Cub Scout kicked out after asking lawmaker about gun control

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by Abner, Oct 23, 2017.

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  1. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    I doubt America will ever have universal single-payer health coverage while the AMA still exists. Or gun control in any meaningful sense while there's a NRA. Nope - can't see either.

    J.
     
  2. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    Who are you or anyone else to tell a private entity what they "should" do? If the people who are the target demographic of the Boy Scouts of America (parents of young boys) don't like what they do, they can vote with their feet, and let the market correct itself.

    That's called freedom, which I know is an alien concept to you, but it's an awesome thing.
     
  3. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Why are you excluding 1st Amendment into your definition of "freedom", Bruce? Who are you to tell me what to tell anyone else?
    Also, I like your little ad hominem here. Dark side is strong in this one.
     
  4. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    It's funny you mention the 1st Amendment, because that's exactly what protected the Boy Scouts of America when a gay activist sued because he wasn't allowed to become a Scoutmaster. New Jersey tried to force the BSA to allow gay Scoutmasters, and the Supreme Court of the United States said no.

    https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-699.ZO.html

    Constitutional Law 101 - Constitutional protections only apply to government action. The Boy Scouts of America is not a governmental entity.

    Now, do I personally care if the BSA allows gay Scoutmasters? Not really, but I also think the government has no right to tell a private organization how to conduct its affairs.
     
  5. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    The healthcare/guns argument comes down to one of equivocation. The concept of "right to healthcare" is referring to an absolute right to state-mandated (taxpayer funded) provision. The "right to guns" refers to the limitation on the ability of governmental authorities to infringe on its citizens' ability to purchase and posses guns. What is meant by "right" is different in each case.

    In other words words, the claim here is that you have the right to procure both guns and healthcare, but do not have the right to coerce others to provide them to you. It's not self-contradictory to say one has the right to purchase guns, but not the right to be given healthcare. They are two sides of the same non-interventionist coin.

    Small disclaimer here in that I'm, once again, not stating a political opinion or taking sides here. I'm observing and clarifying the content of the argument.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 30, 2017
  6. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

  7. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

  8. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Correct. This is because healthcare is different from guns, and much of any other product. People come to expect, or have right to, provision of basic education and police services. Healthcare is more like these, a prerequisite for being able to exercise other rights. Small disclaimer: this is, indeed, my political opinion, albeit shared by the great majority here in Canada, and most of developed world.
     
  9. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    That's the mix-up that many conservatives, consciously or not, employ. Saying that BSA is "free" to do this or that does not mean they are "free" from criticism for their actions. Criticism, as long as not defamatory, is a 1st Amendment right. Also, BSA may be bound by whatever employment laws there are, as well as by duty to minors in their programs. These are difficult to judge from what could be gathered in a typical news article; judicial system exists to sort matters out. In this case, I do not think the boy was, technically, abused or injured, and no one seems to claim that. Still, the den leaders are jerks (subject to articles' accuracy) , and BSA leadership should be much more vocal about this stuff. No matter what you feel about gun rights, punishing an 11-year-old (who was simply doing his assignment) is not how you protect them.
     
  10. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Well, unless one smokes or is fat, and then it's game over for your "rights".

    Obese patients and smokers banned from routine surgery  in 'most severe ever' rationing in the NHS
     
  11. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Unless you try to tell me that these "rights" would be iron-clad for purchasers of private insurance, I'm not sure what this shows. That healthcare resources are finite? Many uninsured Americans would be very pleased with coverage levels NHS provides even in the most cash-strapped regional authorities. Are knee replacement surgeries (at your link) universally available to, say, Medicaid patients? I'm asking because I genuinely do not know.
     
  12. 03310151

    03310151 Active Member


    They are, and make up a sizeable expense for government healthcare costs. Here's an article detailing how to payments are made and some changes to how the costs were administered.


    Medicare plans big payment changes for knee and hip replacements - LA Times
     
  13. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member


    ...Kulaks to pay the price for whatever it is they should pay the price for.

    ...other people to be slaves.

    ...undesirable people to be exterminated.
     
  14. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

  15. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    If you have a point, make it. It vaguely appears that you are equating public policing and K-12 schooling and ethnic cleansing. You can't possibly be this much of a fringe lunatic, so obviously you mean something else. A swipe on my national origin perhaps?
     
  16. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    It shows that those who advocate government healthcare are perfectly comfortable referring to it as "universal" coverage even when it can be shown that the coverage isn't actually universal.

    There are different programs because they're for different purposes, although there's some overlap. For example, my mom's two hip replacements were covered by Medicare because she's over 65, but had she been younger and qualified for Medicaid, then yes, the latter that would have covered it. (That said, Medicaid is best known for covering the exorbitant cost of nursing homes.)
     
  17. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member


    I'm saying that people can expect anything including the extermination of categories of people.
     
  18. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    In other words, you have no point. OK.
     
  19. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    The coverage is "universal" because within a class of people (usually, citizens and permanent residents), everyone gets coverage. It might not be full coverage, but it's usually better than private "coverage" plans with lifetime limits and such. I prefer my OHIP coverage to the crappy plan I had as a student in US; that thing was basically only good for satisfying a visa requirement. When we had an HMO through my wife's work, it was better - still, I had better experience with OHIP.

    Back to your NHS example - can you find a story where a person got bankrupt due to medical bills? And this is NHS which is currently in trouble. Better yet - care to present a non-government healthcare you consider superior? Not theoretical please, one that actually, you know, exist.

    OK. So you know that socialized medicine actually works.
     
  20. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Well, "everyone", unless they're fat or they smoke, at least in the case of the NHS. Healthcare is expensive, you can try to move the consequences of scarcity from one group to another, but economics always wins in the end.

    No. But there are worse things than bankruptcy.

    NHS death rates four times higher than US

    As I've said before, the system in Dominica is interesting to me because of the contrast between primary care and the hospital. Primary care is great -- I spend less in cash to see an actual M.D. without an appointment and without waiting than I do on a co-pay in the U.S. I've only visited a specialist there once, but that wasn't hard either -- I actually had to make an appointment, but it was similarly affordable. The government-run hospital, meanwhile, is a mess, and anyone who can afford it gets airlifted somewhere else when the SHTF.

    Both private and public healthcare can work, the question is how well, why, and what it costs. If your point is that just because a hospital is government run doesn't mean it's a deathtrap, sure, I don't disagree.
     

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