EXACTLY. You yourself show that individuals do these behaviors for themselves, for others, because they want to live in a society where people help each other- for all kinds of reasons.

Government force, or threat of force should never be one of those reasons.

It was government brilliance that led to people living below sea level, in an area with no job prospects, in the first place. Do some research on the Wagner Act housing in New Orleans, the levees, and the hurricane losses in dollars and lives before FEMA and Federal Flood Insurance existed.

I applaud your efforts, past and present.

Please understand that I don't believe your efforts create any obligation on me or anybody else to do the same thing, coerced or otherwise. When I give to charity, money or time, I do so because I want to, not because some preacher told me I'll go to heaven, or some bureaucrat will let me deduct it from his plunder.

If you give, hurray for you, just leave me alone and keep your hands out of my pockets.

I did not participate in the immediate NOLA effort but have many years of search-and-rescue (including floods) and disaster relief. I'm a little past my prime for the physical stuff. I have been nuts deep in freezing flood water more than once.

Now that my word processor is my most effective tool, and with my health care experience and reputation, I am going to spend the next two years looking at:

1) how to maintain health care services at the disaster site, during and immediately after

2) how to rebuild health care services

No money involved, just something I want to do for my "community."

There is a difference between collectivism and community, and I want to live in a community (in the local and larger sense), and have no concern we are going to become a bunch of crazed socialists.

PS: Vid, don't pay your income taxes, I'll say something nice about you at your sentencing hearing.

Just another of Martin's canned-answer
facile replies.

No need to speculate, Crusader, he excused Cuba's collectivist program on the Elian Gonzalez thread. On this, as Martin would say, the record is clear. He claims to be a libertarian but finds all forms of government equivalent. Was it Jimmy Carter who said that communism was "just another way to live"?

Whaaaaa??????

Told me a lot.

Posted by: save_the_rustbelt | Aug 7, 2008 8:57:33 AM"

Oooooooh gush gush STRB, sob sob.

Drag out documented proof that one single old lady died in her attic in New Orleans a few years ago. BTW while you're at it, show us where in USC Title 26 there is a clear and definitive requirement in law for the ordinary person who works and earns here in the USA to pay an income tax. You're still sucking hind tit on that one. But, don't bother with a blustery reply, I know you can't and no amount of diversionary BS from you will cover your ass on your failure.

Back to Culturally Appropriate Health Care. You seem to understand freedom even less than you understand Title 26 of the USC.

But then when did a socialist evangelical ever give as shit about freedom.

The people of New Orleans, or, Chicago, NYC, L.A., Oakland, Houston, Cleveland, Atlanta, etc. etc. who do not have the ability to mobilize themselves away from danger, have only themselfs to blame.

It isn't capitalism, dittoheads, libertarians, free markets, or angry old white guys. It is their own perpetual ignorance and stupidity that is the cause.

In all my life every time I hear some "person of color" (to quote JJ) say, "I couldn't go to school, I was prevented from getting an education." I immediately think of the numbers of times I have driven all neighborhoods in the cities I have lived in and never once, STRB, not once have I ever seen angry old white guys standing in the streets beating black kids away from the schools. The surprising but undeniable fact is, if a person in this country since 1955, does not get a good education it is their own damn fault, and it can't be laid to the feet of anyone else.

Here is the most odd fact, every school that is carried on the rolls as a failure in its mission to the general student body still has people graduate with a good education. They may be a small minority and they may have gained it by exclusive individual study and hard work, but they do it. While the majority tears the scool up and sit on their asses whimpering and whining about inequality, some get what they go for.

What's the difference, STRB? Sure the hell isn't government action or motivation.

Now a person with an education becomes employable, and employable people can purchase and pay for transportation, which means, STRB, that in an emergency they can walk out to the curb, get in their car and drive away to avoid the danger.

Now, if a person passes up all that free education and opportunity it opens for them, and sits in an attic in New Orleans waiting for that angry old white man that they hate to come around and provide transportation for them…….sorry sister, it is "we will see you in the next life" for you. No remorse.

But, you can provide the actual documented proof that old ladies died in their attics in New Orleans, right STRB?

So nobody has to pay the consequences of their life decisions? I should be forced to pay for everyone? Last I checked, where is MY social safety net? I'd rather like that man in "Atlas Shrugged" who dissociated himself from YOUR forced collectivist society then participate in it as a SLAVE.

1. He doesn't know the difference between classic rugged individualism(think 19th century pioneers) and modern individualism in an advanced state.

2. He doesn't get the difference between voluntary collective and forced collective. Given that I'm sure he'd excuse the Soviet collectivization program that killed millions of people.

OT: "Culturally appropriate health care" is an oxymoron. There is healthy and there is unhealthy. WTF does culture have to do with the issue?

Although I would consider myself closer to the "rugged individualist" side of this argument, I went to New Orleans twice.

I took diapers, baby formula, clothes, bottled water and other things directly to the Lower Ninth Ward. Gave them to the volunteer clothes bank and computer center set up by neighborhood volunteers.

I also demolished the interior of a house so that it could be examined and reuilt. A year later I built two foundations and put tyvek on a third house.

I did it for myself, and for others. The two are not mutually exclusive. This is truly a great country, as evidenced by the luxury that allows an army of volunteers to descend on NOLA and do that work for free.

"When sick old ladies were dying in their attics in New Orleans a few years ago the dittoheads and some libertarians were hollering about how people should stand up and help themselves. Told me a lot."

Many regular folks tried to help those sick old ladies….they didn't ask about the political affiliations of those who joined them. It didn't matter….they were turned away. The state cares little for Mother Teresa's….it cares most about procedural 'process'. I'll take the helping hands of countless individuals any day.

http://www.benfrank.net/blog/katrina_lack_of_response_archive/#flotilla

Our memories are short.

And what did you do to help them (besides complaining about what others may or may not have been doing)?

Don can correct me if I am wrong.

When sick old ladies were dying in their attics in New Orleans a few years ago the dittoheads and some libertarians were hollering about how people should stand up and help themselves.

Told me a lot.

Ah, the confession of a fascist.

Martin is clearly advocating that collective theft is a good thing as long as it meets his moral standards of decency. And then he makes the pretzel-logic leap that private property rights are only recognized by the collective of society; therefore causing everthing to rely on the collective. He then goes on to point out this supposed hypocrisy on the individualists' part — denying the collective is one instance and accepting it in another.

I suspect that Martin decided to DUCK out right about the time he read John Pertz's short post at around 10:05…the time that Martin's "we're all hypocritical collectivists at heart" argument was put into a checkmate. Supporting chess board moves are abundant in this thread and tackle the historical perspective on property rights as a natural right and the moral hazzards associated with government taking over the role of parent in our consumption choices. Having society (the collective) codify a natural right through legislation does promote civility; and on that score, Martin had a small but misguided point that needed to be addressed/rebuffed. But Martin really needed to be written to in a stern manner by those who do not wish to go along with his vision of what government should be doing. Why stop at healthcare, then? Food and housing are just as (or even more) important? Why stop anywhere if everyone is entitled to the same levels of consumption without having to shoulder the true costs of their consumption?

Martin was smart to hit the road. Just how much civility are we supposed to extend to unabashed theives, David?

if you love it you set it free.

Restrain it and you kill it.

Not to be preachy because I think you know this, but we don't "give" respect. A person earns respect and then we "show" it.

Martinduck gets the respects he earns.

Along the same lines I am always surprised at the numbers of folks who can't understand that for all of us to have true natural freedom we must all exercise self restraint through self discipline, self responsibility, and self rule. In other words, "we can't all do what we want regardless of the circumstances".

Unrestrained action in any arena is license not freedom.