The Hall of Fire

Corporate personhood is one of those "legal fictions" that get you out of tricky spots, like trying to enforce contracts that were entered into by a "corporation." The Constitution was written before the industrial age and doesn't really fit in many circumstances. Cerin makes goo...

so the humans in a corporation have the same rights as the humans not in a corporation, philosophically speaking. Philosophically speaking I can't see why they wouldn't have the same rights, except that the practical results may be very unpleasant. But the whole point of rights like freedom of spee...

For that matter, I could offer up any number of people that the US system works perfectly for, which doesn't really mean anything either. Who are those people, Hal? Government employees? :P Mine has worked pretty well....when I've managed to be employed. Gotten laid off three times in my career. My...

hal, are you just implying that accidents and crime are so much higher here that it skews the statistics with no facts, or do you have facts to show that it accidents/crime were taken out, that we would be #1, or much closer to #1?

There is no doubt (in my mind, at least) that if you have good health insurance, or are very wealthy, you will get top of the line care in the U.S. Which isn't surprising, because in the U.S. is where you have a tremendous amount of medical innovation going on. Drug research, device research, surgeo...

I like the Better Dead than Red applied to healthcare. So, so unintentionally and unfortunately correct. Hal, I am disappointed that you chose not to try to provide solutions to the scenario I presented, i.e., somebody was denied coverage and ran up a huge bill and died or was disabled and unable to...

Halplm, the style of reasoning you employed in this situation is what we called in law school the "parade of horribles" reasoning...you know, if you do X, then Y, Z, T, S, R, A, B, and so on will happen until the world caves in on itself. There are shades of gray. There are happy mediums. ...

Make them pay for it. We have a whole industry behind debt collection. if they go into debt, it's their own fault for not being prepared. Well, Hal, the people who go without tend to have nothing to lose. So, if they don't have it, there's nothing to be done. There's no debtor's prison in this coun...

Well, putting Republicans back in charge doesn't make sense if that is what the people want. :scratch: I thought the Repubs did a pretty awful job when they were in charge, and even Republicans will admit that. I agree with the breaking out in hives thing on debt, but you know, when the economy is a...

It's gross. The ultrawealthy in the U.S. have kind of a tradition of philanthropy once they are filthy rich, which helps to not be too annoyed by gross excess, but I'm not sure that third world or second world oligarchs do. And plus, I don't think that people like the daughter of the president of Ka...

Well, Hal, if people don't take care of their health and don't have insurance, what do we do with them when they get sick? let them die on the street? That is the problem with applying the free market to health care. We won't let them die on the street, and somebody has to pay for it. And if that so...

Hal, do you think the "Free Market" works in EVERY situation? Just curious. It seems that it is your answer to everything.

And each person isn't responsible for their own health. It's like what happened to the banks. Profits are taken for private, but the losses are socialized. Here, the profit entails the amount you save when you don't pay health insurance premiums, and the loss is socialized (the emergency room treats...

Yeah, I don't have vision insurance and when we went to get new lenses for my husband and my daughter's glasses (no new frames, mind you) and replacement contact lenses for my husband, it was over $700 . I don't know what the solution is, but people just being on their own to pay crap like that just...

Well, I took three years of Latin in high school. Translated a lot of battle reports. :) Unfortunately, it wasn't very compelling for me (Latin, or the battles.) Maybe I'm one of those cultural ignoramuses (ummm, on second thought, skip the "maybe") but I would be far more interested in ha...

That's a nice summation, Yov. And I know a quite a few perfectly nice Republicans who are emphatically not racists. In fact I know very few overt "racists" -- thankfully.

I say, with absolutely no insult intended, with admiration, that she has a keen business sense. She is going to parlay her nomination into making a bunch of money. I admire her for it....as much as I wish she wasn't part of the national discourse. I just think her point of view is bad for the countr...

Wilma: good point on the inappropriate comment.

*back to thread topic*

No, I do not want people in favor of Prop. 8 harassed.

Hal, have you stood up against and/or been appalled at the harassment of women trying to go in and obtain legal abortions?

If people didn't care that these folks supported Prop. 8, then their lives and businesses wouldn't be "ruined." I expect that any cause or person that I donate to is public record. If they didn't want the repercussions, perhaps they should have thought twice about donating.