(03-27-2020, 12:01 PM)StroudCrowd1 Wrote:

(03-27-2020, 11:56 AM)TJBender Wrote: Oh stuff it. It has not, but if you want to keep on your "I don't want to pay for anyone else's healthcare because I make $200,000 per year and shouldn't have to worry about other human beings," routine, be my guest. Just stop pretending that your own good fortune means that the rest of the world is worth [BLEEP].

I deal in facts. You deal in fairy tales. You refuse to even let the words ILLEGAL ALIEN come through your lips because you are oblivious to facts and somehow think that makes you a good person.

I was talking about a rationing healthcare system where hospitals are so over-crowded, you may be deemed to die based on your age. I'm sure many Americans are just chomping at the bit to have that.

On a side note, you have been overly triggered these past couple days. Hope all is well with you.

I appreciate the sentiment. It is getting tiring having to tell my 70-year-old father with health problems already that only spending an hour a day in the common room of a condo complex that's a de facto retirement home is not social distancing. At least I'm not having to tell other at-risk family members to stop flying period, even if it is just domestic air travel, anymore, and for fart's sake stop riding JTA. That downtown hub is a cesspool on the best of days anyway.

And yeah, this has prompted me to rethink a lot of my views on government. Trump's policies have to an extent, but this has really pushed utilitarianism to the limit for me. New York isn't too far from having to start deciding who lives and who dies, and they're part of the free market healthcare system that charges people thousands of dollars to have an ER doc prescribe them 800mg doses of ibuprofen, or that artificially blows up prescription pricing to max out insurance payments without really caring that patients without insurance who need those drugs are going to have to pay that inflated price. There are a lot of things wrong with the American healthcare system, and we're one poor decision about when to relax social distancing guidelines from finding out the hard way how bad our system is. I'm very quickly moving in favor of a properly funded nationalized healthcare system. Is that socialism? Probably. Do I care? No, not really, because I'm beginning to think that it's the right thing to do. I've spent years centering my thoughts around Spock's "needs of the many" line, and now I'm not so sure he's right. There's a line between needs and wants, and at what point do the needs of the many become the wants of the many vs. the needs of the few? Where's the line where the wants of the many outweigh the needs of the few? And how should a government react to both?

I won't apologize, and I don't think you're looking for that. I do hope you and yours are ok, just like I hope JIB and Gabe's wife are quickly on the mend from whatever's ailing them, hopefully not COVID-19. 

Also, illegal alien. It's not that I won't say it. It's that I'm very selective about how I apply it.

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