stream of hate at #243, you don't exactly care to make a point. Only to lash out, like a child, and then saying, "See? I can be mean too, nyah nyah nyah!"

You came into the school yard and threw your tantrum at the "bullies". You can go away now feeling satisfied at your "win". Please don't let the playground gate smack you in the ass on the way back to church.

Posted by: E.V. | July 28, 2009 8:00 PM

Andyet is trying to makes us believe his pair go *clang* when a modest but incessant *tinkle* is all he can muster.

Posted by: MadScientist | July 28, 2009 8:03 PM

I don't know why the kooks keep saying nonsense like the Netherlands has liberal drug laws, liberal sex laws, they've turned into a libertarian paradise (anarchy), etc. It would seem a number of celebrities have bought that nonsense in the past and been arrested for their bahavior. People are very uptight about everything there - they regulate work hours, how many freckles you have on your face, when to have your meals, how many slivers of cheese you can have with your bread, when to go to the toilet ... Well, OK, I exaggerate a little, but the impression I get of the Netherlands is not that they're anarchic but that they love to make up new rules on the fly and add it to their impossibly long list of rules to follow.

Posted by: Kseniya | July 28, 2009 8:45 PM

@andyet: Please reconcile the following statements

Don't hold your breath. Not only has he declined to reconcile any of his contradictory statements, he hasn't even responded to any of the several requests that he do so.

Posted by: echidna | July 28, 2009 9:14 PM

'Course I knew the word "resile" - no look-up required. The vocabularies of British, Aussies and New Zealanders are a little bigger than those of our North American cousins. Canadians too, it seems?

When I lived in the US, to be understood I had to pronounce my "R"'s, remove idioms, and prune my vocabulary (and how!), and I'm no literary academic. I think that maybe over the last 40 or so years, the US has turned anti-intellectualism in to an art form.

Posted by: E.V. | July 28, 2009 9:21 PM

... (T)he US has turned anti-intellectualism in to an art form.

*nods*

You're preaching to the choir.

Posted by: Alex Deam | July 28, 2009 9:48 PM

Yes, I personally benefit from government-funded healthcare. But that doesn't make it right.

Sigh. Read some Hobbes or something Walton.

But, at present, I am denied the chance to make this economic decision - because I pay taxes, and receive NHS coverage for everything from bunions to lung cancer, whether I want it or not.

Never heard of BUPA?

And don't forget that he NHS is just one example of government health care. You can have a government insurance plan that doesn't force you to pay taxes for health care, and instead buy insurance, and this is probably the route the US will go down.

So if I am earning the same salary as Bob, a morbidly obese chain-smoking 70-year-old with a family history of heart and lung problems

I highly doubt that Bob would be employed, considering that employers are allowed to forcibly retire those who reach 65. Gotta love the free market.

then I pay the same for my health coverage as he does - despite the fact that he's far more likely to need regular expensive medical treatment than I am. In other words, I am denied the chance to make rational economic decisions for myself based on my own needs and what I can afford.

In the US (if it wasn't for Medicare), Bob wouldn't get any health coverage at all. Insurance companies spend billions in order to avoid insuring those who are most likely to need it. Insurance is therefore overpriced, meaning you'd be paying far higher in insurance than you will do in taxes for the NHS.

Imagine if the same were applied to other industries - say, the hairdressing industry. I have short hair and limited styling needs, so my haircuts cost about £15. I know some people with much more elaborate styles who regularly spend £200 on haircuts. Would it be desirable if the hairdressing industry were nationalised and tax-funded, so that everyone's haircuts cost the same - forcing me to pay for other people's blonde highlights and straightening? Would that be fair?

No, because no-one dies if they don't get their hair cut. Nor, in my recollection, do hairdressers or barbers try not to cut the hair of those who need hair cuts the most.

I think this has to be the worst analogy I have ever read. WHat on earth makes you think that hairdressing and health care are remotely comparable?

That's bizarre. I went for a dental checkup a couple of days ago, and it cost me £19.50 (sterling). (Obviously fillings and other dental surgery are much more expensive, but I don't know how much that would cost since I haven't had any problems with my teeth.) And I'm in a private dental practice, not an NHS one.

Yes, and that's because there's no government option in the US, so there's barely any competition. The government forces the health care companies to compete, and drives prices down as they aren't spending all that money trying not to give health insurance to those who most need it.

Would you really suggest that a National Food Service, rationing, and government control of food distribution would produce superior results?

Another failed analogy. Everyone needs to eat, pretty much every day. Not everyone needs health care.

So there's no problem with food companies trying not sell you food, as everyone needs to eat.

And there are none of the other problems associated with free market health care in relation to food.

Economics shows that health care is just one of those things it would be daft to leave up to the free market. Food provision is not one of those things.

I'll let Kenneth Arrow do the talking:

http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/82/2/PHCBP.pdf

http://correspondents.theatlantic.com/conor_clarke/2009/07/an_interview_with_kenneth_arrow_part_one.php

http://correspondents.theatlantic.com/conor_clarke/2009/07/an_interview_with_kenneth_arrow_part_two.php

There's a third part to that interview coming soon.

Or that endured by the rural poor of Africa, who are kept in abject poverty by the US and EU governments' agricultural protectionism and other tariffs?

As much as I don't like those tariffs, I don't think they're one of the main causes of African poverty.

But the amount of absolute poverty in the United States, and the rest of the developed world, is far less than it has ever been at any other time in history.

Except for the period circa 1945-1980.

And the world we live in is getting better and better - because of international trade and commercial innovation.

You're saying this in the midst of a global recession, right after the innovation of credit default swaps and other derivatives?

No amount of trade or innovation are going to get most people out of poverty, particularly in the developed world.

Posted by: Kagato | July 28, 2009 10:32 PM

Andyet --

On belief:

Why do you believe in which ever god you believe in?

Well now, that was an uncommonly thoughtful and intelligent question. [...]
Let us start with what I don't believe...

The question wasn't "what do you believe", it was "why do you believe it?"

Why do you believe in this god, and not another?

On atheists' "inability to have offspring":

Are you trying to imply that atheists are incapable of having children, or at least that the majority have none?

No. The birthrate is higher among the very religious, it is not zero among all or even many atheists.
Non-religious people still have children. They just tend to have fewer children per family.

Atheists are just as loving, caring and biologically capable as everyone else.
They are perhaps less likely to treat their family like a breeding kennel, however.

On reproduction rates and evolution: ("Darwinism", pah)

You seem intent on the idea that a high reproductive rate among the religious confers some evolutionary advantage. You later backpedalled that it is memetic not genetic (of course), but that this somehow still holds true in evolutionary terms in relation to birth rate.

Well, here's a little food for thought.

Generally speaking, species with the highest birth rate have the worst survival rate. They have so many offspring in order to improve the chance that at least some of them will survive to breed. If you think memes follow the same rules as genetics, perhaps fundamentalist parents need to have lots of children in the hope that at least some of their extreme ideas will stick with the next generation...

Birth rate is also correlated (inversely) with standard of living. Would you also argue that poverty is an evolutionary advantage?

Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | July 28, 2009 11:21 PM

I don't believe andyet is either facilis or Silver 'The Arrow of Apollo will lead us to Earth' Fox; apart from a difference in tone there's the dead giveaway of him not bringing up either's favourite inane 'argument' (using the term loosely) for their woo - 'impossibility of the contrary' and 'a different way of knowing' respectively.

What's also significant is that both those two banned fools were of the protestant persuasion, while andyet indicated (in #204) he was a dress-wearing-virgin venerating, child-rapist-enabling, magic-cracker gobbling member of the Holy Roman Catholic Church.

Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | July 28, 2009 11:31 PM

Of course, as a Christian, I believe this was all part of God's divine plan to turn Noo Zillund into a third world country.

Not to mention punishing them for having the temerity to elect an atheist - Helen Clarke - to the office of Prime Minister.

Posted by: 12th Monkey | July 28, 2009 11:57 PM

To AJ Milne - thanks for the reference to Amyl nitrite. So wonderfully 1930-ish. But FYI, nowadays we Amurrikans wash our bigotry down with methamphetamine and whiskey.

Posted by: 12th Monkey | July 29, 2009 12:31 AM

Walton: Yes, I personally benefit from government-funded healthcare. But that doesn't make it right.

HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH!

You have only one option Walty - kill yourself.

Posted by: Smoggy Batzrubble | July 29, 2009 12:38 AM

Dear Nick Bobick

I am sorry to disagree with you on something you clearly feel passionate about, but in Noo Zillund where I come from we pride ourselves on a singular lack of intelligence. Should a person show any aptitude for academia or endeavors outside the sporting norm, they are clearly a supercilious 'tall poppy' and not a real kiwi at all and we will happily scythe them off at the ankles (unless their success occurs outside the country, in which case we will gladly claim them as our own as long as they don't fucking well come back to boast about it).

In my country anything that cannot be fixed with a piece of number 8 fencing wire does not bear thinking about. We even have a flag cobbled together from left-over-bits of other nations' flags because having one of our own might suggest some attitude of patriotism--a disease we find disgusting.

For myself, I am a profoundly stupid self-made farmer with a degree in ovine eroticism and an ability to recite the names and dates-of-birth of every real man who ever donned an All black jersey.

Yours in intellectual abasement

Smoggy

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | July 29, 2009 1:05 AM

In short, I can't personally think of any cases where public infrastructure has been better served by private rather than by State enterprise.

well, to be perfectly fair I can think of one example: the German Telekom. Mind you, it's not really any better now as a private company (6 sigma is of the devil), but at least there are some alternatives (which are marginally better), and now there's the slight hope of them running themselves into the ground someday...

Posted by: nick bobick | July 29, 2009 2:04 AM

Dear Smoggy

Thank you for your response - I do enjoy your work. Please come to the US as I much prefer your astute evangelism to that of your fellow Kiwi Ray Comfort. If you choose to accept my invitation, please bring a supply of your number 8 fencing wire so that I might repair my air conditioner which has been broken since Saturday during temps in the 90s to 100 F. I trust that you will not bring Floyd Rubber.

I blame the 85 degrees F in my home for the past 3 days for the fact I responded to echidna's post the way I did. I still think it was an asinine comment, but usually I would ignore it: especially since he posted a full 3 hours before I responded.

Posted by: Knockgoats | July 29, 2009 3:48 AM

Walton: Yes, I personally benefit from government-funded healthcare. But that doesn't make it right.

I have to come to Walton's defence here. It really won't do to demand that someone who wants change in social arrangements and considers the current ones immoral must kill themselves, live as a hermit, or even refrain in all cases from taking advantage of them.

Posted by: Arno | July 29, 2009 5:56 AM

"Now I want to move to Amsterdam."

You're more than welcome! Please let me know when you and your lovely trophy-wife arrive, me and my trophy-wife will be thrilled to meet you for real. But you would probably miss the fun you can have in those beautifull institutions like the creation museum. I don't think Amsterdam has much to offer once you have visited that :-)

Posted by: Drosera | July 29, 2009 6:15 AM

As a born Amsterdammer I am happy to see the favorable comments by several posters. If I may vent a complaint about Amsterdam, it is that for many decades the city has been governed by the most incompetent morons that ever walked the face of the Earth (well, at least in the Netherlands). Just to give one example: When these idiots built a new town hall in the 1980s they managed to destroy one of the finest locations in the city (Waterloo Square) by erecting a horrible, cheap-looking monument to bureaucracy called the Stopera there. It combines the functions of town hall and opera building, in a display of logic that is highly characteristic for the kind of people who run this city. I curse them every time I pass this ugly monstrosity. And when I say that this building is cheap-looking I didn't imply that it was actually cheap. For the amount of money that was spent they could have built a palace made of marble and lapis-lazuli. That's incompetence for you.

In addition, there are far too many tourists in Amsterdam. Haha.

Posted by: Cimourdain | July 29, 2009 6:59 AM

Not wishing to rain on everyone's parade, but it would be well worth your time to read Bruce Bawer on what Islam has been getting up to in Amsterdam. None of this mussing around with "protection of marriage amendments" for these fellars, no siree, they just cut to the chase and beat up and kill gays directly.

The way things are going, over the next decade or two, gay rights will finish their journey out the window and women's rights will follow shortly thereafter.

Posted by: Knockgoats | July 29, 2009 7:09 AM

None of this mussing around with "protection of marriage amendments" for these fellars, no siree, they just cut to the chase and beat up and kill gays directly. - Cimourdain

Wow, and this isn't against Dutch law? This liberalism has clearly gone further than I thought!

Posted by: echidna | July 29, 2009 7:19 AM

Oh, by the way, I am not a snotty male Brit. I'm an outspoken Aussie sheila.

Posted by: Knockgoats | July 29, 2009 8:49 AM

Cimourdain,
The figures have already been cited here indicating that Muslims are not going to become a majority in the Netherlands in the forseeable future. The same is true of every country in western Europe. It is also the case that immigrant populations tend to adapt to the prevailing mores, particularly if they are not scapegoated by bigots like you. So fuck off with your cretinous hysteria.

Posted by: John Morales | July 29, 2009 9:05 AM

KG,

It is also the case that immigrant populations tend to adapt to the prevailing mores, particularly if they are not scapegoated by bigots like you.

Well said.

It takes roughly 2 generations for the acculturation to be apparent, and perhaps 3 to be fully evident; I've seen it happen here in Australia, first with the post-war European immigrants* and then with the Vietnamese refugee immigrants.

The Japanese even have terms for it: Issei, Nisei, Sansei and Yonsei.

--
* I'm one of those!

Posted by: Stephen Wells | July 29, 2009 9:26 AM

My wife (atheist ex-commie Central Asian Muslim pagan, booga booga!) is taking a life-in-the-UK test today for yet another visa application. The textbook has some demographics in it. Muslims are currently about 2.7% of the UK population.

Cimourdain can go do the other thing.

Posted by: robinsrule | July 29, 2009 9:42 AM

andyet:

As a non-fundamentalist Catholic I don't have to believe that Genesis is literally true...

Except the part about original sin. You are required to believe that, otherwise the whole house of cards falls apart (your need to be "saved" disappears.)

Posted by: OneHandClapping | July 29, 2009 10:26 AM

"Americans don't have a monopoly on stupidity any more than Brits have a monopoly on intelligence"

But America has the bigger population. Thus, if the rate of stupidity were the same in both countries, the gross stupidity quotient will be higher in America.

One could definitely argue that the gross stupidity quotient certainly is higher. Just look who was elected and RE-elected for our previous President.

Posted by: Cimourdain | July 29, 2009 10:31 AM

It's my experience that there's no point of trying to convince people who wont do their own reading and research. I'd like to say that I'm surprised to find Pharyngula home to plenty willing to make excuses for religious zealotry and intolerance, but I've long since gotten used to the kind of atheist who turns green at any real fight.

Why you chaps have such an obsession about "immigrant" groups is beyond me. Suffice it to say that most of the clearest speakers on the subject are actual immigrants, while the worst troublemakers of Islam are second or third-generation citizens, or converts (incidentally, often drawn from the ranks of White Supremacists who find they can then bang on about Jewish conspiracies without the hassle they previously had to endure).

Posted by: Alyson Miers | July 29, 2009 10:39 AM

Why you chaps have such an obsession about "immigrant" groups is beyond me.

My irony meter is buzzing ominously. You're a fine one to talk about "obsession" with immigrants. The conference room called, they want their projector back.

Posted by: Stephen Wells | July 29, 2009 10:43 AM

Cimourdain, it's our experience that you have neither point nor evidence. Try again, maybe?

Posted by: Stu | July 29, 2009 11:04 AM

For people curious about that ugly, ugly building (personally, I've always been decidedly "myeh" about it):

http://images.google.com/images?q=stopera%20amsterdam

---

Also, Cimourdain: WHAT IS YOUR FUCKING POINT?

Posted by: Cimourdain | July 29, 2009 11:16 AM

Stu,

Calm down, dear. My point was that it may be unwise to idolize the Netherlands. It's depressing, but it's so.

Posted by: Cimourdain | July 29, 2009 11:29 AM

KG,

Thanks for the comic relief. I needed that!

Sure, sure though. Don't bother doing any real research, don't bother reading or learning or thinking. Don't try to understand what's taught by Islam, what's written in Koran and Hadith, what the long history of this subject is. Avert thine eyes from the routine pronouncements of Islamic authorities all over the world. Ignore those brave defectors from Islam like Ibn Warraq, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Ali Sina. It's too much work isn't it? Stick to your little farce, it's made for effete Eloi such as yourself.

Goodness knows how Hindu and Sikh immigrants feel being lumped in with Wahabi head cases. Actually, I do know, but the language my comrades use isn't quite fit for these genteel circumstances.

As regards your ridiculous accusations, here is the direct quote from the Times:

The Muslim population in Britain has grown by more than 500,000 to 2.4 million in just four years, according to official research collated for The Times. The population multiplied 10 times faster than the rest of society, the research by the Office for National Statistics reveals.

You are free to disagree with the ONS and with the good Professor, but by no standards can you call it a lie to accurately quote.

Posted by: Alex Deam | July 29, 2009 11:35 AM

You clearly haven't read a single argument against your own case, ever. You don't know that the trend of Muslim radicalization increases

Why is it that people constantly focus on those Muslim extremists, but never the neo-nazi ones? The far right are just as much of a threat as Islamic terrorists.

http://www.newstatesman.com/2009/07/muslim-terrorism-white-british

Posted by: Stu | July 29, 2009 11:44 AM

Stick to your little farce, it's made for effete Eloi such as yourself.

Do you lack even the minimum of self-awareness to realize what an incoherent douche you are being?

Posted by: Lynna | July 29, 2009 12:00 PM

Smidgy @363: Ah, but the devil is in the details. Atheists have perversely figured out how to have wanton sex and *not* have babies!

Posted by: Alex Deam | July 29, 2009 12:50 PM

I am so sick and tired of people paying attention to Faux News; can't we just ignore them and hope they will go away???

Well now that Glenn Beck has called Obama a racist... no, I don't think we'll be able to get away from the Fox filth.

Posted by: Cimourdain | July 29, 2009 2:31 PM

Dale,

Isn't that list kinda - what's the word? - bigoted? or prejudiced? I mean, just want to warn you, chaps like KG, will be all over you, complaining about bigotry, saying you've got it all wrong...

*crickets chirping*

...Aaaand my point is made

Posted by: Tom | July 29, 2009 2:47 PM

I'm confused. This Bruce Bawer guy (whoever the fuck he is) doesn't like the Netherlands because Muslims kill gays in Amsterdam (an incident I haven't been able to verify yet, but it is certainly true the Moroccan youth are at present giving troubles in the Netherlands). Therefore, he prefers fundamentalist Christians in America. Because the deaths of people like Gary Matson or Winfield Mowder, motivated by Fundamentalist Christian motives never happened.

Yes, in the Netherlands there are problems with radicalization of a part of the Muslim population. These are being addressed (however incompetently) by government and law enforcement in the Netherlands. However, the scare stories of Cimourdain are overblown, as I've documented above and as others have shown as well.

Posted by: Tom | July 29, 2009 3:19 PM

I do research this stuff myself. The problem is that your statements are contradicted by the numbers of the dutch Bureau for Statistics. One of the things I had to find out for a study I helped set up, was whether we needed to take special care in including first, second and third generation non-Western immigrants in this study (which would necessitate special sampling techniques). Studies by the CBS (Central Bureau for Statistics) and CPB (Cultural Planning Agency) show that second and third generation non-Western immigrants are so quickly becoming so close to the average dutch person, that it doesn't matter anymore. They are on average more and more secular and get less and less kids, just as your average dutch person does. This means that while a small group radicalizes, a much larger group secularizes.

Then there is the problem of him apparently turning a blind eye towards American Fundamentalist Christian violence against gays and lesbians (not to mention other people, such as abortion doctors), if I read your quotes correctly.

And sorry, given that the man lived in Amsterdam for a grant total of one whole year 10 years ago, I am going to arrogantly presume that I am probably more up to speed with the current Dutch situation than he is. Having read a number of his articles from his site, I'm not impressed with his arguments. They are scare stories and that you are just repeating them here doesn't make them less overblown than they actually are.

Posted by: Cimourdain | July 29, 2009 3:31 PM

Dale, just to correct some things:

1. My comment wasn't directed at you so much as the hysterical pansies who were screaming a few moments ago and then kept stumm.

2. I don't watch Fox; I'm not in America, apart from anything else. You really should keep your prejudices to yourself.

Posted by: Dale Mulder | July 29, 2009 3:48 PM

Cimourdain @ 374

Again, what prejudice ? I love you guys to be around. Movies cost money, cable is expensive - you whackos on the intertubes are free entertainment.

About that bit regarding not being in the US or not watching FOX - self hatred much ?

Love and kisses - redux

- Dale

Posted by: Cimourdain | July 29, 2009 3:51 PM

My dear Dale,

Hardly self hatred. I've been too busy getting my degrees from Cambridge and Oxford where we keep little men like you to shine our boots and make our beds.

Posted by: Dale Mulder | July 29, 2009 4:06 PM

@ Stu

Hey, I was serious - c'mon, don't tell me you did not detect the fascist knuckle dragger the first time he started whacking his tiny wee-wee on his keyboard ;-)

@ Cimourdain

Hey, I will make your bed and shine your shoes for all the free entertainment you provide, it will be still cheaper than cable. But I cannot travel from SFO to Podunk, South Carolina because unlike you I actually have a productive job. Granted, I do take some time off for the vicarious pleasure to see fascist worms squirm and wriggle everytime light shines on them.

Ah, the frailties of human nature ....

Anyway, so glad that you could spell 'Cambridge' and 'Oxford' correctly - looks like the old Webster's with which your old man (or elder brother - same difference ;)) whacked your face with is actually seeing some use.

Loooooooooove and kisses

- Dale

Posted by: Alex Deam | July 29, 2009 5:06 PM

That's what happens when you abandon family values.

It's what happens when you abandon the War on Drugs.

I've been too busy getting my degrees from Cambridge and Oxford

What a truly odd statement.

Why do men go to zoos?

Since you seem to think people here are prejudiced or something, and this was your reply to "Why are you here?", I can only gather that you think men go to zoos to point and laugh at the animals, and tell you how uncivilized they are. But most men go to the zoo to see the wonder of nature, not to get some endorphin high out of arrogantly claiming superiority.

Since you're only here to tell us Pharyngulites how uncivilized we are, then I can only presume you thought we were uncivilized to begin with. Who's prejudiced again?

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | July 29, 2009 5:57 PM

I was mainly greated by a storm of abuse from fifteenth-rate minds like KG here.

Posted by: Knockgoats | July 29, 2009 6:15 PM

Nerd@384,
Thanks - much appreciated!

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | July 29, 2009 6:53 PM

Thanks - much appreciated!

Posted by: sleepy parakeet | July 29, 2009 9:46 PM

Ah, Fox News. Many times I wish it was just satire, and then I realise it's not, and that makes me sad. Never been to Amsterdam, perhaps I'll make the trip some time.

Read through lots of comments, too. Far too much ad hominem going on in places. More signal, less noise!

Posted by: TuxedoCartman | July 30, 2009 3:33 AM

What a coincidence; I'm IN Amsterdam for my first time while reading this!

I will say there are a few things I've found out about the town that disappoint me (such as the incredibly high rates of trafficked women in the red-light district), but overall I really like the town. Very clean, reasonably friendly. I'd live here.

Posted by: J. Sterk | July 30, 2009 7:17 AM

I ended up there 40 years ago and never left.

Posted by: Cimourdain | July 30, 2009 12:32 PM

Jadehawk,

Hmm - you've not looked at the material, you don't know anything about the writers and scholars in question - Ibn Warraq, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Bat Ye'or, Brigitte Gabriel, Ali Sina, Bruce Bawer, Robert Spencer, Nonie Darwish etc - but you've concluded that it's all fudged.

Orwell had a term for this crimestop: "The faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. In short....protective stupidity."

I make it a point of reading people who disagree with me; it's how I learn. You won't read anything outside your own echo chamber - that's why you stay ignorant.

Posted by: Jadehawk | July 30, 2009 2:08 PM

The question is how, and on what basis, we ration healthcare. It can be rationed on the basis of ability to pay; or it can be rationed on the basis of what some government bureaucrat thinks is "cost-effective"; or, as in most countries, a mixture of the two. Neither of these is a particularly good option; but I suppose that's reality, and I doubt there's anything you or I can ever do to change it.

and if the numbers of people who died or suffered excessively/needlessly were the same under both systems, you'd have a point. But it isn't, so you don't. You're still putting your ideology over the pragmatism of the documented fact that one of these systems helps more people more often.

Posted by: Non Edible Nacho | July 30, 2009 2:46 PM

Yes, it's bad that you and other people are denied care that you need because you can't afford to pay for it. But in the end, a state-run system does not eliminate the problem of limited resources; it merely spreads it around.

And your alternative solution is to give all the resources to the rich and all the limits to the poor, so as to avoid society the awful experience of seeing how a rich man is denied a 10 millon dollar state of the art cancer treatment that will prolong his life for a couple of months while experiencing the minor collateral damage that is to have thousands of people dying of easily treatable diseases. Yay libertarianism!

Posted by: Alex Deam | July 30, 2009 4:12 PM

But it's very difficult to compare accurately.

Walton, you're not a statistician, you're a law student, so SHUT THE FUCK UP. It's not hard to compare accurately.

Here are 3 links I just found in 5 minutes:

1. The World Health Organization:

http://www.who.int/whosis/en/index.html

They also have the World Health Statistics 2009 out, but I won't link to it as I think PZ only allows 3 links in case of spam.

2. The OECD:

http://www.oecd.org/topic/0,3373,en_2649_37407_1_1_1_1_37407,00.html

3. Yes, even Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_compared#Canadian_health_care_in_comparison

(Don't ask me why it's at that location).

A quick skim suggests that UK holds at least as good as US care on average, and at high the cost as a percentage of GDP.

There are many other places I'm sure you could look (e.g. the CIA world factbook), which I'm sure have health data, but the OECD and WHO look good for analysis rather than just data.

Imagine, for the sake of argument, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah so 100% of the population have access to bad medical care blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. If you had to choose between country A and country B, which would be better?

Walton, no-one cares about your academic exercises designed to convert everyone to your libertard gasmfest. This specific one is only relevant in places like North Korea, the USSR or Somalia. Why would there be anywhere near 100% bad health care in a democratic, stable country?

Posted by: Alyson Miers | July 30, 2009 4:17 PM

The highest standard of care in America doesn't mean a heck of a lot when it's only available to the wealthiest 5% (very generous estimate) of the population.

Posted by: Dale Mulder | July 30, 2009 4:34 PM

Looks like the discussion morphed from Ho'Reilly and Fox's congenital dishonesty to a more general discussion on health care.

There is one point I find amusing in this whole debate - the basic research that drug and pharmaceutical companies rely on to do their work is mostly available on PubMed - which is a free PUBLIC resource of the research done with NIH money. So yes, the basic research is still funded by the big bad 'Gubmint'.

I wonder why this point never came up in the whole health care discussion - (maybe it did and I missed it ?)

- Dale

Posted by: LanceR, JSG | July 30, 2009 5:31 PM

I'm just pointing out that this is the case under government-run healthcare systems just as it is in the US. Healthcare will always be rationed.

Yes. However, in the current US system we are doubly rationed. Once by our current personal inability to afford the latest greatest treatments, and again by our insurance company's refusal to fund *any* treatment.

Let's put it in terms even a libertarian can understand: our current for-profit health insurance companies are defrauding their customers. They are refusing to abide by the terms of their contracts. They are acting in unethical, irrational, immoral and quite possibly illegal ways. They are actively working to defeat the "free market" by hiding effective information from their customers. They are actively sacrificing their customers' health on the altar of profit.

That is one reason the US is spending astronomical amounts on healthcare and getting rotten results. Our system of coverage is innately incapable of providing decent healthcare.

Posted by: Alex Deam | July 30, 2009 8:45 PM

Okay, so Typekey has died...

In ten years, the people who need the treatment now will be long dead.

Yes, I'm well aware that that's likely to be the case, but this paragraph:

47 million or thereabouts don't have access to health insurance in the US. In the UK, people don't necessarily have access to the latest treatments (but probably will in ten years), due to decisions by NICE.

was to illustrate the two negatives of the UK and US systems. The ten years thing in brackets was an aside, in that, in (say) ten years time, someone else in a similar situation WILL get the drugs, but no matter how many people talk about the "American Dream", those 47 million are still likely to be uninsured in ten years time. Drugs that NICE withholds will be available in future. Insurance withheld from poor Americans won't be, unless they get very lucky.

Posted by: Drosera | July 31, 2009 1:06 AM

Knockgoats @331,

You'll just have to make the place less attractive. How about employing a corps of official tourist-muggers ;-)

According to Cimourdain our Muslims are doing that job already. ;)

XD @347,

Town Hall meetings done in the style of opera? Sounds amazing!

Wait until you have seen our operas done in the style of Town Hall meetings!

Posted by: LanceR, JSG | July 31, 2009 10:09 AM

You're almost there, Walton. Now ask the next question...

If state and federal regulations are what lead to this (semi)monopolistic environment, and the corporations have bought and paid for these regulations, what would be the right thing to do?

Hint: It's not take away regulation.

Posted by: Alex Deam | July 31, 2009 11:10 AM

Walton, I believe people have been over this with you before, but I'll do my best at explaining this to you:

The Krugman article was interesting, but, as someone pointed out in the comments, it's state-level government regulation which creates those local insurance monopolies. Each state has its own Insurance Commissioner (often popularly elected) and/or Department of Insurance, and imposes arbitrary regulations which prevent out-of-state insurance companies competing on an equal footing. Hence why the big health businesses such as Blue Cross-Blue Shield and Kaiser Permanente have lucrative de facto regional monopolies.

If state regulations were removed, and the insurance regulatory regime unified and standardised across the US (as McCain wanted to do), then there would surely be a much more effective competitive market?

Yes, the state monopolies are a problem, but they are not the main problem. If you just allow interstate competition in health care, but don't change anything else, then there will still be 47 million or so people denied coverage. Free market competition in health care does not work. If I may use Paul Krugman again:

"insurers compete by doing their best to deny coverage to anyone who might actually need medical care"

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/demint-offers-a-teachable-moment/

Adverse selection. Information asymmetry. Moral hazard. These are terms you should look up if you don't already understand them, because they are highly relevant here. It's in the interests of insurance companies to not have to pay out, so it's in their interests to deny coverage to those who most need it. And that also means that insurance costs are far far higher in the US than in other countries for those who can actually get it.

Yes, McCain wanted to standardize the insurance regulations across the US. But so does Obama. He wants a national health insurance exchange to do this. But what McCain didn't want, and Obama does, is a public health insurance option. Under Obama's proposal, this public option would compete in the exchange against the private options, and would help solve lots of the problems of that occur with free market care on its own.

Yes, allow competition across state boundaries. But don't think that doing that on it's own won't make the problem worse

Posted by: LanceR, JSG | July 31, 2009 1:10 PM

What makes you think, yo, that we haven't? Read it, rejected it, and gone on with our lives?

There's no harm in the babbling of fools, except for the danger of becoming foolish.

Posted by: Walton | August 1, 2009 6:57 AM

Yes, the state monopolies are a problem, but they are not the main problem. If you just allow interstate competition in health care, but don't change anything else, then there will still be 47 million or so people denied coverage. Free market competition in health care does not work.

Not all of those 47 million are "denied coverage". Some certainly are; a large number are uninsurable because of their medical history. Others, however, could get insurance but (for a variety of reasons) choose not to; in some cases they are not quite poor enough to be eligible for Medicaid, but would struggle to afford insurance (especially in those states where stringent regulations push up premiums) and prefer to take the risk.

As I understand it, Medicare and Medicaid are becoming prohibitively expensive to run, with federal expenditures on the two programmes totalling $682 billion in 2008 (more than was spent on defense or Social Security), and payouts rising much faster than revenues. I do think it's a moral imperative to continue with the two programmes, so as to provide a safety net to those who genuinely can't afford coverage.

But there are two obvious problems with the idea of introducing a universal federally-run health insurance system, as far as I can tell. If enrolment in the new scheme were optional, as Obama has advocated, then it would suffer from the same problems as Medicare and Medicaid: that is, the poor, sick and uninsurable would enrol in the federal programme (being unable to get insurance elsewhere). At the same time, richer and healthier Americans would continue to use private insurance. So the federal programme would quickly become financially unsustainable, just as Medicare and Medicaid have done.

By contrast, if the new federal health insurance system were made mandatory for all, as Michael Moore and others advocate - creating a single-payer insurance system - then this problem would be eliminated, since healthier and richer people would also have to pay into the system, giving it enough revenue (in theory) to sustain itself. But this would plainly be immoral, since it would force people to accept government health coverage, and to pay for it, whether they like it or not. So I don't see that there's an easy solution.

Posted by: blf | August 1, 2009 7:11 AM

I may have to move just to get health care. UK? Finland? Sweden?

Also consider France.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself | August 1, 2009 7:52 AM

Not all of those 47 million are "denied coverage". Some certainly are; a large number are uninsurable because of their medical history. Others, however, could get insurance but (for a variety of reasons) choose not to; in some cases they are not quite poor enough to be eligible for Medicaid, but would struggle to afford insurance (especially in those states where stringent regulations push up premiums) and prefer to take the risk.

Walton, you stupid ass, you've already been told how much medical insurance costs in the US. Sure, there are some people who cannot get insurance due to "pre-existing medical conditions" and the like. But the vast majority of the uninsured don't have medical insurance because they can't afford it. Your favorite free market has priced these people out of the market.

We're all aware that your and your fellow looneytarians' utter indifference to the poor preclude you from admitting that other entities besides the market can provide solutions to socio-economic problems. This, along with your visceral hatred of the government, means that you argue against any type of government assistance for anyone (except, of course, where your looneytarian masters have told you that government assistance is mandatory, i.e., where they benefit).

Posted by: greg byshenk | August 1, 2009 8:50 AM

Just for information (if a bit late), I would point out that the Dutch CBS (statistics office) just put out a report on "Religion at the beginning of the 21st century".

Among other intersting information was the fact that religious attendance continues to fall, and that in the last ten years, the group that has seen the largest decline is Muslims. Among those identifying as Protestant, those attending religious services in the last month fell from 47 to 44 percent; among catholics, from 31 to 23 percent, and among Muslims, from 47 to 35 percent.

The Volkskrant, and CBS (both in Dutch).

Posted by: Walton | August 1, 2009 10:56 AM

Alex, I don't really see how the paper you cited provides a solution to the fundamental problem.

As I understand it, Obama's plan is to create a regulated "health insurance exchange", in which private health plans will compete alongside a federal public-sector health plan. The intent is that the private plans will be heavily regulated, requiring them to cover all necessary medical treatment, and guaranteeing eligibility even to those with bad medical histories. Those who can't afford the insurance premiums will receive federal subsidies.

The problem with this ought to be obvious. The heavy regulation and stringent requirements will mean that only large companies can afford to offer private health plans, leading to little effective competition. Accordingly, prices will remain high, and so the cost of providing the proposed "federal subsidies" will skyrocket, just as Medicaid and SCHIP costs have skyrocketed.

Alternatively, if the private plans were not so heavily regulated - allowing them to turn away patients with bad medical histories, or to refuse coverage for some conditions - then the poorest and sickest, unable to get private insurance, will gravitate to the public plan, leaving the public plan to suffer from the same imbalance of payouts and revenues that currently plagues Medicare.

Either way, the federal government ends up spending a huge amount of money - leading ultimately to tax increases, and demonstrating the truth of the maxim that there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Posted by: greg byshenk | August 4, 2009 1:11 PM

Andreas, I think that the folks (like Fox) condemning Amsterdam would condemn SF, as well. After all, their argument (such as it is) is that such liberalism leads to decay and destruction.

Posted by: Alyson Miers | August 4, 2009 2:01 PM

For some reason, I just can't bring myself to get all excited against the tyranny of affordable health care. Oh, the humanity.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself | August 5, 2009 3:56 AM

Once again Walton is showing his disdain for the poor and disabled. How dare someone with a long-term, pre-existing condition want or need medical care. The gutter is provided by Walton's reluctantly paid tax money*, let the poor stay in the gutter until they die, rather than receive medical care that Walton might have to pay for.

*One thing that I find quite amusing is that Walton doesn't pay much in tax. He has no income so he escapes income tax, his parents are still living so death duties haven't touched him, he owns no real estate so property tax is not a concern. Basically he only pays tax when he buys something. Yet taxation is extremely burdensome to the lad.

Posted by: echidna | August 5, 2009 5:23 AM

Walton,
You need to separate the concepts of health care and health insurance.

Health insurance does not contribute to health care: medical personnel, hospitals, clinics and medicine do. Money that gets put into health care gives you an operational system, money that gets spent on health insurance does not.

Health care is rationed no matter what system you use because resources are finite. The more efficient your system is, the better off the country is.
The difference between private run systems and public run systems is that private health insurers not only pay salaries to administer insurance (as govt run systems do), but they also make rather healthy (heh) profits. The economic principles of a free market do not apply, because you do not have the appropriate market conditions (such as free entry and exit of providers, many providers, and so forth).

All of that said, it now boils down to what segment of society deserves health care. Is it only those who are able to work? Is it only those who have no long-standing conditions? This is a societal and political decision, and generally societies whose members look after each other fare better than those that don't.

Posted by: Walton | August 5, 2009 7:46 AM

Maureen, I'm very glad to hear that you got prompt treatment and good advice. I don't deny that sometimes the NHS can work very well. But for every anecdote about good NHS treatment, there's another person with a horror story about MRSA, long waiting lists, or care denial by NICE - and, of course, there's the ever-mounting cost.

Posted by: Bernard Bumner | August 5, 2009 8:09 AM

But for every anecdote about good NHS treatment, there's another person with a horror story about MRSA, long waiting lists, or care denial by NICE

Which probably just serves to highlight the problem of conducting debate via anecdote.

If we instead consider the MRSA bacteremia and infection rates (0.79 cases per 10,000 patient bed days, and falling), consider waiting list statistics (shorter waiting lists, shorter referal times), then we see that the improving picture is probably much better than a handful of horror stories would suggest.

Posted by: Walton | August 5, 2009 8:12 AM

I would bet every acute case, like appendicitis, is seen quickly and efficiently.

Why exactly would you assume that? See, for starters,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4729015.stm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/3188745/NHS-trust-spends-12000-treating-staff-privately.html

Posted by: Walton | August 5, 2009 8:58 AM

Now, it is time for you to cease posting on the subject before it becomes you trying to impose your opinion. Otherwise you will likely get you banned on the next Survivor Pharyngula. You have worn out your welcome.

I'm genuinely shocked and saddened that you feel that way. I can't even imagine being banned from this site; I spend a lot of time here, it's a big part of my life, and it's caused me to re-examine a lot of my original ideas.

I'll stop posting about healthcare, if that's what everyone genuinely wants. I'm sorry for having irritated you. While (as I have frequently admitted in the past) my social skills are not the best, I am not here to deliberately troll or piss people off.

Posted by: Sister Faith | August 5, 2009 9:14 AM

I'm convinced....If I'm ever set free from this Red State I live in.....I'm going to Amsterdam!

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | August 5, 2009 9:28 AM

Walton, I merely stated that if you kept doing what you have been on health care, you could end up on the chopping block. Here's some suggestions to make sure you can post, but don't overly irritate people.

Don't threadjack. You were trying over on another thread where a Poe changed the subject.

Don't always try to get the last word in.

Have your voiced your opinion three or four times? It has been heard. You don't need to repeat yourself. Failure to heed this leads to threadjacking.

Listen to what people tell you, and not just to attempt to rebut them. Most of us have been in the real world for a while. You haven't. There is a huge difference between theory and practice.

I'm not the best socially myself. But, here's something I have learned. A good listener is more appreciated that an expounder.

Posted by: Walton | August 5, 2009 9:45 AM

OK, Nerd, I'll take your advice. I won't bring up healthcare again except on this thread (where we're already in the middle of a discussion); I realise that the regulars have already heard my opinion on the matter lots of times. And I'll try to be less repetitive.

Maureen: You have a point, and there are certainly good things about the NHS.

Ultimately, I think most of us agree that some sort of mixed public-private system is the right model to follow. I'm not opposed to all state intervention in healthcare; I do think that providing health coverage to those who can't otherwise afford it is a legitimate government activity. I would merely contend that it's a good idea to allow competition and choice where possible.

I've read that the New Zealand model of healthcare provision is a relatively good one; could any NZ residents here provide some more information on that?

Posted by: Walton | August 5, 2009 10:43 AM

For me - this is a personal opinion, not holy writ - you first get adequate healthcare for everyone - not yet achieved by the USA. Then you get for everyone the best healthcare that the country can afford, which includes the research on both medicine and delivery which makes that available at lower cost, where preventive medicine, economies of scale and the lack of duplication come in.

How much taxation do you think would be required to achieve this? The NHS is expensive as it is; to provide everyone the best healthcare would require a much higher level of spending.

It's easy, of course, to raise taxes on businesses and the wealthy - but does this not tend to cause them to leave the country and move their operations overseas, creating more unemployment and drying up the stream of wealth creation?

Ask me sometime how my totally treatable husband died on an NHS waiting list under Thatcher's definition of "mixed" - not now, though, as I'm off to the shops, something I could not have done without NHS treatment.

No cheering, please. I wouldn't be dead - I'd be living in misery and costing the state a fortune in care fees, my capital which does exist having long since been depleted!

Maureen, I don't know why you seem to think I'm some sort of sociopath. I certainly don't want you, or anyone else, to die from lack of medical care.

And what definition of "mixed" are you talking about? Mrs Thatcher never sought to privatise the NHS, though she did endeavour (with little success) to make it more efficient via introduction of limited market mechanisms.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | August 5, 2009 11:05 AM

Walton, I agree with Maureen in that the first thing required is a universal system of basic health care. One where everybody is covered. That will be an improvement on the present system where 50-60 million people out of 330 million are uninsured. That is what Jadehawk and I have been arguing about.

You see Walton, one can be without healthcare insurance for a number of reasons beyond their control. (One the libertarian fallacies is that one is always in control.) Take myself for instance as one possible reason. I presently have healthcare insurance at work, and if I can retire from this place at 65.5 as planned, medicare will take over. But, if my company went out of business tomorrow, I might have trouble finding another full time job with benefits, as I am almost 60. Meanwhile, I can't get medicare until I am 65. With reduced income, I couldn't afford healthcare premiums that are 2-3 times my mortgage payment. So we would have to hope nothing requiring major medical care happens, like a heart attack, which would bankrupt us. And bankruptcies due to medical costs can happen even with healthcare insurance. Multiply me by several million. A real problem in the US. This is why some type of universal coverage is necessary. This is where you haven't been listening to the real world data.

Now, once the basic coverage is in place, I suspect the US would move toward a mixed system like in many European countries. Last I heard, France was considered to have the best health care, and they were mostly state health care with some private on top. And France has a couple of strong pharma companies. Still inovative.

Posted by: Knockgoats | August 5, 2009 11:17 AM

Mrs Thatcher never sought to privatise the NHS, though she did endeavour (with little success) to make it more efficient via introduction of limited market mechanisms. - Walton

She didn't dare privatise it, so she tried to erode the "free at the point of use" principle, and sabotage it with constant "reforms" such as outsourcing and artificial pseudo-markets, with some success. This endeavour has been continued by "New Labour".

Posted by: Matt Penfold | August 5, 2009 11:41 AM

An point about choice in the NHS is that most people have no means of assessing their options.

How do you tell if one consultant is better than another ? You cannot simply take the success rates of surgeons for a particular procedure and assume the surgeon with the high success rate is better as you do not know the prognosis of the patients operated on.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | August 5, 2009 11:48 AM

Walton, you puposely misread Maureen. Which is why your credibility is going downhill fast. First basic health care. Then, and only then, the best that can be afforded. After all, healtcares resources are limited.

Your free market doesn't work well in healthcare. It doesn't supply the basics for every one, and it drives up the the cost for those with insurance. Here is a real life example. All US hospitals are required, by law, to treat everybody who shows up in their emergency rooms. So what happens? The uninsured use the emergency rooms, then tend not to pay, because they don't have money. You can't put a lien on nothing. So hospitals have to raise their costs to the insured in order to cover their expenses from the uninsured. So, I end up paying higher premiums to cover the uninsured. That is where univerasal basic coverage can reduce costs. If you truly look at healthcare costs, there is a large room for savings by removing the profit, standardizing forms, standardizing payments, and having everybody covered. If my employer sees a drop in healthcare costs I might even get a raise next year.

Posted by: Walton | August 5, 2009 1:34 PM

Well, I apologise if I misunderstood Maureen's comments. It wasn't my intention to misrepresent anyone.

And Feynmaniac, I apologise for my spelling error. As to Stronach's explanation of her actions, I would take that with a pinch of salt; imagine the damage to her political career if she'd said "yes, actually, I'm going abroad to get better healthcare for myself, unlike all you peasants who can't afford it and have to wait in line." The voters would not have been impressed.

Posted by: Feynmaniac | August 5, 2009 2:35 PM

Walton,

As to Stronach's explanation of her actions, I would take that with a pinch of salt; imagine the damage to her political career if she'd said "yes, actually, I'm going abroad to get better healthcare for myself, unlike all you peasants who can't afford it and have to wait in line." The voters would not have been impressed.

If the problems of waiting lists in Canada are nearly as bad as you claim then I'd expect many clear examples, rather than this Dan Brownesque decoding of press statements.

Also, you keep claiming many die from being on the waiting list here in Canada. Please provide numbers and a reference for this claim.

Posted by: Feynmaniac | August 5, 2009 3:47 PM

Walton,

http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/170/5/776-a

Did you read beyond the headline?

Saskatchewan Minister of Health John Nilson agreed the wait is too long, but denied it is hurting patients.

"We're having some challenges right now," said Nilson. "If you have an emergency situation, you can get an MRI right away. That is how our system works."

He said only elective procedures, including follow-up MRIs for cases already diagnosed, wait longer than about 7 months. [Emphasis added]

Also, I don't know how much you know about Canadian geography but Saskatchewan is a fairly rural province. It's about the size of Texas, but with about only a million people. I imagine that has much to do with it.

As for your second link, sure it shows the system here isn't perfect, but no one is claiming that. It's just better than what the US has. Besides, your claim was that people were dying while waiting in line. None of these links provide evidence for that. As noted above emergency cases get bumped up ahead. Yeah things don't move as quickly as they would if you deny health care to 1/6 of your population, but doing that would just be immoral.

As for your third link, did you not read it either?

Once upon a time, there were few complaints about lengthy waits for treatment. It was a time when the federal government provided about a third of the money the provinces spent on health care.

But as government belts tightened to deal with record budget deficits in the early 1990s, complaints about access to health care increased. The federal government drastically cut the amount of money it transferred to the provinces to cover health-care costs.

Notice that less federal government spending caused problems.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | August 5, 2009 5:04 PM

bah, that's what I get for actually digging up some statistics to make sure I'm not talking out of my ass here. Feynmaniac already mentioned everything I wanted to address, while I was still working on this! :-p

Posted by: Feynmaniac | August 5, 2009 5:29 PM

Jadehawk,

Great minds....;)

Nerd,

And Canada is even bigger and less sparsely populated! Like I said, Saskatchewan is about the size of Texas and it's only the 7th (out of 13) largest province/territory. The largest is Nunavut, which is about the size of Western Europe but has only ~30,000 people (not a typo, it really has only about thirty thousand people). I one time took a 24 hour train ride and never left Ontario.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | August 5, 2009 8:33 PM

only if he actually went on medicaid if faced with a crisis. if he managed to mooch off enough friends and family to pay for it, good for him; if he ended up playing the martyr, that's not ironic; just Darwin-Award-Level stupid.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | August 5, 2009 9:31 PM

bancrupcy would qualify as well. basically any situation that doesn't involve him sticking to his principles and either paying for it himself of dying for the cause would be irony.

speaking of irony though, we have Libertarian books at the public library ;-)

Posted by: Walton | August 6, 2009 6:08 AM

OK, I will admit that Canada is probably not full of pensioners dropping dead in the streets while waiting for medical care. But the point still stands: trying to provide healthcare to everyone in the country, at public expense, will inevitably lead to rationing and long waiting lists. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Without massive tax increases, it isn't possible to provide even basic healthcare effectively to everyone.

And I don't understand why Canada bans parallel private insurance. What the hell is the point in that?! I don't see what purpose this law serves, other than fulfilling class envy and resentment against the wealthy. If a person wants to have a procedure done privately, and is willing to pay for it themselves - therefore reducing the pressure on the public system - why shouldn't s/he be able to? Even here in Britain private treatment is allowed.

I would argue that, yes, government should redistribute income and subsidise poorer people so that they can afford medical treatment. But it shouldn't try and provide healthcare to those who can afford it for themselves; nor should it prevent people obtaining healthcare in the private sector if they prefer to do so.

Posted by: maureen brian | August 6, 2009 7:29 AM

Odin preserve us! Even wikipedia is a better source of hard fact than our Walton.

"In Canada, there are private and public health care providers with complete patient freedom of choice between which doctors and facilities to use.
The public financing system known as Medicare but consists of several different systems managed by each province or territory. The Federal government distributes funds to the provinces for health care providing the provinces design their systems to meet certain criteria which they all do. Most people receiving care in Canada do not pay for their care. The medical provider gets paid a fixed fee for the care provided. The medical provider is not allowed by law to charge top-up fees to patients to supplement their income from Medicare. Medical care providers can set their own fees that are higher than the Medicare reimbursement fee but in this case the patient must pay ALL the cost of care and not just the excess.
It is a common misconception in the United States that there is an outright ban on private health insurance in Canada. This is not so, but the myth of the ban continues be falsely promulgated by certain sections of the media and political circles in the U.S. In fact only about 70% of Canada's health care funding is via the public system. A full 30% comes from private funding, divided approximately 50/50 between out-of-pocket funding and private insurance which may be complementary (meeting costs NOT covered by the public system such as the cost of prescription medicines, dental treatments and co-pays) or it may be supplementary ( adding more choice of provider or providing faster access to care) [1] There are however financial disincentives which make use of private medicine for services that ARE covered by Medicare less economic.
Six of Canada's ten provinces used to ban private insurance for publicly insured services to inhibit queue jumping in order to preserve fairness in the health care system. In a complex legal decision in 2005 the Supreme Court ruled that, in some circumstances, such bans could be illegal if the waiting period was unduly long.
Some private hospitals operating at the time when the national health care plan was instituted (for example, the Shouldice Hernia Centre in Thornhill, Ontario) continue to operate, although they may not bill additional charges for medical procedures. (The Shouldice Hospital does, however, make mandatory additional room charges not covered by public health insurance. This effectively places it in the "upper tier" of a two-tier system. Welfare recipients, for example, cannot be referred there.) Clinics are usually private operations, but may not bill additional charges. Private health care may also be supplied in uncovered fields and to foreigners."

That's from here with the additional benefit of a link - bottom of the page - to an independent study on Canada's system.

Questions:-

How are you going to redistribute income? Tax isn't perfect for there are too many loopholes and too much rubbish talked about it anyway but what else is there?

What measures will you put in place to prevent a second-rate health system slipping steadily behind?

How many pen pushers will it take to decide who is poor enough, what is essential and what is an optional extra and wouldn't that money be better spent on care?

How will you stop the best people and the best resources being funneled towards the diseases - real or imagined - of the rich? Look up the way that TB - almost eliminated in the UK - took hold again in the East End of London and similar communities while everyone was playing "internal markets."

Is it possible to prove that a generally healthy population is more of a burden, on the individual and on the state, than the alternative or is this just an assertion?

If it is acceptable for the the tax I'm paying to subsidise your education - as it does
right this minute - then why is it not acceptable that the other 60 million of us should choose to fund universal healthcare?

If you should win this one do I get my money back? Right back to 1958?

Oh, and show your work!

Posted by: capt'n Igloo | August 6, 2009 7:55 AM

If I may be allowed to get back to the original subject for a minute:
The Netherlands do have a problem with organized crime. The reason is that coffee shops are allowed to sell cannabis - but they're not allowed to buy it! No one is allowed to sell it to them! So anyone wanting to sell cannabis has to get his supplies from people who are, by definition, criminals. (And organized criminals at that, because every shopkeeper likes his supply-chain to be well-organized.)
The Xtians running the Netherlands are now screaming: 'Ooooh, we're tolerating cannabis and the crime still won't stop! Bring back the War on Drugs!'
Hypocritical bastards.
Very, very depressing, really.

Posted by: maureen brian | August 6, 2009 11:42 AM

I have no problem with a minimum income, though I would undoubtedly prefer the reasoning of Thomas Paine or J.K. Galbraith.

A minimum income, though, would not cover the sort of medical costs which occur suddenly and catastrophically.

This from experience as I have at different times administered bits of it - one of the reasons that the UK benefits system is so complicated is that each element of it has had to be sneaked past those who oppose it - and timed carefully so that it happens while they are jumping up and down complaining that the minimum wage will bring about the end of civilisation. You know who they are. Strange that it turned out to be the bankers and not the poor who came pretty close to that!

After the past 18 months, anyone who throws Milton Friedman into this particular discussion has already left this planet - or, perhaps, never visited it.

As people keep saying, Walton, you need to get out more.

Posted by: maureen brian | August 6, 2009 2:41 PM

Your ballpark figures are fine to be going on with but am I right in thinking that you are abandoning the idea of progressive taxation as part of this scheme? In that case the rich, on your figures, would be paying less not more. It is the amount paid as a proportion of total income beyond the most basic of living costs, not the actual sum paid which counts in real life.

I would love to see the benefit system greatly simplified but it will never be the right moment as long as there is active opposition to relating whatever system we may come up with to the actual cost of keeping body and soul together. And there is such opposition, quite apart from the fact that those in current difficulty are least able to campaign, lobby or put pressure on, say, Lord Mandelson. (Again, from personal experience of campaigning on disability rights and incomes in the 1980s.)

Which brings me to another point. Ensuring that everyone has an adequate and secure income for normal times is great but life is a road full of potholes into which the majority of us fall at some stage. You have choices here: either you have an additional set of allowances, easy to access, for when a house burns down and the inhabitants are left with the clothes they stand up in or after an accident someone suddenly needs a chair-lift and/or help with bathing. The additional allowances begin to complicate the system again but without them you need to be thinking of basic income figures twice, probably three times, the ones you quote.

Your final paragraph at 483 needs more thought. I have no problem with subsiding, say, a small start-up company which can only afford to pay the minimum wage. I do have problems with a subsidy to those who are simply bad employers. We have already seen with the 1001 ways to get around equal pay legislation, with minimum wage paid against the intention of the Act to those who have very considerable responsibility or skill and experience, with Working Tax Credit, that some employers are very content to pay the minimum wage or less (see recent court cases and the amendemnt to the legislation) to just about anyone - and then laugh all the way to the bank.

Whatever claims may be made for capitalism - and I would make rather fewer than you - it does not make people good. That's why concepts like social or economic justice continue to occupy some of us and having just checked back to Adam Smith (The Theory of Moral Sentiments) I suspect he would be at least as sympathetic to my world view as to yours.

Posted by: Walton | August 6, 2009 4:59 PM

Walton, once you've said that the doctors can all go and work only for the rich if they want to, you no longer get to claim that you aren't a sociopath who wants people to die for lack of healthcare. Pick one.

That's an absurd false dichotomy. I am an anti-coercionist; I do not believe, in general, that it is legitimate to force a person to expend his or her skills and time to help someone else. His time is his own, not society's.

If you pass a man drowning in a pond, and could easily save his life but choose not to bother, are you a murderer? Some people would say yes. But, by that logic, we are all killers, because we all spend time enriching ourselves when we could be helping any number of the world's poor and starving people. Clearly this definition of guilt would be so wide as to be completely useless as a guide to moral behaviour.

Let's say X trains and qualifies as a doctor, and is recognised as one of the most talented doctors in her country (assuming, for the sake of argument, that her training was not funded or subsidised for government). Let's say she establishes a profitable practice, devoting her career to treating exclusively the very wealthy, and enriches herself greatly in the process. You might find her choices morally offensive. But do you really assert that you have the right to force her to use her skills treating poor people? Do you think it would be morally right to close down her practice by law, and mandate that all doctors must work in government-funded clinics and that her wealthy patients must wait their turn like everyone else?

If your answer to the above is "yes", then how are you any better than a Christian or Muslim theocrat? They, too, believe they have the right to use force to impose their own moral values on other people. Their moral values and worldview are profoundly different to yours, but the principle - the belief that you are right and that everyone else must live their lives according to your wishes - is the same. X might well not share your view that all human life is inherently worthy. She might believe that poor people deserve to die. Yes, you consider her to be wrong; just like the Christians and the Muslims consider you to be wrong. But the price of freedom is that one has to tolerate people behaving in ways which one considers to be wrong.

Posted by: Paul | August 6, 2009 5:35 PM

And the price of freedom is the acceptance that we cannot force people to be good. None of us are entitled to impose our moral standards on others; for we rightly object when the Christian or Muslim theocrats, or anyone else, try to impose their moral standards on us.

Yet you're not taking to the streets to protest the immoral government imprisoning people for murder, arson, or various and sundry other felonies.

It's almost as if you make up arguments based on whatever is convenient at the moment to support your preconceived notions, instead of actually engaging with the subject at hand with an open mind to form an opinion based on available evidence. But no, a Libertarian would never do that...

Posted by: maureen brian | August 6, 2009 5:47 PM

It's a cost-benefit thing, Walton.

We can prevent the rich from seriously harming the poor (by denying adequate care, for instance, or by leaving them to the mercy of doctors who really should have been retired long ago) - and without any significant damage to the rich.

Except a small dent to their amour propre, of course, but I'm sure they can cover that with another Rolex.

For your next act, could you please explain how the rich are by definition more worthy of survival than the poor? Does that include my local loan shark or drugs supremo?

Posted by: billwalker | August 7, 2009 12:18 AM

If Bill O'reilly is agin it, it must be terrific !

Posted by: maureen brian | August 7, 2009 6:39 AM

OK, I'll bite!

If she was the only doctor around and the other option was death for even one of them then she's be breaking her oath. In some countries - France? - she'd be breaking the law.

Either way, I would not want such a person as my doctor. Would you?

Posted by: 'Tis Himself | August 7, 2009 7:31 AM

I am an anti-coercionist; I do not believe, in general, that it is legitimate to force a person to expend his or her skills and time to help someone else. His time is his own, not society's.

Of course society had nothing to do with giving that person any training.

It's quite simple, Walton. Much as you'd prefer to live by yourself on a desert island à la Robinson Crusoe, reality isn't like that. You're a member of society. Society can coerce you to doing things you don't like, such as paying taxes that (gasp) help someone who isn't you.

Let's say you live in a condominium, and are very fond of it. As long as you can move out, you have a choice. No matter how firmly you intend to stay. No matter how much you prefer your current condo. No matter how good or bad your current condo is for you, you still have a choice.

This is analogous to living in a society. You choose which one to live in, and you can change. You may not be able to improve some things about it all by yourself, because it is not entirely yours.

You have at least 4 choices. 1) Tolerate the social contract, and perhaps try to amend it. 2) Leave it by emigrating. 3) Violate it. 4) Revolt.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | August 7, 2009 8:04 AM

A naive Walton, a typical MD in the US will amass about a quarter million dollars in debt while undergoing training. Some of this debt (a large chunk actually) is forgiven if they set up practice in needy areas for a given length of time. These are usually inner city or rural areas. Da UP qualified as rural. Nobody, except maybe their economics, require that they do.

Posted by: Walton | August 7, 2009 9:30 AM

SC, I have now read the "Africa Action" leftist propaganda piece to which you linked, as I read everything you post (including your blog, which you seem to be rather keen to promote).

It starts out by asserting that healthcare is a fundamental human right; the only justification which it provides for this statement is that the "right to healthcare" is listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Last time I checked, international treaties were not infallible guides to good moral philosophy; rather, they're the product of politics. If the author wants me to accept that healthcare is a fundamental human right, s/he needs to provide a somewhat better justification than that.

The rest of the article makes a fair point, but neglects the most vital point of all. Yes, the World Bank and IMF have forced poor countries to abolish tariffs and subsidies and open their borders to international trade; and yes, this has produced suffering. But the reason it has produced such suffering is that the US and EU governments still spend billions subsidising and protecting their domestic agricultural industries - preventing poorer countries from competing on a level playing field in the global market. The answer to the problem is not to allow African nations to return to protectionism, but, rather, to dismantle our own agricultural tariff and subsidy programmes, leading to genuinely free international trade. It won't do us any lasting harm; New Zealand abolished all farm subsidies in the 1980s, yet still has a thriving agricultural sector.

As to section 4, which talks about healthcare privatisation, I fail to see how this is relevant to the discussion we're having. Yes, the sudden privatisation of all health services in deprived rural Africa, where healthcare provision was already minimal, much of the population was at subsistence level, and there was no possibility of effective competition or consumer choice, was probably not a fantastic idea. But what has this got to do with the issue of healthcare privatisation in the vastly different environment of the UK, where none of the same considerations apply?

In the end, while development economics isn't a field in which I'm particularly expert, I would generally suggest that the way to tackle poverty and deprivation in Africa is to give the poor a fair chance to work themselves out of poverty, through allowing free, unrestricted international trade.

Posted by: Alyson Miers | August 7, 2009 12:51 PM

and that her wealthy patients must wait their turn like everyone else

Am I supposed to get angry at the thought of rich folks having to wait their turn along with everyone else?

Posted by: Sarah Walsh | August 7, 2009 6:56 PM

Pretty much the greatest thing in the world to do is smoke a joint, then spend the afternoon at the Van Gogh Museum. O'Reilly might be a happier man if he tried that sometime.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself | August 7, 2009 11:51 PM

KG, you're looking at the real world. If given the choice between reality and ideology, Walton goes with ideology every time. He's read a political book by Milton Friedman and thinks he's knowledgeable about economics. Friedman argues that unrestricted, laissez faire free markets would raise post-colonial Africa out of poverty. What Friedman and Walton ignore is that most African leaders are kleptocrats, stealing everything that they can get their hands on. Until honest governments with conscientious police and fair courts become common in Africa, there'll be economic chaos there. Most African economies are either unregulated or loosely regulated (with the exception of a few Marxist economies like Sudan*).

This is not to say that most African countries aren't screwed over by American, European, Japanese and even Chinese corporations and governments. But the African governments don't care. As long as they get their bribes, they're happy and to hell with their fellow citizens.

*But some supposedly Marxist states, like Congo-Brazzaville aka République du Congo, don't tightly control their economies. Even exceptions have exceptions.

Posted by: maureen brian | August 8, 2009 6:02 AM

...... and millions in India are becoming poorer in both relative and actual terms.

If we are going to get all high-minded about a system able to prevent corruption and protect contracts we could start in the richer companies, which in most cases don't have and certainly don't enforce laws about bribery or fair contracts.

Does anyone imagine that the bulging back pockets, luxury villas and off-shore bank accounts of the kleptocrats are funded by starving peasant farmers who see no cash beyond a few coppers from one week to the next? A good proportion of it the accepted rake-off from both inward investment and so-called "aid" of the sort which goes via persons already known to be corrupt but friendly to richer country and therefore to be kept in power, no matter what.

Over the past few decades there have been so many blind eyes turned that only "left-wing propagandists" and development economists - both denounced above - are even aware of the problem.

The last thing Africa - remember, that's 53 different countries not one horrible amorphous mass - is a global agreement on fair trade written by the Greed is Good fraternity. They have done enough damage already.

Posted by: Knockgoats | August 8, 2009 7:05 AM

Walton,
Hong Kong, as part of the British Empire, had a special status as an entrepot for trade between Britain and China, and benefited in the crucial early stages of industrialisation from British tariffs on (particularly) Japanese goods. These tariffs were not imposed on goods from Hong Kong. See for example

Industrialisation and the British colonial state.

India pursued a policy of tariffs, trade restrictions, and massive welfare spending to help the rural poor. Unfortunately, the tariffs and regulations prevented the industrial economy growing , and massive amounts of government corruption meant that little of the welfare money ever reached the most needy. Today, as India has moved towards more free-market policies, the economy is growing more than ever before, and millions have new economic opportunities.

This is the standard neoliberal oversimplification - although it is certainly true that corruption and over-regulation were brakes on India's economic growth post-independence. First, nearly two decades after the reforms of 1991, India is still a very poor country (higher proportion of people on very low incomes, and of child malnutrition, than sub-Saharan Africa), with almost all the benefits going to a small proportion of the population. Second, it is not "industrialised" in the sense that Hong Kong, South Korea or even China is: the service sector accounts for over half the economy. Third, the speedup in economic growth began in the early 1980s, a decade before the 1991 removal barriers to foreign competition, and the latter did not see any further speedup:
FROM “HINDU GROWTH” TO PRODUCTIVITY SURGE: THE MYSTERY OF THE INDIAN GROWTH TRANSITION. Note that the authors of this paper are certainly not socialist - after considering a range of possible explanations, they attribute the speedup in growth in the 1980s to a "pro-business" change in the attitude of the government, only weakly reflected in actual policy changes, and specifically aimed at garnering support from existing business leaders, not increasing domestic, let alone foreign competition. This looks a bit flimsy to me, but why not read the paper, and learn something about the complexities of understanding real-world economic development?

Posted by: maureen brian | August 8, 2009 11:54 AM

Thank you, kind sir!

Posted by: Roman Werpachowski | August 8, 2009 1:18 PM

@'Tis Himself

I was born and grew up in Poland and remember pretty accurately the life in Poland since the late eighties till today.

You are completely wrong on all accounts about Poland.

The market reforms dug Poland out of deep economic hole. The standard of living in Poland has increased dramatically after 1989. The level of pollution has decreased. The child mortality has fallen dramatically: http://www.indexmundi.com/poland/infant-and-child-mortality.html

What you're saying about Polish economic reality after 1989 is untrue, simply. There has been an enormous improvement. Even many of those who are poor by 2009's Poland standards live better than those who weren't poor by 1989's Poland standards.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself | August 8, 2009 2:52 PM

Roman,

I have never been in Poland. I took my data from Stiglitz's book. If you have a problem with the data, take it up with Stiglitz, not me.

Stiglitz is a well-known and well-regarded economist. He was a Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank. He is known for his critical views of the management of globalization and free-market economists (whom he calls "free market fundamentalists").

NationMaster.com's statistics show Poland with 17% of the population under the poverty limit. This ranks Poland at the same level as Trinidad & Tobago, just above Indonesia (17.8%) and just below Costa Rica (16%).

Posted by: Roman Werpachowski | August 8, 2009 3:24 PM

NationMaster.com's statistics show Poland with 17% of the population under the poverty limit.

Yes, this about right, as you can see in this study. Take note, however, that this poverty limit was 7510 PLN (about 2500 USD) p/a for 2005/06. This is more than what my mother was earning working full time as an English school teacher in the early '90s!

Also, take note from where Poland did start: in 1989 meat was rationed (I remember my mother taking food coupons to the store), I got my child shoes from foreign gifts sent from West Germany or the USA. I was lucky to live in Poland's capital Warsaw back then, people in the provinces had it even harder.

Posted by: Walton | August 8, 2009 6:38 PM

I have never been in Poland.

And who's the one always accusing me of making grand pronouncements about things of which I have no experience? :-)

I rather think we all ought to defer to the experience of the person here who's actually suffered under socialism, and who is telling us, clearly and distinctly, that life under a capitalist economy is better.

And Robin: I intentionally did not mention Singapore, for a variety of reasons (not least its gross social authoritarianism and lack of basic civil liberties).

Posted by: Robin Levett | August 8, 2009 6:42 PM

@Walton:

And its economy?

Posted by: Jadehawk | August 8, 2009 7:13 PM

I rather think we all ought to defer to the experience of the person here who's actually suffered under socialism, and who is telling us, clearly and distinctly, that life under a capitalist economy is better.

incidentally, you can ask any number of East Germans, and they'll be so full of nostalgia for socialism, it's nauseating. and as far as Poland goes, it's fairly evenly split (as far as I can tell) between those suffering from nostalgia, those suffering from blind love of America and its ways. and the rest takes capitalism with the same cynical attitude they handled communism: one set of crooks replaced another; wohoo

Posted by: Roman Werpachowski | August 8, 2009 7:41 PM

See also this study, where they give a plot of the average life expectancy of forty-five year old males. It was decreasing in the 80s (during an acute disaster following the failed economic policies of the 70s and the political crisis of the 80s) until 1991 and steadily increased afterwards, reaching quickly the levels unknown before 1989. The average life expectancy is good indicator of the overall quality of life, better than the GDP. Especially the increase of the average life expectancy of 45 year males is telling, since this particular age group has been hit hard by the economic changes after 1989 -- too young to retire, too old to easily adjust.

Posted by: Jadehawk | August 8, 2009 7:49 PM

that should have been "You go to South Africa, and talk to the poor black population, and many will tell you that their lives are even worse than during Apartheid."

Posted by: Jadehawk | August 8, 2009 8:54 PM

"In the US" means a small town in Iowa or NYC?

both. but I see you haven't read what followed that statement.

But the thing is, in 2009 Poland there is a lot more stuff available to *everyone* than in 1989. In 1989, my mother had troubles getting me a pair of shoes, and meat was a rarity in our diet.

and? where do I dispute that? I'm merely pointing out that the availability of stuff to the average person resulted in the subjective impression of wealth increase that was greater than the actual increase in wealth, and only to those not affected by poverty, anyway.

At no point in time did any Polish government after 1989 plan to remove social safety nets and throw Poland into a "libertarian hole".

you're kidding, right? when Sachs came to offer his "help", he wanted to privatize everything, and has always been disappointed that the polish government privatized too little too slowly; probably, if the protests hadn't happened, he might have gotten what he wanted, and Poland would have suffered the way the former Soviet Union did.

Which isn't worse what most of the people experienced in the 80s. Some people will always have it tough, sorry.

really? I can't remember anyone going hungry in the 80's, even when my dad wasn't allowed to work during the unrests in the early 80's; guess my entire extended family wasn't "most people". anyway, the first part is not really true, the second part is typical libertarian pessimism: someone always has to suffer, so it better not be me!

True. For example, under Communist rule Polish farmers had no health insurance until the 70s. Their life undoubtedly improved after it was introduced.

right. I'm getting the impression you think I'm defending communism for communism's sake. if so, you're missing the entire point of what I've been saying, and what the statistics presented by 'Tis were saying, namely that the reforms introduced went too far and did massive damage, and that the Waltons of this world would like to push the reforms even further and do more of that kind of damage to the entire world in the mistaken assumption that more free-er capitalism is always better (when in reality it's a bell curve thingy: better up to a point, worse from there)

also, something I forgot to add to my previous post in regard to relative poverty: just because absolute levels of income rise, does not necessarily mean that quality of live rises for those who fall below the poverty line, since no one is "poor" in a vacuum. with a rise in income, living costs rise as well (and they certainly have risen significantly in Poland)

Posted by: Jadehawk | August 8, 2009 9:36 PM

i'm not ignoring the points you've made. i'm just not disagreeing with those.

Posted by: Jadehawk | August 8, 2009 9:55 PM

Then such comparison is meaningless.

O RLY. the fact that rentals are expensive both in expensive AND cheap parts of the country makes the comparison meaningless.... how? in any case, this still invalidates your odd claim that Europeans spend a larger percentage of their income on housing than Americans, since housing has been disproportionately expensive in the U.S. until the crash, and rentals haven't gone down like other forms of housing have.

At least I'm not a hypocrite.

sure. better to be a misanthrope and nihilist than fall short of an ideal [/sarcasm]

Posted by: maureen brian | August 9, 2009 6:35 AM

Cheap consumer goods: a definition.

Made by slave labour somewhere you've never heard of and likely to fall apart any minute, giving only a split-second illusion of wealth.

Come on, Walton. Why should the poor not aspire to the sort of t-shirts I bought in NZ December 1997? Regularly worn and only slightly faded, they are without exception in one piece and probably good for another 12 years. As I recall the average price was about NZ$27 - I'll let others look up the exchange rate for their own currency at that point.

Of course, for that you need labour standards, proper trade unions, curbs on sharp practice and ...... Need I go on?

Posted by: Roman Werpachowski | August 9, 2009 7:30 AM

@housing

I may be mistaken about the USA, fine. This is an irrelevant problem here, since your mistake lies in thinking that most people pay free market rents in Poland -- they don't.

@misanthrope/nihillist

You don't understand. The market reforms in Poland increased the living standard of a prevailing majority of the society. Some social groups suffered because of the transformation, but for example the children of the same people who suffered, actually will profit. There is no way you could achieve such an increase in the living standards under socialist rule. We can discuss the details of the transformation, and criticize this bit or that bit, but the overall effect was vastly positive. My question is: would you forgo this benefit of the vast majority of the nation, just so that nobody actually loses? I don't think so.

Posted by: Walton | August 10, 2009 7:29 AM

Well, I think it's been shown fairly conclusively on this thread that, for the ordinary citizen, a capitalist economy is superior to a socialist one. Yes, the transition from socialism to capitalism often creates a short-term rise in poverty, as inefficient state-subsidised industries are shut down (just as happened with mines and steelworks in 1980s Britain). But the long-term benefits for ordinary people are immense.

However, to return to an earlier topic of discussion, healthcare is not so simple as other areas of the economy. I would acknowledge that healthcare, like food, water and other necessities, is an area where there is a legitimate role for government assistance to the poorest people in society. Accordingly, what I'd like to see, both in the US and in Britain, is some sort of expanded Medicaid - or perhaps "health stamps" - whereby those on low incomes, or who are clinically uninsurable, get some financial assistance from government to allow them to purchase health services. (Alternatively, we could implement the negative income tax as I outlined above, which would guarantee everyone a sufficient basic income and, therefore, eliminate the need for any other welfare benefits.) In the meantime, everyone else would choose their own health insurance package in a free market.

Posted by: Jisang Kim | August 20, 2009 1:19 PM

I'm a conservative Libertarian but the fear mongering on Fox News is ridiculous. I've traveled to Amsterdam and I found it it a refreshingly free and open city. What is O'Reily talking about when he mentions chaos and crime in Amsterdam? I've feel safer in Amsterdam than in any city in America. Our country should legalize marijuana and prostitution just like Holland. And one more thing--America is such a repressed society--no wonder we have the highest crime and mental illness rates in the world!

Posted by: angelarhodes | September 23, 2009 6:44 AM

Last time we talked I was in Sydney, since then I have actually become an expat in Amsterdam. I love how O'Reilly portrays the red light district like it's hell on earth, as a woman I find the red light district pretty tame and I feel completely safe walking through the streets there, safer than any other city where prostitution is located and not legalised (certainly safer than Kings Cross in Sydney), and let's face it, it's located almost everywhere...

I also choose not to smoke weed even though I have easy access to it, just like the other 95% of Dutch people living in the Netherlands.

What I love the most though, is how she says "social tolerance" like it's a bad thing, I have found the liberal and tolerant attitude of the Dutch as well as their common sense approach is what makes living here so laid back and what makes it feel like living in a tight knit community, socialising here is exceptionally pleasant and rewarding...

Bill O'Reilly is an idiot, but it's hard to argue or reason with the lunatic fringe, and unfortunately for us they will always have an audience... disturbingly larger than one living in reality would hope.

And we would love to have you in Amsterdam :)