Brad Wardell's views about technology, politics, religion, world affairs, and all sorts of politically incorrect topics.
We meant it takes a village to pay for your children
Published on September 27, 2007 By Draginol In Democrat

In a discussion I had today, an argument was posed:

Why do conservatives hate insuring kids?

Of course, it's a strawman argument.  Conservatives object to paying for other people's personal decisions. 

Having a child, is a choice.  Liberals are overwhelmingly in favor of "Abortion rights" and therefore see having children as a "choice".

On the other hand, they apparently against choice when it comes to whether other people should have to pay for the choice a woman makes.

As one pregnant left-wing poster put it:

Speaking as an uninsured, unemployed, pregnant Vermonter, it sickens me to think that my child will likely have very little health care in the future. While I'm not given a break for my OB appointments, the clinic my husband attends does have a sliding scale fee structure as well as long term payment plans. And of course, there's the free clinic in town, which has people from New Hampshire and Massachusetts going to it, because it's the only health care they receive at all.

I think the poster has it right on - children get in the way of the money.

You see, she's not being greedy. Her demand that other people have their property confiscated by the government to be given to her isn't greed.  No, the greed lies with those who object to having their earnings syphoned off to be given to someone who has chosen to have a child they can't afford.


Comments (Page 5)
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on Sep 30, 2007

Yes but I still end up paying for the roads other people choose to use. Once my roads and portions of the highways I use have been paid for how come I have to keep paying for all those other roads that I dont use? I dont choose to drive down those roads why should i pay for them? Those are other peoples choices not mine.

Remember my objection is in "having [my] earnings syphoned off to be given to someone who has " chosen to drive these other roads. Why in the hell should I have to pay for them?

Let's break this down to its component parts:

People cannot, as a practical matter, build their own roads.  They cannot even pay someone on their own to build a road.  By contrast, people can and do pay for their own health insurance.

Me paying for your health insurance is not the same thing as me contributing towards a commonly used resource.  By your rationale, we should have the government provide housing, food, and everything else.  There is nothing, nothing at all, that the government shouldn't provide based on your line of reasoning.

To me, the cut off point of what government should provide is what someone can reasonably do for themselves.

on Sep 30, 2007
As for schools, I'd say that that falls into that same area as well


schools do fall into this area. problem is the people in charge the teachers union is pushing an agenda on the kids.
on Sep 30, 2007
if we thought as the democrats want us to think and as most everyone else in the world. we would let the government do everything. and the flight that went down on 9/11 would have hit its intended target.
on Oct 01, 2007
The cutoff isn't reasonableness of doing so oneself. The cutoff is when paying extra gives me no benefit. IE, the government pays for your health insurance, so I pay more. Do I get health insurance from that? Does the benefit of the lower premium outweigh the extra taxes I'm paying? If not, then it shouldn't be done. Building roads, lighthouses, parks, etc. is what the government is there for. It's not there to pay for personal things.
on Oct 01, 2007
Wow. Finally a liberal who's not afraid to state that they believe being on a limited income amounts to a character defect.


Except thats not what I said.

People cannot, as a practical matter, build their own roads. They cannot even pay someone on their own to build a road. By contrast, people can and do pay for their own health insurance.


You're mixing services with infrastructure to make your point. Building a hospital is not something individuals can practically afford either. This is paid for individually through healthcare. Driving on a road is a service that can and is charged for and is therotically divisible down into individual benefit vrs cost.

You say individuals should pay for their own healthcare. I agree. But I also think its inconsistent to say servicex (healthcare) should be individually paid for but not service y (roading, etc). Why should a neighbourhood of people who only drive about their local area continue paying for "other" roads once the roads they drive on have been paid for by the taxes they have incurred to pay for them? In other words the roads they "directly" use have been paid for by them via taxation why should they any pay more?

Well the obvious answer to that is the indirect benefits they get from having those other roads in place. In the grand scheme of things its actually better that they keep paying for "other" peoples roads because having those roads in place accrues unto them additional indirect benefits beyond them merely being able to drive their cars along them. So it doesn't matter that they dont drive those other roads themselves, they are stll better off continuing to pay because overall its just works better.

The same is true for healthcare. Who should pay for the kids.... the parents. But we know that not all parents can, so the question becomes should we? Whats the argument for us continuing to pay for someone elses kids to have healthcare. The answer is the indirect benefits that acrrue unto to us from living in a happy healthy society. Thats why we should be paying for other peoples kids to have healthcare.

So to me thats that issue.

But then you go a step further and use this pregnant boof and her half baked ideas of entitlement to swipe "liberals" and suggest that this is a condition endemic to them and them only. Which is bullshit. Now you're just politiking. The Iraq War being a perfect example. The Iraq War is overwhelming a conservative war. It's overwhelmingly conservatives that promote and push it and its overwhelming conservatives that want US to stay on. Yet I bet theres not one conservative who personally believes that we should have gone and should stay on that will personally contract themselves along with their conservative friends to pay for it. No for that they expect that liberal taxation will largely
subsidize their war.

So to suggest that "Conservatives object to paying for other people's personal decisions. " is probably true. But to suggest that this is because conservatives always pay for themselves is completely false. And so to call some dropkick out in Vermont and to say this is a typical liberal "Pro choice, zero responsibility" position is to ignore a whole host of contridictions in the conservative position such as "We want war and you to pay".

Conservatives are no better in this regard that liberals which is why these kinds of articles (admittedly from both camps) amount to little more than good old fashioned partisanship. They make a minor bang, they get people talking (and yelling) but ultimately theres nothing to their claims.
on Oct 01, 2007

There is always a slippery slope argument to be made.

But there is little argument that things like national defense (Iraq war) should be handled by the government because the constitution explicitly mentions it. Providing a common defense is the first job of a government.

Similarly, creating a shared resource (police, roads, schools) is something that tends to fall to governments.

Hospitals, by contrast, are NOT owned by the government. Doctors are not government employees. 

Our government does not transfer other people's property to the poor so that they can pay a private road builder or private security firm. 

That is why I don't think your analogy fits.

As for taking swipes at liberals, it is unavoidable because the American left is the side that equates belief in a policy to moral superiority.  It is a pecularity of American liberalism -- they think they are more compassionate because they favor people like me paying for other people why they themselves overwhelmingly barely take care of themselves.

There has been a great deal of research over the years showing that the bulk of the taxes are paid for by conservatives for programs favored by liberals.  It is pretty easy to be compassionate when it's other people's money that they're being compassionate with.

Free health care is not a right. I grew up without health insurance.  I find it increasingly sickening that our society now finds it intolerable to even pay for their own doctor visits. Why stop there? Government provided oil changes for the car, government provided hair cuts, government provided auto insurance.  It's a never ending line that takes us to tyranny.

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