Sure would love national health careFollow

Yes, but it does increase the heart rate and burn off all the calories from that McMeal you had for lunch!

I'm sure, had your opinion ever carried any weight, that he'd be heartbroken.

Ok. But you're assuming that "being civilized" and "how we treat our poor" *always* trumps any cost involved. You're presenting those ideas as though they are absolutes, but that's exactly what I'm questioning.

I'm suggesting that there must be a point at which we decide that the cost to protect the helpless isn't worth it. That the burden incurred on a society making sure that its poor as a healthy as possible is no longer worth the benefit generated in the process. Even when we calculate a social benefit (which in many cases is people like you and me feeling better about ourselves cause we "did something to help"), there must be *some* point at which we should realize we're just making things worse.

Do you believe that point exists or not? If so, where is it? What would you define as "too much cost" for the feel-good aspects you're espousing?

Yay, more Monx spam to rate down.

I don't think they should either. The difference being that I think that the responsibility for that dental care should be on the parent of the child, not the state.

Perhaps it'll make more sense if I rephrase my questions: "To what lengths/expense should the government go to ensure that all children recieve dental care? What additional benefits should we provide as well? Is there any point at which you'll look at some benefit that could under certain conditions save of even just improve a life and say that it's no longer worth the cost?"

As I pointed out earlier, your statement "No children should die because they aren't getting propery dental care" is an absolute. You have placed no conditions on the statement. I'm asking you where those conditions lie.

If that child is pulled out of school by his parent and taken secretly to a cabin in the wilderness, how far should the government go to ensure that the child recieves proper dental care? Your statement as written places no restrictions. If I take it at face value, I have to conclude that the US government should be perfectly willing to mobilize billions of dollars of assets to locate that child, perhaps force its way to the cabin, take the child from his parent and provide him with dental care. In the lack of *any* conditionals, I can't rule this out. What I'm asking is "where's the point at which we decide the costs outweigh the benefits?".

That's all I'm asking. No one seems to be able to even acknowledge that there *is* a point at which those costs are too high, much less even speculate on where that cost value is.




I'll ask a similar question to what I asked Smash earlier. What is the societal "value" of a single human life? Is that *always* greater then the cost for some benefit (in this case regular visits to a doctor)? And is that the only cost we incur? We're talking about a dentist here, but if we extrapolate this situation to say that the government should provide any and all possible services that might result in a single loss of life if it were denied to any single individual, then how much is the cost then?

Cause it's not just dental care. It's every type of medical care. And then it's housing. And food. And clothing.

I'm just trying to get a feel where the "it's not worth it" point is. Do we hire folks to walk every child across the street because statistically some of them will walk out in front of a car and die? Do we put a private guard on every single child because some of them might be the victims of kidnappers and/or sexual predators?

I guess what I'm getting at is that tens of thousands of children die every year from various things that could have been prevented (arguably virtually all deaths of children are preventable). How much do we pay to prevent them all? I think we can make the argument that this woman's choices and actions during her life had a pretty large effect on the circumstances surrounding her childs death. Do we spend tons of money preventing that? What about all the kids who die who's parents didn't make any mistakes at all? They worked hard and built a life before having children. They stuck it out as a couple to ensure their kids the best chances in life. They saved up money and sent their kids to the best school they could. But their kids die from a drunk driver, or some nutjob psychokiller.

Does it make sense spending money to prevent the death of a child when the mother did everything she could to make it harder for that kid's chances? What's the "cost" for that? What if the tax dollars you collect to pay for medical care for that child is exactly the amount some other familiy ends up being short on funds to provide for something for their child that results in that child's death? Can you guarantee that doesn't happen? See. If something bad happens and the government didn't spend tax dollars causing or preventing it, then no one "caused" it (except perhaps the parents or random chance). But if in the process of acting, the government is simply switching "cost" around from one person to another, then *now* we're all responsible.


Maybe that's a bit more complex of an ethical question, but I think it's a valid one. By not interferring, we're allowing nature to take it's course. By interferring, even if we cause fewer total deaths (in this case), we may have caused a death to someone who would not have otherwise died.


It's the pure nature of Liberalism that the government should not be making this kind of decision.




Well. But there's a huge difference between killing someone, and not providing something extra that might have prevented them from dying. One is a direct ethical result of our actions. The other is not. I might feel bad that I didn't take some action which may have saved a life, but I should at no time feel responsible for that loss of life.


Huge difference.

Isn't it? Especially depending on the degree of separation involved?

Clearly if I point a gun at someone and pull the trigger, I've taken a life. But if I'm a bystander watching someone else point a gun at someone and pull the trigger are you suggesting I'm just as responsible if I didn't leap at the gunman and try to prevent the death?

How about if I simply suspect that someone might point a gun at someone somewhere and pull the trigger? Must I patrol the streets looking for that situation so I can try to prevent it?

Again. What's the point at which I declare myself free of obligation to prevent something bad from happening to someone else? Isn't this the crux of what we're talking about here?




No. I'm simply saying that *I* am not at fault for that child's death. I'm also asking to what degree am I responsible (via my tax dollars) to try to prevent it (or others like it)? How much should I do (or pay) before I'm ok to say "enough is enough"?

It's not about whether death is good. I'm not saying that at all. I'm asking about responsibility. Thought you'd have gotten that by now...




I don't know exactly. But I at least see that there has to be one somewhere. Do you? That's what I keep asking, but you, Joph, and everyone else in this thread seems to keep skipping away from the question.

When you counter that question with "but no child should die because of a lack of dental care", you aren't answering the question. You're just repeating what you'd like to see happen in an ideal world where we had all the resources to do everything we wanted. I'm asking if there's some point at which you'd say that the state no longer had an obligation to spend money to prevent someone from dying. I've already presented a few examples for you to think about. Why not start by answering those...?

I dunno... we spend billions of dollars on stupider things.

Now, > more than ever.