[Lobowolf]

mikeh, on Jan 9 2010, 02:29 PM, said:

I know that the practice of law in the US is quite different from the practice in Canada...maybe the kind of 'reasoning' set forth in your last paragraph is persuasive where you practice. Comparing the plight of a trucker who deliberately (for the sake of argument) opted to break the law to the plight of slaves is silly, and I suspect you know it to be so.

And you completely misread my intent in the paragraph with which you disagree.

I have NO universal issue with someone choosing to break a law that they feel to be unjust and then complaining publicly about the unfairness of the law. Where I do have a problem is with such a person complaining that they were prosecuted and fined, upon conviction. They deliberately set out to expose themselves to the risk of prosecution and punishment so cannot argue that it was unfair to prosecute and punish them. This is very different from the concept that the underlying law is wrongly enacted.

Study the approach taken by Ghandi in imperial India to grasp the difference....he didn't whine that his conviction was wrong...he argued that his conviction was the (proper and inevitable) result of an improper law...he was not attacking those who arrested him or prosecuted him or convicted him...he was using their response, which he deliberately provoked, to draw attention to the unfairness of the law. Indeed, if my memory serves, the government tried to offer him a way to avoid sanction, because they were rightfully worried about the P.R. disaster to follow...he insisted upon the process being carried out.

By contrast, the article seems to suggest (maybe I am misreading it, and I have already said that I make no assumptions about the accuracy of the article vis a vis the motives or knowledge of the driver) that the driver was upset not only at the law (legitimate subject of complaint even tho I personally hold a contrary view) but also at the process that resulted in a fine. It is that latter attitude, if it existed, that in my view constitutes whining.

To draw a more accurate analogy to the concept of slavery, it would be: say the law was that if an african entered into the US in January 1800, he could be taken into slavery. This law would seem, certainly to us, I would hope, to be both absurd and repugnant. An african, learning of this law, and knowing that it would be enforced, chose to enter the US, under no compulsion or other reason to do so. He was taken into slavery.

I would fully support his right to claim that the underlying law should be abolished, preferably retroactively (let's ignore the concept that it may be void ab initio). What I would not, however, accept as legitmate is a protest that the taking of him into slavery was unfair given that the law existed as it did and that he knew of it and voluntarily exposed himself to it.

If he were a Ghandi, he in fact would have deliberately provoked this result precisely in order to publicize the underlying issue...and in that spirit would presumably insist upon being taken into slavery.....if he were not, then his actions would not serve to draw any real attention to the real issue.

This is a 'hard' analogy to draw because, I expect, all of us are so opposed to slavery that it seems harsh to criticize any form of protest, but I hope I have illuminated the point I tried to make earlier. This trucker was not committing an act of civil disobedience to get a bad law changed.... he ignored the law, setting his own views above those of society as represented by the elected legislature, and whines when the state properly tells him he is not allowed to do that with impunity.

I did not compare the plight of smoking trucks to the plight of slaves, any more than you compared smokers to pedophiles when you wrote:

Quote

Edit: BTW, if you argue that parents should be allowed to smoke in their homes regardless of the harm to the kids, please explain why you are opposed to parents having sex with their kids, in the privacy of their homes.

Or perhaps that actually was a comparison that passes for legal "reasoning" north of the border.

The slavery example, as I suspect you know, was not a comparison of the two situations, but an exploration of the principle that seemed (to me) to underlie your previous post - that given sufficient notice, someone sanctioned for breaking a law has no business complaining about the law.

Your follow-up does actually make your point more clear to me; I didn't pick up on your distinction between criticizing the law and complaining about one's own arrest. Probably just my hurried misreading; thanks for the further explanation.

In retrospect, I do think that my original "ridiculous" was an overbid; I was thinking of the trucker as a self-employed independent driver, and not part of a company in which the truck would be a shared workspace.

[Mbodell]

kenberg, on Jan 9 2010, 11:00 AM, said:

My guess is that whoever wrote the law decided to keep it simple. Worrying about who can smoke when i which circumstance in which workplace seemed like an unending thicket so they just said that you can't do it.

I am also guessing that before the law was passed, the smokers who shared the cab with a non-smoker paid little if any attention to the non-smoker's preference. Falzon seems to be saying this, and I my own experiences would support the claim. Impose your will on others but howl like hell when someone returns the favor is s.o.p. for many. Early on, smokers were absolutely adamant that they have a total right to smoke anytime anywhere. Now that the tide has shifted they have all become great advocates of respecting the rights of others.

I also think a big part of it was related to taxi drivers. Taxi drivers who own their own cab and drive it might have been smoking in their cars when there was no one else in the car (or worse, when they had passengers) and then the second hand smoke was effecting the passengers. I think that was probably the primary motivation on banning smoking in "enclosed work spaces".

[mike777]

guys note the trend is to ban smoking in your private car even if you are the only one ever in it. The govt wants to protect you.....smoking in car is deadly.....see nanny state.



http://behavioralhealthcentral.com/index.p...ng-in-cars.html

[kenberg]

Quote

guys note the trend is to ban smoking in your private car even if you are the only one ever in it. The govt wants to protect you.....smoking in car is deadly.....see nanny state.

I have known people who won't let anyone else drive their car, but I have never known a person who won't let anyone else ride in their car. I assume they drive a two-door model. Or maybe one-door.

But I won't hold you to your statement about "the only one ever in the car".

I think a lot of laws are not all that much a matter of deep philosophy or morality. It's more like this: Once smoking was socially acceptable and our laws reflected this. Now it is not socially acceptable and our laws reflect this new social view. If smokers had seen what was coming early on, possibly they could have worked more cooperatively with non-smokers to get laws that they would find at least a little easier to live with, but I am far from sure about that.

I confess to mixed feelings about laws that interfere with a person's right to do something stupid. If a young woman decides to work for a pimp who supplies her with drugs to help her keep up the good work, is it any of my business? Well, I would like to interfere if I thought I could do so effectively because I think the choice she is making pretty much constitutes proof that she needs a little help in making choices. You could say it's being condescending or a nanny or a buttinsky, and I suppose it is, but not everything comes down to philosophy consistency. Yes, it's true I don't want people interfering with my stupid choices. I think my stupid choices are not quite as stupid.

Society makes decisions like this all the time, and our laws reflect those choices.

[mike777]

kenberg, on Jan 10 2010, 10:52 PM, said:

Quote

guys note the trend is to ban smoking in your private car even if you are the only one ever in it. The govt wants to protect you.....smoking in car is deadly.....see nanny state.

I have known people who won't let anyone else drive their car, but I have never known a person who won't let anyone else ride in their car. I assume they drive a two-door model. Or maybe one-door.

But I won't hold you to your statement about "the only one ever in the car".

I think a lot of laws are not all that much a matter of deep philosophy or morality. It's more like this: Once smoking was socially acceptable and our laws reflected this. Now it is not socially acceptable and our laws reflect this new social view. If smokers had seen what was coming early on, possibly they could have worked more cooperatively with non-smokers to get laws that they would find at least a little easier to live with, but I am far from sure about that.

I confess to mixed feelings about laws that interfere with a person's right to do something stupid. If a young woman decides to work for a pimp who supplies her with drugs to help her keep up the good work, is it any of my business? Well, I would like to interfere if I thought I could do so effectively because I think the choice she is making pretty much constitutes proof that she needs a little help in making choices. You could say it's being condescending or a nanny or a buttinsky, and I suppose it is, but not everything comes down to philosophy consistency. Yes, it's true I don't want people interfering with my stupid choices. I think my stupid choices are not quite as stupid.

Society makes decisions like this all the time, and our laws reflect those choices.

yes


And I hope and pray to hear loud objections....

[luke warm]

so many decisions to make... if/when it passes, should i get divorced?

[luke warm]

canadian system at work... you mean there's a waiting list for heart surgery in canada? i really like this quote, "I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics." evidently the "best possible" is in the u.s.

Quote

An unapologetic Danny Williams says he was aware his trip to the United States for heart surgery earlier this month would spark outcry, but he concluded his personal health trumped any public fallout over the controversial decision.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Williams said he went to Miami to have a "minimally invasive" surgery for an ailment first detected nearly a year ago, based on the advice of his doctors.

"This was my heart, my choice and my health," Williams said late Monday from his condominium in Sarasota, Fla.

"I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics."

Quote

"I wanted to get in, get out fast, get back to work in a short period of time," the premier said.

Williams said he didn't announce his departure south of the border because he didn't want to create "a media gong show," but added that criticism would've followed him had he chose to have surgery in Canada.

"I would've been criticized if I had stayed in Canada and had been perceived as jumping a line or a wait list. ... I accept that. That's public life," he said.

"(But) this is not a unique phenomenon to me. This is something that happens with lots of families throughout this country, so I make no apologies for that."

Williams said his decision to go to the U.S. did not reflect any lack of faith in his own province's health care system.

"I have the utmost confidence in our own health care system in Newfoundland and Labrador, but we are just over half a million people," he said.

"We do whatever we can to provide the best possible health care that we can in Newfoundland and Labrador. The Canadian health care system has a great reputation, but this is a very specialized piece of surgery that had to be done and I went to somebody who's doing this three or four times a day, five, six days a week."

[jdonn]

I wonder why the fact Canadians with money can come to America and get better treatment than Americans without money can get in America is often sited as a positive for the American health care system.

[luke warm]

jdonn, on Feb 23 2010, 06:13 PM, said:

I wonder why the fact Canadians with money can come to America and get better treatment than Americans without money can get in America is often sited as a positive for the American health care system.

and i wonder why canadians, with or without money, can come to the u.s. and get better health care than they can at home

[jdonn]

luke warm, on Feb 23 2010, 06:22 PM, said:

jdonn, on Feb 23 2010, 06:13 PM, said:

I wonder why the fact Canadians with money can come to America and get better treatment than Americans without money can get in America is often sited as a positive for the American health care system.

and i wonder why canadians, with or without money, can come to the u.s. and get better health care than they can at home

Are you really wondering more about faults in Canada's health care system than faults in your own? Why are you concerned with what Canadians can get in Canada? I am personally more concerned with what Americans can't get in America.

[hrothgar]

luke warm, on Feb 24 2010, 02:22 AM, said:

jdonn, on Feb 23 2010, 06:13 PM, said:

I wonder why the fact Canadians with money can come to America and get better treatment than Americans without money can get in America is often sited as a positive for the American health care system.

and i wonder why canadians, with or without money, can come to the u.s. and get better health care than they can at home

The US has a much larger population and a much larger variance in income.

Its perfectly logical that the US would have a much larger pool of doctor's catering to patients with large amounts of money.

[kenberg]

First things first, Danny Williams seems like a sensible guy and I cannot imagine why anyone would criticize him or fail to vote for him for taking good care of his health.

The subtext of the post is, I assume, that the US system produces the best doctors or the best surgeons or the best something. Maybe not the strongest care for the average person, but the best of the top flight doctors. One could treat this as a serious question regardless of where the answer leads. The fact that the US has a larger population is not so persuasive an answer. He could have gone to the Uk, or France, or Belgium etc. He came to the US. One example proves nothing but still, if someone claimed that in a ranking of the top surgeons in Canada, the US, and the EU the US is represented with greater frequency than its population would suggest, I think that I would not bet against that claim. From what I have seen up close, US health care at its best is very good.

Where that leaves us with respect to the Senate bill is not so clear to me.

I have come to think that the Dems have screwed the pooch, but that is for another post. I don't see the experience of Mr. Williams as the main issue.

[Al_U_Card]

Robert Bourassa (first minister of QC in the 70's) went to the Mayo clinic for cancer therapy.

We have a good medical service here with some excellent clinics and treatments. For coal you head to Newcastle....

[kenberg]

Here is my reading of where we are:

I Republicans will not cooperate with this administration. Certainly not on health care and probably not on much else either. It's not just a matter of having different views. There will be no cooperation.

II As a result, the Dems have written a bill of their own. They intend to pass it, and probably they will. One way or another.

III The bill isn't very good, and if the typical guy, one with a job and with a decent health care plan, looks at it and says "What's in it for me?", the answer will be "Not much".

So the Dems have backed themselves into a corner. They have to push something through or they will look like fools, and when they do it, the large group of people somewhere in the center, the ones they need to win elections, will not applaud. Maybe virtue is its own reward.

[luke warm]

kenberg, on Feb 23 2010, 07:12 PM, said:

First things first, Danny Williams seems like a sensible guy and I cannot imagine why anyone would criticize him or fail to vote for him for taking good care of his health.

The subtext of the post is, I assume, that the US system produces the best doctors or the best surgeons or the best something. Maybe not the strongest care for the average person, but the best of the top flight doctors. One could treat this as a serious question regardless of where the answer leads. The fact that the US has a larger population is not so persuasive an answer. He could have gone to the Uk, or France, or Belgium etc. He came to the US. One example proves nothing but still, if someone claimed that in a ranking of the top surgeons in Canada, the US, and the EU the US is represented with greater frequency than its population would suggest, I think that I would not bet against that claim. From what I have seen up close, US health care at its best is very good.

i agree with all of this... the question that's raised, of course, is whether or not the u.s. has always had the best health care (even if only in some areas) or whether the system used in canada has itself led to this relative difference

[helene_t]

kenberg, on Feb 24 2010, 04:11 AM, said:

III The bill isn't very good, and if the typical guy, one with a job and with a decent health care plan, looks at it and says "What's in it for me?", the answer will be "Not much".

Well as I read PassedOut's concerns (which make a lot of sense to me), one of the main problems with the present situation is that those who have insurance pay for the non-insured who get emergency room care without paying for it (and as I understand it, emergency rooms are used for problems that could be cheaper and better handled by GPs).

So it's the people who have insurance that have an interest in getting everyone insured.

Of course the insurance companies also have an interest in getting everyone insured.

OTOH another (and maybe bigger) problem is that the healthcare is simply too expensive, no matter who pays for it. Maybe a mandatory insurance scheme would save some money by moving some patients from emergency rooms to GPs. But it is also easy to see how more widespread insurance could make the total costs even higher.

I think you guys need to make your mind up: does society have a responsibility for providing affordable, elementary health care for everyone? If yes, provide sufficient subsidies for basic insurance. If not, be honest to your principles and throw the poor bastards out of the emergency room and let them die of appendicitis or w/e their problem is (unless some private charity is willing to pay for them without billing the paying customers or the taxpayers). I suppose some middle way could be found, i.e. society provides free emergency care for easy-to-treat life-threatening conditions, but in other cases the patients are on their own.

Anyway if there really was wide-spread interest in an affordable insurance plan that only covered sensible things and not nonsense like Ritalin, antidepressants, second opinion, conservative medicine, caesarian section, antibiotics for people with viral infections, doctor shopping, malpractice lawsuit insurance and "general health checks", I suppose someone would have put such a scheme on the market. So most likely, people are just happy with status quo and Obama can keep the change.

[PassedOut]

helene_t, on Feb 24 2010, 09:19 AM, said:

I think you guys need to make your mind up: does society have a responsibility for providing affordable, elementary health care for everyone? If yes, provide sufficient subsidies for basic insurance. If not, be honest to your principles and throw the poor bastards out of the emergency room and let them die of appendicitis or w/e their problem is (unless some private charity is willing to pay for them without billing the paying customers or the taxpayers).

Yes, I would be fine with adults having the option of not buying health insurance if they would then be required to sign a binding refusal to accept medical care paid for by anyone else.

That still leaves the problem of eliminating the 50% or so of waste in US medical charges. The current health care bills start to address that, but much more will be required in the future. You have to start somewhere.

[hrothgar]

PassedOut, on Feb 24 2010, 05:35 PM, said:

Yes, I would be fine with adults having the option of not buying health insurance if they would then be required to sign a binding refusal to accept medical care paid for by anyone else.

So, just to be clear:

John Doe, the happy go lucky 19 year old college student, determines that he wants to roll some dice. Odds are that he isn't going to need medical care any time soon. Mr. Doe signs a binding refusal to have his medical care paid for by anyone else.

Two monthes later, Doe gets creamed by a drunk driver while he is crossing Kirkwood Avenue in downtown Bloomington.

The ambulance team rush to the scene, but before they start treatment, they search through Mr Doe's wallet, and pull out his driver's license. They determine that Mr Doe

1. Has no real assets
2. Didn't choose to contribute to the insurance system

The ambulance team packs things up and leaves Doe to bleed out on the street...

Everybody wins.

[jdonn]

hrothgar, on Feb 24 2010, 10:12 AM, said:

PassedOut, on Feb 24 2010, 05:35 PM, said:

Yes, I would be fine with adults having the option of not buying health insurance if they would then be required to sign a binding refusal to accept medical care paid for by anyone else.

So, just to be clear:

John Doe, the happy go lucky 19 year old college student, determines that he wants to roll some dice. Odds are that he isn't going to need medical care any time soon. Mr. Doe signs a binding refusal to have his medical care paid for by anyone else.

Two monthes later, Doe gets creamed by a drunk driver while he is crossing Kirkwood Avenue in downtown Bloomington.

The ambulance team rush to the scene, but before they start treatment, they search through Mr Doe's wallet, and pull out his driver's license. They determine that Mr Doe

1. Has no real assets
2. Didn't choose to contribute to the insurance system

The ambulance team packs things up and leaves Doe to bleed out on the street...

Everybody wins.

Or they could treat him and just charge him a mountain of debt for decades to come...

Also it's not clear in this context a 19 year old should be considered an "adult". Perhaps in an ideal scenario he would be covered under his parents' insurance until he was 21 and a little less stupid (or perhaps at any age at which one attends college right after high school). Even under Passedout's suggestion I would recommend mandatory health insurance to cover one's children.

[hrothgar]

jdonn, on Feb 24 2010, 06:25 PM, said:

Or they could treat him and just charge him a mountain of debt for decades to come...

Also it's not clear in this context a 19 year old should be considered an "adult". Perhaps in an ideal scenario he would be covered under his parents' insurance until he was 21 and a little less stupid (or perhaps at any age at which one attends college right after high school). Even under this suggestion I would recommend mandatory health insurance to cover one's children.

Whose to say that John's parents aren't the ones feeling "lucky"?

Or, alternatively, picture Jane Doe, the 28 year old Randroid who also refuses to buy insurance, and has her own unlucky run in with a delivery vehicle...

As for the suggestion that John goes into debt...

I guess that we'll need to "means test" John and make sure that there is a reasonable chance that he can pay things off.

If John is an engineer or an econ major, its probably safe to treat him. If John's studying art history, its probably better just to let him die...

Just think, a whole new type of triage, only this time its based on your credit rating!