Thread: Britain Plans to Decentralize National Health Care

Originally Posted by Vincent

Please, you're doing it again. No, that's not my opinion.
If you really want to nitpick then 'not increasing the safety of individuals' includes the possibility of it severly decreasing the safety of individuals.
In my previous post I talked about ratio's of gundeaths per country, don't ignore that and now and claim (again) that I feel not providing a benefit is a reason to make something illegal.

I can understand that if you take that statement in itself you can come to the conclusion that I feel what you stated. However, It doesn't stand by itself. If it makes things clearer, I'll withdraw the statement.



I see your point. I agree about the expenses, not about the feasability of it. If New York can manage a good subway trainsystem, then other huge cities can as well (also, don't underestimate a reduction in traveltime between home and work, 30 min, twice a day, 5 times a week adds up). The cost/effect calculation has to be made for every individual situation. Needless to say that there are plenty of complications. However, there are also plenty of oppertunities.



It's impossible to be conclusive, but it's not all that hard to see trends (if they are there) between crimerates. There are many countries without guns and a few with guns.
I'm guessing it's also possible to compare different states with different gunlaws which compensates a bit for social and economic differences (which are huge between countries and make it hard to compare them).
I looked for sources, but I'm not allowed to look into the 'Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 2000

'http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/1995/pdf/t33.pdf .
Sourcebook - Table list, Section 3

I believe a comparison can be made, but it takes a while. A longer while then I can or want to spare right now. Without data I'll hold out on an oppinion on the deterence effect of guns on theft. If I'd have to guess, theft would go down, but murder during theft would go up (both on the assailant as on the home owners side).

I think we are both having a problem with misconstruing the others point on this part. What I mean is you don't see a benefit in it so it wouldn't cause you distress if it was made illegal (not necessarilly no benefit = make that shit illegal. Simply that no benefit = o you want to outlaw that? go for it i guess its not that important to me.) Its not something that needs to be protected and retained at all costs to your mind. Which it certainly is in mine. I put it right up there with freedom of speech. Freedom of speech can be dangerous as well (though not in quite so direct a fashion as a firearm), it can cause serious problems and unrest. I don't feel the need to restrict it though even with its inherent dangers. In fact I take restrictions of free speech quite personally.
In my opinion free speech is necessary to have a free society. Same with the ability to own and carry a firearm and defend yourself with the same.
You seem to be of the opinion that the ability to own and carry a firearm and defend yourself with the same is not necessary to have a free society. Am I right?



Well new york was engineered for decades around the subways. Most other cities were not and you can't dig out the foundations of all of those skyscrapers, or make a warren of tunnels all around the city at this late stage without incurring ridiculous amounts of expense. And since americans already have a way to get around that we are irrationally attached to (my car has a name. I don't even like the POS but it has a name.), its unlikely they would want to incur the expense for a full subway. Trams are fairly popular, my own metropolitan area of Houston put in a rail system a few years back and people use it all the time to get around downtown. But it was EXPENSIVE as all hell and has caused alot of accidents. Many people weren't in favor of it all. Many people still aren't. And its not that far reaching of a rail system. Re-engineering the whole city around one would cost a ludicrous amount of cash and cause traffic congestion to skyrocket. Its just not feasible imo. Buses are much more practical.

I'm forbidden too lol And the second link's pdf link for the data is all fucked up and won't open.
Youre right, comparing two countries on the basis of those statistics is not very conclusive. For instance, of course we would have more gun crime, we've got more guns. We also have far more violent gangs than holland does. And more people. And more surface area. And a different culture etc ad nausem. Which makes straight comparisons kind of useless. :\

I wouldn't call shooting an intruder in one's own home murder. I'd call that defending ones person and one's property from a thief. But i would say it might increase the willingness of the thief to shoot someone yes.

Saying choice little catchphrases like "putting healthcare in the hands of the people is a step towards capitalism and a step away from socialism" is frankly incredibly prejudiced, fanciful and ignorant.

The whole point of having a socialist system for healthcare is that there is a state so that it only takes the will of the people to decide what happens in the healthcare system (but this all depends what party is in power, the tories here are just as right wing as the neo cons in the US, the left of centre parties have just managed to stop them from privatizing the NHS). The state in Britain, as it works means that votes and letters to MP's along with public participation with 'The Red Cross' and other public authorities influences the NHS as well as votes rather than how much money you have and what insurance premiums you intend to buy.

A lot of people (not all) get the word 'state' confused with something else and mix it up with all sorts of meanings of dictatorship etc.

The state is NOT the government, it is the mixture of citizens that make up public authorities that manage to have authority over government decisions, public spending etc so that money and decisions are done for the good of the pubic. As soon as the government takes over this it's the extreme left of socialism and going towards communism. As soon as corporations take over the state, it's capitalism.

You have to remember that if the public is 'free of the government' then the government is free to pursue private or corrupt interests in other areas that has nothing to do with the good of the country or the public.

To be quite honest with you, the majority of the people in Britain don't want the NHS to be de-centralized - even though the tories are in power, it was on a promise that they wouldn't do this. They said that it would make the NHS more 'responsible to the taxpayer' but this is double-speak for closing down departments in hospitals so that people who are well off don't have to pay their fair share in tax. However unpopular the red tape was and the bureacracy was, it was necessary in a lot of ways even if there was the odd mistake about bed placement, or dismissing a patient at the wrong time. I have seen private healthcare hospitals making far worse mistakes reported in the news. The NHS was great under Labour and it is a system that works but I fear what is going to come with the present people in power.

I just hope the SNP manage to block the changes that they are proposing to make north of the border.

RIP Jimmy Reid

This reminds me of a situation in which a communist country has three parties.

In the center, the moderates want to keep economic control centered in the hands of the central government.

To the right, the demi-semi-hemi capitalists want to introduce some forms of capitalism by privatizing certain industries and establishing an income tax to encourage people to save and invest their money.

To the left, the super duper socialists want to decentralize economic control to where each union gets more control over how they run their factory.

Which of these parties is the most Left Wing?

Anyways, yeah, while this case might be a codeword for "we're leading up to privatization", you can have decentralized socialism just like we could still have a strong federal government but decentralize it (whether it would function or not is a question, but yes instead of devolving federal power to the states we could keep federal power federal and simply make the federal government a decentralized layer above the state governments, rather than a single central body).

Originally Posted by Federalitarian

This reminds me of a situation in which a communist country has three parties.

In the center, the moderates want to keep economic control centered in the hands of the central government.

To the right, the demi-semi-hemi capitalists want to introduce some forms of capitalism by privatizing certain industries and establishing an income tax to encourage people to save and invest their money.

To the left, the super duper socialists want to decentralize economic control to where each union gets more control over how they run their factory.

Which of these parties is the most Left Wing?

This is a trick question, this all depends and it is all relative. In the center, if you're keeping economic control in the government without the private sector then it isn't really in the middle is it, are you talking about govt takeover of private enterprise here or the govt just being used as a regulatory body?

The second point is left of centre and isn't too left wing. Just as long 'privatization' isn't double speak for handing it over to a union boss who feels like 'starting his own business' - then you just have the super rich just controlling everything, from communism to libertarianism two extremes working together. The smaller version of this set up was Brown and Blair and we all know what happened with that one don't we?

Your third point - if the workers of the union also worked with the govt and sorted it out democratically then it would be proper socialism. If it's just a mob boss booting out the business owners at the behest of the government then it isn't really socialism is it?

Anyways, yeah, while this case might be a codeword for "we're leading up to privatization", you can have decentralized socialism just like we could still have a strong federal government but decentralize it (whether it would function or not is a question, but yes instead of devolving federal power to the states we could keep federal power federal and simply make the federal government a decentralized layer above the state governments, rather than a single central body).

The big problem here is that you'll find a lot of people working within the government and not being able to get anything from the govt - hence cameron's 'big society'. My opinion is not to have less government but enough government to represent people but making sure there is enough people within the 'state' to interact with it and / or limit the govt and hold authority over it. Just don't have it meld with the private sector or have it at the expense of it (save for the tax bill). Norway has this sorted out.