Seriously thoughtful US/Europe Cultural Divide -- Musings

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by Ea

AFAIK that is certainly true of the Aztec, and in general the Middle American and North American native peoples. The peoples of the Andes less so, though of course oppression were taking place, also today. But they were far from wiped out.

Check out http://www.amazon.com/1491-Revelatio...0541634&sr=8-1 for a .... well, ebook... that covers this question.

Quote from the Amazon review:

"But the most compelling of his eye-opening revisionist stories are among the best-founded: the stories of early American-European contact. To many of those who were there, the earliest encounters felt more like a meeting of equals than one of natural domination. And those who came later and found an emptied landscape that seemed ripe for the taking, Mann argues convincingly, encountered not the natural and unchanging state of the native American, but the evidence of a sudden calamity: the ravages of what was likely the greatest epidemic in human history, the smallpox and other diseases introduced inadvertently by Europeans to a population without immunity, which swept through the Americas faster than the explorers who brought it, and left behind for their discovery a land that held only a shadow of the thriving cultures that it had sustained for centuries before."

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by HarryT

From what I have read about the American Revolution, about 30% of the American colonists actively supported it, an approximately equal number (ie another 30%) actively opposed it, and the other 40% just didn't want to get involved, so it's perhaps untrue to say that it was a "popular" uprising.

Yeah, that's what I've read, too. But it depends on the time frame, and also on the part of the country (or, at the time, colonies) we look at. Certainly, up to 1776, the percentages you quote might well have been accurate. Up to that point, in fact, the idea behind the rebellion was not so much "revolution" as it was "armed resistance to the suppression of the rights of Englishmen in America."

But after "Common Sense" was published (you can get the ebook at Gutenberg) things changed quite swiftly and dramatically, and the 40 percent shifted from "not involved" to "hey, hope you rebel guys win." Not that the 40 percent took up arms themselves, but the sentiments evidently shifted.

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by Harmon

This Iron Law is why any governmental "heath care" system will ultimately become tyrannical. It will not be run for the people needing health care, any more than the public schools are run for the students. It will not be run for the docs, except for the ones who, like teachers who become administrators, become members of the administration. And it will be a tyranny, because you will take whatever medicine it wants to give you, and prevent you from getting any medicine it does not want to give you.

First off, who the hell is this pournelle visionary that nobody's heard anything about but you, and why on earth do you see him as an authority?
Secondly, did you realise that health-related medicational practices are amazingly more well-developed in the US than in other parts of the world? The amount of pills you consume is amazing. What, 20% of the population takes antidepressants? I wonder how they survived before the advent of modern medicine.

The next-largest component of health care spendingin the United States in 2004 was prescription drugs. According to the OECD data, the United States spent roughly twice as much on prescription drugs ($752 per person) as the average OECD country in 2004.

Notice: This is not the fault of government, this is entirely because drug companies can influence what doctors prescribe, through "encouraging" doctors to prescribe "new" pills (that still have the highest prices).

The study found that brand-name prescription drugs still under patent were most expensive in Japan, with the United States ranked second among the nine countries.
In the other seven countries, on-patent prescription drugprices were 24% to 39% less expensive than in the United States.

Anyway, just because you can describe it doesn't make it true, nor even believable. Again: who the hell is Pournelle?
According to wiki, he's an essayist, journalist and SF Writer. i.e., a twit with no economics background whatever. The only thing I get from your story is that you live with lots of fears about "government" "taking over"
Especially because I can think of no supporting evidence whatever in favor of this "necessary consequences" argument.

You are evidently unfamiliar with the concept of private health insurance.

... The irony inherent in that statement is delicious.

Government's role in health care is to regulate for purposes of quality control and for insuring (so to speak) competition among providers, prosecuting of fraud, and providing transparency to the consumer.

You mean to say, imo [bla]. The rest is only true if you believe that government has only the rights written on some document back in the 1700s. Honestly, your constitution is becoming like the bible: not of these times. Later changes introduced through congress are legitimate, you know.

But once we let the government take over the funding we will get two things: increasing costs, and decreasing service delivered in accordance with government decree handled by a bunch of bureaucrats following Pournelle's Iron Law to the letter.

Again: "we will get"?
Anyway, let me point something out to you that proves the exact opposite of what you're saying:

As shown in Figure 1 and Table 1, U.S. per capita health care spending was well over double the average of OECD countries, which was $2,560 in 2004. Health care made up 15.3% of the U.S. economy in 2004, as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) — up from 5.1% of GDP in 1960. No other OECD country devotes as much of its economy to health care.
(consider especially that you're not even helping 30% of the country)
As previously discussed, Americans do not lead the world in per capita doctor visits or hospitalizations. When Americans receive health care services, they appear to receive a higher-than-average amount of certain surgical procedures and advanced medical technologies, but generally do not have the highest levels in the OECD. This leaves price as the last remaining factor in the equation to explain the high level of U.S. health care spending. In assessing what drives the difference between U.S. health care spending and the rest of the world, some leading health economists responded this way: “It’s the prices, stupid.”
Put more formally, a report from the OECD declared that “there is no doubt that U.S. prices for medical care commodities and services are significantly higher than in other countries and serve as a key determinant of higher overall spending."
Spending on health insurance and administration can be broken into three parts. The largest part, at least in the United States, comprises the difference between earned premiums and incurred benefits of private health insurers.
(btw, this translates to either "corporations have too much power" or "corporations are inefficient". Which do you prefer?)

Whereas in europe most health care systems are public (although there are (partly) private systems as well, notably in Switzerland and holland), and incur less than half the US costs, even though resulting in a higher avg life expectancy. What answer does your dear libertarian Pournelle have to this? "in communism laws are different"?

[wodin]

[QUOTE=zerospinboson;437915]First off, who the hell is this pournelle visionary that nobody's heard anything about but you, and why on earth do you see him as an authority?
QUOTE]
This doesn't sound like "nobody".

[Bilbo1967]

[QUOTE=wodin;438372]

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

First off, who the hell is this pournelle visionary that nobody's heard anything about but you, and why on earth do you see him as an authority?
QUOTE]
This doesn't sound like "nobody".

Please, it's not nice to point out other people's ignorance!

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

[SNIP]
What, 20% of the population takes antidepressants? I wonder how they survived before the advent of modern medicine.

Cite, please? I'd be thoroughly shocked if the percentage was anywhere near that high.

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

[SNIP again]
The rest is only true if you believe that government has only the rights written on some document back in the 1700s. Honestly, your constitution is becoming like the bible: not of these times. Later changes introduced through congress are legitimate, you know.
[and SNIP to the end]

I can't speak for Harmon, but the basic premise of American government and society is that the Federal government has exactly and only the powers granted it by way of the constitution -- and no rights whatsoever!

As for "later changes introduced through congress" being legitimate -- that's certainly true for Amendments to the Constitution. Things that are merely bills passed by the congress, however, have a much lower status. If the Congress (or the people, for that matter) doesn't like some limitation placed on the Federal Government by the Constitution there's a straight forward method laid out for making changes. We've even done so 27 times to date, as recently as 1992.

And if those who desire a change can't get said change through the process, that seems like a clear sign that the people of the US do not, in fact, intend for the government to have whatever power the would-be changers were attempting to get. That's happened plenty of times, too.

The Constitution is clearly a living document, in the sense that there's a procedure for editing it. My main regret (personally) is that since WWII the courts -- especially the Supreme Court -- have re-interpreted broadly rather than telling the other branches to go get an amendment through if they don't like being shot down by the court. There's a ton of constitutionally dodgy stuff that really should have required amending the constitution -- just start with the "war on drugs" and many of the laws passed to enable same*, then look at... but that's a rant for another day.

Xenophon

* I note that last time we decided to outlaw a class of substances at the Federal level, we passed a Constitutional Amendment to do so -- and then passed another one when we decided we were wrong. I fail to see what is so different about the various "illegal substances" being fought in the "war on drugs" that they can be outlawed without a similar amendment. But, of course, I am not a lawyer...

[thomasmorus]

[QUOTE=Bilbo1967;438602]

Originally Posted by wodin

Please, it's not nice to point out other people's ignorance!

I fit sthe same porunelle I kow he is quite a good writer, but also quite ignornat about health care - I jaust have to agree with zerospin ..

But it also makes one of the divides to discuss here quite apparent - there is just an enourmous numbers of americans who are suffering from the super delusion that "not onvented her - BAD. Soory guys the rest of the world, and especially the rest of europa is at least as intelligent as you and sometimes has the better solutions

[netseeker]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

Cite, please? I'd be thoroughly shocked if the percentage was anywhere near that high.

According to the DEPRES II study around 17% of the people in europe are suffering from depression: DEPRES II (Depression Research in European Society II).

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by netseeker

According to the DEPRES II study around 17% of the people in europe are suffering from depression: DEPRES II (Depression Research in European Society II).

Sure. But "suffering from depression" and "taking anti-depressants" are rather different statements. And it's the second that zsb was making.

Xenophon

[netseeker]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

Sure. But "suffering from depression" and "taking anti-depressants" are rather different statements. And it's the second that zsb was making.

Xenophon

Agreed. I must have misread that. But i find it alarming that so many people are suffering from it in the days of modern healthcare systems.

[slayda]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

Cite, please? I'd be thoroughly shocked if the percentage was anywhere near that high.



...

Actually I'd be surprised if the percentage is that low!!!

[wodin]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

I fit sthe same porunelle I kow he is quite a good writer, but also quite ignornat about health care - I jaust have to agree with zerospin ..

But it also makes one of the divides to discuss here quite apparent - there is just an enourmous numbers of americans who are suffering from the super delusion that "not onvented her - BAD. Soory guys the rest of the world, and especially the rest of europa is at least as intelligent as you and sometimes has the better solutions

Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy does not specifically address public health care or any other public service, it addresses bureaucracy. In this case the folks that run the healthcare system under any public health care system.

Originally Posted by Harmon

Let me introduce you to Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy - which, as a member of a federal bureaucracy for some 37 years now, rings true to me:

"In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely."

I too am a US Federal Government bureaucrat, although not for as long as Harmon, and I agree with his assessment about us.

[thomasmorus]

[QUOTE=Bilbo1967;438602]

Originally Posted by wodin

Please, it's not nice to point out other people's ignorance!

Originally Posted by wodin

Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy does not specifically address public health care or any other public service, it addresses bureaucracy. In this case the folks that run the healthcare system under any public health care system.



I too am a US Federal Government bureaucrat, although not for as long as Harmon, and I agree with his assessment about us.

I Will speak against it. Maybe it is correct from an US point of view. As I said in an wearlier quote After living in the US and encountering the bureaucraty there I am very happy with what I encounter here.

I have normal dealings as a citizien with our goverment officals in Germany and Austria. In most cases these have been quit amical and mostly the service was good to excellent.

[Harmon]

[QUOTE=wodin;438372]

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

First off, who the hell is this pournelle visionary that nobody's heard anything about but you, and why on earth do you see him as an authority?
QUOTE]
This doesn't sound like "nobody".

For those who didn't understand to click through on "This" in wodin's post, here's a snippet from the article in Wikipedia which is referenced:

Pournelle was an intellectual protege of Russell Kirk (Kenneth C. Cole, Pournelle's mentor at the University of Washington, was co-founder with Kirk of Modern Age) and Stefan T. Possony with whom Pournelle wrote numerous publications including The Strategy of Technology, onetime textbook at the United States Military Academy (West Point) and the United States Air Force Academy (Colorado Springs). His work in the aerospace industry includes editing Project 75, a 1964 study of 1975 defense requirements. He worked in operations research at Boeing, The Aerospace Corporation, and North American Rockwell Space Division, and was founding President of the Pepperdine Research Institute.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

I can't speak for Harmon, but the basic premise of American government and society is that the Federal government has exactly and only the powers granted it by way of the constitution -- and no rights whatsoever!

Well, actually, you are speaking for me when you say things like that!

And that goes for much else that I find you saying...

I note that last time we decided to outlaw a class of substances at the Federal level, we passed a Constitutional Amendment to do so -- and then passed another one when we decided we were wrong. I fail to see what is so different about the various "illegal substances" being fought in the "war on drugs" that they can be outlawed without a similar amendment. But, of course, I am not a lawyer..

That's a very interesting question. It led me to sit down & read portions of a legal treatise I own called Blakemore on Prohibition, which I keep on my wine & liquor rack - a sort of mememto bibere...

What is contained in that now fortunately obsolete volume does not directly answer your question, but from what I read my guess is that the answer lies in politics more than in law, plus a drift in the legal environment about the powers of government, toward greater inherent power, in the last hundred years. Astonishingly (at least to me) there was a serious argument about the validity of the amendment itself, ultimately resolved by the Supreme Court.

I think that the situation is explained by a lot of things, including the change in the extent to which we now accept the dominance of the federal government in our lives. But one factor probably had to do with what was being attempted. Prohibition outlawed the importation & sale of liquor at one fell swoop. Drugs, on the other hand, were subjected to creeping regulation - tax them, register them, and gradually force them out of the hands of the public. To accomplish the swoop required Draconian action. But creeping toward the same thing with drugs, incrementally, just required people to accept a series of encroachments over time, to the point where most people conceded the power to the government.