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The Power of the SCOTUS III: Roberts' Rules of Order

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Re: The Power of the SCOTUS III: Roberts' Rules of Order

Bob Gray said:
Yah, basically that religion gets in the way of society making needed rational choices. There's more to your post, but to inject commentary on religion regarding why we can't make sensible spending and healthcare choices in this country is just odd, though I know you tend to blame religion for all sorts of ills.
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Oh, for fuck's sake, Bob. I know every time you see "religion" and "Kepler" in the same post you go apeshit, but why don't you just try and read once in a while? I wasn't "blaming" anything. I was saying moral codes have to evolve gradually to face new social problems, and we shouldn't ignore the existing codes in the meantime, a very traditional view. I wasn't "injecting" anything, either, I was responding to the utilitarian "dope 'em and let 'em die" proposition.

Get over it.
 
Re: The Power of the SCOTUS III: Roberts' Rules of Order

Kepler said:
Oh, for fuck's sake, Bob. I know every time you see "religion" and "Kepler" in the same post you go apeshit, but why don't you just try and read once in a while? I wasn't "blaming" anything. I was saying moral codes have to evolve gradually to face new social problems, and we shouldn't ignore the existing codes in the meantime, a very traditional view. I wasn't "injecting" anything, either, I was responding to the utilitarian "dope 'em and let 'em die" proposition.

Get over it.
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You're the one who goes nuts over all the ills religion foists on this nation and world, not me. If you weren't going down that avenue this particular time, I apologize for reading something into this post that wasn't there.
 
Re: The Power of the SCOTUS III: Roberts' Rules of Order

I feel like I'm missing out because I totally don't get the bumper sticker about centipedes and vaginas. explain?
 
Re: The Power of the SCOTUS III: Roberts' Rules of Order

geezer said:
I feel like I'm missing out because I totally don't get the bumper sticker about centipedes and vaginas. explain?
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I'm not getting it either. Must be some insider liberal joke?
 
Re: The Power of the SCOTUS III: Roberts' Rules of Order

The best joke ever is so embarrassingly sexist that you can really never find a good place to tell it; except anonymously, on the internet:

Q: What do you call irritated skin surrounding a vagina?
A: A woman.

(free tip: don't ask your wife this one, unless you pack for the weekend first. And if, when she hears the punch line, she scowls and picks up a weapon, don't say "see?")
 
Re: The Power of the SCOTUS III: Roberts' Rules of Order

dxmnkd316 said:
Thanks. "Why the long face?" is still one of my favorite jokes of all time. Not sure why, but I laugh every time.
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Same here for "I'm a frayed knot." It's so stupid it completely short-circuits any critical function and makes me 11 years old again. Great feeling.

Firesign Theatre has a zillion of those.
 
Re: The Power of the SCOTUS III: Roberts' Rules of Order

Kepler said:
This is one of those problems that religions usually develop a answer for so people can function.
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Wasn't it mainly religious evangelicals that were making a big stink about pulling the feeding tube from the comatose patient a few years ago?
With our current moral codes we can't just dope people up and let them die when life-extending care is available, and we should not ignore our moral codes.
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I think we can and we should when it's subsidized care that is keeping them alive. Look, if you want to pay for it out of your own pocket, fine. If your insurer is willing to do so, fine. But when I and other taxpayers are more or less your de facto insurer, then it isn't fine. I want to keep people alive that are likely to recover and once again be productive members of society. Besides, if people care so ****ing much about keeping their elderly parents/grandparents around, what exactly is stopping them from raising money to pay for that care themselves? And if the answer is "they can't afford that, don't be ridiculous", then you know what? I can't afford it, either.
In situations like that, morality evolves. No government or religious institution does that, it happens spontaneously in people. I personally wouldn't hang around being a burden to my grandkids after I've had my innings, but we may be the first generation that really has to make the choice to turn down treatment by thinking of it as immoral to take it. It becomes a Lifeboat situation. People are equipped to make those sacrifices, they just haven't connected up end of life care to it yet.
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I believe the key here is a form of peer pressure. Idea: the government should offer to increase social security payments to people willing to sign a legally binding agreement that they will decline any and all costly interventions to save/extend their lives. What the cost threshold is and what interventions are identified / included would determine the size of the extra payment. It's a win-win; it gives people the choice, it saves the government money, and it offers a reward for doing the right thing.
Most importantly, the decision must come from the patient. Grandma can decide to jump, but you can't push her.
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The government can do the pushing. Financially, of course.
 
Re: The Power of the SCOTUS III: Roberts' Rules of Order

Bakunin said:
I think we can and we should when it's subsidized care that is keeping them alive.
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It's a moral-political decision we have to work through. Right now, we can't (pragmatically) and we shouldn't (because the moral and medical primacy is on fighting death almost regardless of circumstance).

The ideal is to have a generous safety net and a population of responsible and frugal people who would not feel right taking advantage of it under circumstances where it is pointless. That's about changing the culture to be less selfish, but god help you if you suggest that unrestricted individualism leads to suboptimal results. The Boomers shall not let that stand, because they are the pinnacle of all human history, and the markets shall not let that stand, because then people might not believe feeding their desires by buying crap is the point of human life.
 
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Re: The Power of the SCOTUS III: Roberts' Rules of Order

Kepler said:
It's a moral-political decision we have to work through. Right now, we can't (pragmatically) and we shouldn't (because the moral and medical primacy is on fighting death almost regardless of circumstance).
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Aren't medical ethics types supposed to fix this wrong-headed approach? We're all going to die; the focus shouldn't be on survival at any cost - it should be on delivering the highest quality of life. I would much rather die relatively pain-free in a matter of days or weeks than go through the motions of fighting a losing battle against a growing number of chronic ailments for 5-10 years while pushing around a walker with an oxygen tank. The elderly and their enabler families should be shamed into changing their behavior. The status quo is simply costing society far too much.

The ideal is to have a generous safety net and a population of responsible and frugal people who would not feel right taking advantage of it under circumstances where it is pointless. That's about changing the culture to be less selfish, but god help you if you suggest that unrestricted individualism leads to suboptimal results.
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Psychologically speaking, I would like to know how much a generous safety net alters human behavior in terms of job seeking / work ethic / saving / investing / overall risk-taking. It's sort of like asking whether or not an inheritance for your kid is beneficial - yes, in strict monetary terms, it is, but just how much does that alter the person's future behavior? If you know you're taken care of no matter what you do, just how hard are you willing to work and for how long? At what point does the subsidized health care and retirement spending cross a threshold and send our productivity down the toilet? Has anybody actually studied this?
The Boomers shall not let that stand, because they are the pinnacle of all human history, and the markets shall not let that stand, because then people might not believe feeding their desires by buying crap is the point of human life.
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Given the entrenched buying habits and servicing wants vs needs of the American public, I don't believe the markets have a ****ing thing to worry about on that one. :p
 
Re: The Power of the SCOTUS III: Roberts' Rules of Order

Bakunin said:
The elderly and their enabler families should be shamed into changing their behavior. The status quo is simply costing society far too much.
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That's what happens in resource-poor environments ("this way to the ice floe"). In resource-rich environments it's much tougher, and it should be. We are completely drowning in the useless garbage of a consumerist culture. Under those circumstances, pulling the plug on Grandma because of expense is rightly viewed as having bad priorities.

One agonizing and prolonged depression every 80 years might be good for people. There's a general die-off, the surviving kids grow up with good habits, and the super-wealthy wind up on the gallows. Everybody wins.
 
Re: The Power of the SCOTUS III: Roberts' Rules of Order

I would only approve of that if I get to be on the death panel. :p

If bond investors ever made us accountable for our deficit spending that never ends, we could become a "resource poor" environment pretty quickly. Bear in mind we're running a $1T deficit when it's about as cheap as it's ever going to get to service our debt. It can only get worse going forward if and when the long term bond yields revert back to the historical average (thus tripling or quadrupling our interest payments...ouch).
 
Re: The Power of the SCOTUS III: Roberts' Rules of Order

Bakunin said:
I would only approve of that if I get to be on the death panel. :p

If bond investors ever made us accountable for our deficit spending that never ends, we could become a "resource poor" environment pretty quickly. Bear in mind we're running a $1T deficit when it's about as cheap as it's ever going to get to service our debt. It can only get worse going forward if and when the long term bond yields revert back to the historical average (thus tripling or quadrupling our interest payments...ouch).
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Not to mention we're taking the Zimbabwe approach. Market nominal value is going down? Print more money to put smiles on investors' faces! :rolleyes:
 
Re: The Power of the SCOTUS III: Roberts' Rules of Order

Bakunin said:
I would only approve of that if I get to be on the death panel. :p

If bond investors ever made us accountable for our deficit spending that never ends, we could become a "resource poor" environment pretty quickly. Bear in mind we're running a $1T deficit when it's about as cheap as it's ever going to get to service our debt. It can only get worse going forward if and when the long term bond yields revert back to the historical average (thus tripling or quadrupling our interest payments...ouch).
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We are a resource poor environment. We just ignore it by living on borrowed money. It will end sooner or later.
 
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