Judge Strikes Down Part of Patriot Act 673
Shining Celebi writes "U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero ruled in favor of the ACLU and struck down a portion of the revised USA PATRIOT Act this morning, forcing investigators to go through the courts to obtain approval before ordering ISPs to give up information on customers, instead of just sending them a National Security Letter. In the words of Judge Marrero, this use of National Security Letters 'offends the fundamental constitutional principles of checks and balances and separation of powers.'"
About damn time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now the rest... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now for Congress (Score:5, Insightful)
to be blunt (Score:4, Insightful)
This entire administration offends the fundamental constitutional principles of checks and balances and separation of powers.
ahem (Score:4, Insightful)
Odds (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a good start (Score:4, Insightful)
Next on the todo list: throw out the rest of that abomination of a document that is the Patriot Act. It seems more and more often that document is affecting reach of life that go far beyond "national security". I recently had to provide multiple forms of documentation to open a Health Savings Account because of a Patriot Act provision.
Good work, Congress. Protecting our freedoms by removing our freedoms.
The Judicial system: Freedom versus Tyranny (Score:5, Insightful)
Since the U.S. was born, it was understood by all, even detractors, that the Constitution had one purpose: the keep Federal government small and let the individual States be big for those who wanted a big State, and small for those who wanted a small State. People afraid of a North American Union forget that the U.S. was designed this way: a union of States (governments) that agree to one thing: personal rights and responsibilities (these are one thing because they go hand-in-hand).
I'm SHOCKED that we today forget that freedom comes from a lack of government intrusion, NOT from government intrusion. The PATRIOT Act is a simple proof that citizens today have no clue that the Federal government is restrained by the Constitution exactly as it was written. No laws restricting speech, no laws restricting arms, no laws restricting Habeus Corpus, no laws restricting travel or transport, no laws restricting trade, no laws restricting the People's rights beyond what limited powers the central body has. In fact, the only thing the Feds really can do is to make sure the individual States don't trample on the individual's rights to act non-violently how they want to act.
I'm glad to see SOME judges admire SOME parts of the Constitution, but I can only dream of a day when judges understand the non-breathing, non-adapting Constitutional limits on the Feds. When that happens, nothing Congress or a power-hungry President do would become law.
Re:About damn time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Slight problem (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd take your money on that one ;-) (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:to be blunt (Score:5, Insightful)
Not out of the woods yet (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Judicial system: Freedom versus Tyranny (Score:5, Insightful)
We've also lived for over 250 years with a mainstream media that has co-opted, and been co-opted by, the State, working hand-in-hand to destroy freedoms. That is changing, and the Internet is making that change happen. Funny how so much of the web was rolled out by major media entities, only to have it bite the hand that fed it.
I use News.google.com RSS feeds for phrases I am watching, and I'm seeing more than 15% of those news stories come from non-mainstream media entities with a variety of opinions way different than the "eat, regurgitate and vomit the AP and Reuters articles" process that the MSM tends to stick together with.
The web is a massive pool of people who can actually voice their disagreements with the system. As time goes on, and people see they're not alone in fearing and being harmed by the State, we might just find people voting NO to more government, and using the web to congregate as individuals wanting freedom, not tyranny.
One can only hope.
Re:Now for Congress (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Contribute (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.gao.gov/ [gao.gov]
I see the ACLU and EFF serving the same purpose, except they're the investigative/defensive arm of the general citizenry.
Re:Should not have been a judge in the first place (Score:5, Insightful)
Basic law principles... like the 4th Amendment. Oh, wait, that's what Congress and the President ignored. Good thing someone is actually about enforcing the law. Too bad there are so many who would throw out our most basic of law -- the Constitution -- the second it inconveniences them.
Re:Now for Congress (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Now for Congress (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Absolutely shameless plug (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Contribute (Score:5, Insightful)
Doug
Congress shall make no law... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Contribute (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Any agency funded by the government, works for the government. For the ACLU to protect the rights of the people, it has to be voluntarily funded by the people directly. The government funding the ACLU is like the Mafia funding the FBI.
2. While the ACLU does do a good job protecting certain rights, the ACLU does a shitty job protecting other rights. When was the last time the ACLU defended people's 2nd Amendment Rights? Or do you want the NRA to be government funded as well?
Re:Contribute (Score:3, Insightful)
Hence why we need the ACLU and EFF instead of just the GAO in the first place!
Re:ahem (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with the "convicted" part, but what kind of frightening world do you come from where a suspected criminal doesn't deserve his or her liberties? I mean, I thought one of the most basic, bedrock principles of American, nay, Anglo-Saxon justice was the presumption of innocence.
Re:Absolutely shameless plug (Score:2, Insightful)
But, uh, I'm making an assumption about what you meant there.
Re:Contribute (Score:5, Insightful)
It takes less than two years to vote out a Representative who votes for an unconstitutional law. The founding fathers were relying on the people, not SCOTUS, to defend their constitution.
Re:Absolutely shameless plug (Score:5, Insightful)
Patriot Act sins by omission, not comission. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you go through the provisions, most of them seem to be aimed at the proverbial "ticking time bomb" scenario. This wouldn't have helped on 9/11, because the first inkling we had the operation was going on was when the plane was hijacked. At that point the time it would take to get a warrant in Boston vs. Washington DC wasn't an issue. Other provisions pierce the Chinese wall between intelligence and law enforcement. Again that wasn't an issue in 9/11. Had we taken the steps available to us under the old rules, it would have made a difference. Having the same attitude, the new rules would not have made a difference.
If we had done everything we should have in the lead up to 9/11, it is conceivable although not certain that the provisions in the Patriot Act might have made a difference. That is saying something for the Patriot Act in my opinion.
The main problem with the Patriot Act is not what it contains, but what it fails to contain: any provision to hold the executive branch accountable for its use of its new powers. And therein lies the opportunity for a tool of security to become a tool of tyranny. As President Reagan said: trust, but verify. Which means you can trust somebody when any cheating would be made obvious.
The police have the ability to do all kinds of things to you that you wouldn't want them to do, up to and including shooting you dead. This doesn't mean we live in some kind of police haunted dystopia, for the simple reason that there are rules that govern the police use of their powers, and when they exercise those powers they have to answer to the courts as to whether they were using those powers within their lawful limits. That's accountability: it's a philosophy that works.
This by the way is the problem with the administration's wiretapping programs. I'm happy to let them have such programs for the purposes they claim so long as somebody independent verifies they are using it for that alone. If there is no such mechanism, it doesn't matter if the program is being run by Jesus Himself. It's a bad program.
Re:In totally unrelated news... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re: Socialized Medicine (Score:5, Insightful)
So do HMO's.
Re:Patriot act ISN'T patriotic. (Score:5, Insightful)
No child left behind means all children held back.
Healthy forest initiative means clear cutting...
See a pattern yet?
Excellent analysis and writing. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's a good start (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the same argument people make when the issue of school taxes comes up. People are free to send their kids to a private school if they so choose, but they are still forced to pay for both the public school and private. That is wrong.
Re:Patriot Act sins by omission, not comission. (Score:5, Insightful)
You make some fine points but verifying that they are being used as intended isn't enough. There needs to be steep penalties for misuse of the immense amount of power being given.
Of course in my mind the old rules were fine, there was sufficient information to prevent the tragedy much like like the events leading up to Pearl Harbor. The problem was communicating internally to get the right information to the right people at the right time. That doesn't take the PATRIOT Act with its far overreaching changes. Imagine how many billions have been spent because of it and how little it has accomplished to help us. I can't believe that in modern times we still have the same problems with communication. An f'in email could have prevented all of this from happening.
Of course none of this would have been an issue if Congress had been doing it's job initially. There's the real broken link. The wiretapping programs are simply absurd. There is no way to reasonably interpret the constitution to allow such things. The constitution is a document which specifically states what the government can do to us. There is simply no language in there that would allow this invasion of privacy. Combine that with all the search and seizure changes involved in the war on drugs and you've got yourself a pattern. I wish it was as simple as republican versus democrat but there is a long history of this abuse and more laws aren't going to fix it. Someone needs to enforce the laws we already have. We need to get rid of the PATRIOT Act, repeal the war powers act, and get back to some semblance of sanity.
How in the world in this day and age can a president blatantly violate the constitution and remain completely unchallenged? It's simply astounding.
Re:It's a good start (Score:3, Insightful)
Educated Public is essential to a Democracy. (Score:3, Insightful)
If so...
I don't go to church, I want the portion of my taxes that supports those churches back.
I have my own weapon and I'll defend my property myself, I don't want to pay for police services that others use.
Re:Absolutely shameless plug (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes. Because the government is always wrong. Government is created out of the simple necessity of a society to have some rules and protection but through out history governments have taken their simple power and blown it continually out of scope. If people/society/the rich/the poor were not so fucking evil then we wouldn't need government - however it appears mankind cannot peacefully coexist in some magical commune.
Re:It's a good start (Score:5, Insightful)
More or less wrong than the richest country in the world ranking behind several South American countries in core health statistics?
Look, we don't live in a society of individuals. We haven't for a couple of hundred years. At any given time, there are hundreds of people you depend on just for your mere survival. That's just what the modern economy and its division of labor has wrought. In such an interdependent society, it makes no sense to categorically reject the idea of doing some things for the good of the society, rather than just the good of the individual. I agree it's something that should be used judiciously, but calling it plain "wrong" is ridiculous.
There are enormous social and economic costs stemming from poor social services. Every _individual_ pays this social cost, directly or indirectly. We pay for prisons and policemen to house drug-addicts or the mentally-imbalanced who can't get proper access to treatment. We deal with beggers in the streets, and roving gangs of young people who have nowhere better to go.
So don't think for a minute that the problem is one of individuals paying for society's problems, versus not. It's just a question of how you decide to pay for it.
Re:See: Bans on Drugs, Abortion and Flag Burning. (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't you realize that if you start taxing churches, you legitimize their stake in government?? I'd think that's the last thing you'd want.
Dude, what?!?
They already have a special privileged status due to their tax exemption. This tax free money is increasingly being used for political campaigning.
Making them pay their share would remove the ability to use churches as an end run around the laws on that.
Where do you get the idea that *removing* their privileged status would grant them greater privilege?
Re:Contribute (Score:5, Insightful)
2. While the ACLU does do a good job protecting certain rights, the ACLU does a shitty job protecting other rights. When was the last time the ACLU defended people's 2nd Amendment Rights?
The problem I have with this argument is that the NRA is bigger and wealthier than the ACLU. The NRA is way on top of 2nd amendment issues. With a smaller budget, the ACLU is guarding the other 9... well maybe 7 or so amendments in the bill of rights.
Given that there is already a bigger more powerful organization tasked strictly with defense of the 2nd don't you think it's reasonable that the ACLU would leave those fights to the NRA and concentrate their limited resources on the larger problem space they're tasked with?
Patriot Act (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's a good start (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, since over 40,000 people die every year on the highways, [dot.gov] I'd like to see some of that "Homeland Security" money go to guard rails and other safety improvements. I'm far more afraid of the cell-phone weilding blonde than the bomb wielding Muslim!
But wait, that's still chicken feed. Osama should be jealous as hell of a far bigger terrorist - RJ Reynolds, whose poison kills over half a million people yearly! [about.com] the corporate terrorists are truly deadly!
Even Ronald McDonald kicks Osama's ass when it comes to killing Americans. Heart Disease also kills over half a million Americans every year. [americanheart.org]
Hell, even Bush himself is deadlier to Americans than Osama, since well over 3,000 of the soldiers he sent to Iraq (to destabilize the region and drive gas prices up; he's an oil man. Gas was $1 here when he took office, now it's over three times as high) have died there.
Al Quaida? Shit, the tornado that tore through my home town in 2006 [wikipedia.org] miraculously didn't kill or even seriously injure anyone, but look at the destruction of ONE building! [wikipedia.org] The tree behind my apartment looked like a weed someone had stomped on. I saw twisted girders, trailor homes torn in half, five foot diameter trees uprooted, wood splinters imbedded in concrete. If Osama saw what I saw he'd have given up.
So I completely agree with you. That God damned abomination must go! I think the Congress and Senate who passed it and the President who begged for it and signed it should go as well.
-mcgrew [kuro5hin.org]
Re:ahem (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The Judicial system: Freedom versus Tyranny (Score:5, Insightful)
Sun Tzu's The Art of War (Score:3, Insightful)
It's certainly true that some of the provisions "might have" prevented a 9/11 attack, but hindsight is 20/20. Granted I've only just started reading his work, but Sun Tzu clearly indicated that in order to successfully wage war when your force is smaller, you have to attack where your enemy does not expect you. That is the problem with this kind of war; you can defend against one tactic, but they'll simply adapt and do something else. Look at internet security--it doesn't matter how much Microsoft patches the operating system; they're still going to find a new way to get in. All these provisions will do is direct terrorists to other unknown avenues, at the cost of billions of dollars, our freedoms (which is what we are trying to protect), and our very way of life.
That, however, is only an argument for the futility of the Patriot Act. I would argue that the biggest problem, however, is its scope. Again, why would the Patriot Act dictate what documentation I need in order to open an HSA? Where is the sense in that? Do terrorists use the tax-free medical funds to finance terrorism? I didn't need any of that to open a bank account, or get a credit card, so why an HSA? The problem is that the Patriot Act seems to cover any kind of wild scenario that maybe someone could somehow, in some crazy unlikely scenario, use to even indirectly benefit terrorism. Hey, maybe the terrorists are getting $34/year extra on tax benefits by using an HSA (which, by the way, also requires them to have a HDHP)!
And that even says nothing about why we need to get really, really wound up over terrorist attacks on the US that have killed only a small fraction of number of people who have died of more troublesome causes, such as cancer, or the flu, or armed robbery, or drowning in backyard pools. If we look at it in terms of how much we're giving up in terms of dollars and freedoms per life saved, we're probably spending millions of times on terrorism what we spend on anything else.
Greeeeaat! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's a good start (Score:1, Insightful)
Perhaps you should look at the estimated costs for America to do this, instead of comparing to another, smaller country.
The latter is substantial --- if you're making ~$100k, and your employer provides a health plan, they're paying about 10% of your salary in premiums. You might not see this cost directly, but it's a tax on you as much as if the government had taken it right out of your paycheck.
Your health premiums are not based on your salary, its the same for everyone. I'd prefer a health screening though, so that those that are unhealthy (obese, smoke, etc) are charged more and those that are healthy less. I also never said that employer paid healthcare is not an issue.
Because France is so full of fatties?
I didn't say socialized healthcare causes obesity, I said that removing all responsibility (and consequences) would magnify a societial problem we already have, namely that most Americans are lazy and eat fast food four or more times a weak. Its our lifestyle that is a problem, and treating the symptoms for free (via a tax, which is even more hidden than what we have now) would worsen this issue.
Re:Should not have been a judge in the first place (Score:5, Insightful)
Record Companies (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's a good start (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny you say the capitalist system is "all about making money no matter who gets screwed in the process." Ever stop and think of where all the medicines that are saving people are coming from? If you guess "The Government," you're wrong. Nope, it is from creativity that is motivated by reward. So yeah, pharmaceutical companies are making bank off of medicine, but where would we be otherwise (answer: we wouldn't have the medicine anyways). Ever wonder why the US has historically been at the forefront of new research in not just medicine but most every other field?
Those greedy capitalists, not working for free! How dare they turn a profit!!
The hilarious assumption you made is that people who are poor are just dying off because they don't have medical care. Last I checked, hospitals are actually forced to treat people without insurance. Looks like you have your socialized medicine already.
It cracks me up when people come out and denounce capitalism like it's the greatest scourge ever to come upon humanity, while basically depending on products and services that would not even exist were it not for "greedy" capitalists.
Re:It's a good start (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Judicial system: Freedom versus Tyranny (Score:3, Insightful)
Various interests struggle in an active society - threats to autonomy and dignity can come as easily from the state as from each other. The state is theoretically accountable to the people, while businesses are theoretically accountable only to their shareholders and the law. Using laws and other mechanisms of the state to curb business when it harms interests of the people is a vital tactic to protecting society - to give those up because we decide that the state (and the people whose interests it theoretically advances) is naturally evil seems like adopting fatalism towards whatever business decides to do. Admittedly, the state in practice is a tool we struggle over with each other and (even more unfortunately) with business interests, but maybe we can find ways to eliminate the latter. Struggle over society's shape and ends is almost intrinsic to having a society - putting laws on the topics you mentioned completely out of consideration would result in something almost unimaginable. Personally, I'm not interested in residing within whatever that society would become, and will argue and vote the other way whenever I can. I'd hate to see Ron Paul or anyone else who's close enough to being a Libertarian actually make it into office - we'd probably see something pretty close to Anarchocapitalism...
Re:It's a good start (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm amused by the dual-enemies of the folks who've been brainwashed by the Corporate Right: lawyers and media. It seldom occurs to people that when some corporation feeds you something dangerous, or sells you a battery that bursts into flames, or a surgeon comes to work drunk one day and kills your wife, or a credit reporting agency makes a mistake that messes up your life, that a lawyer is the guy who's going to work for YOU to get your back. Believe me, it doesn't just leap unbidden into the mind of some guy who works in a Ford Plant that we need Tort Reforms. It's some blowhard on the AM radio who works for the huge corporations who's selling that load of crap. in the hope that maybe they can start seriously getting away with shit again. And it's not the lawsuits that the corporations bring that are in danger. Don't worry, the RIAA will still be able to sue your ass. "Tort reforms" just means you won't be able to sue them back. It's like the wonderful "bankruptcy reform" that the Republican congress and the Bush Administration unleashed on America. Notice it doesn't prevent Boeing or Countryside from declaring bankruptcy and screwing their investors, it's just to make sure that the guy who earns $45k per year whose kid has spina bifida and the doctor bills break him that is prevented from getting a fresh start by using the bankruptcy laws. Fair and Balanced is the Orwellian catchphrase of the day.
The other boogieman is the "media". Of course, when you are royally fucking most everyone, one way to prevent them from noticing how badly their asses hurt is to tell them that reality really isn't real. You can't believe those pictures on TV of guys with black hoods being electrocuted or ravaged by dogs, because that's the media and we know you can't trust them. And dead bodies floating in downtown New Orleans? Those damn liberal media again. "Hell-fire" says the tan, fat dope-fiend on the radio, "who you gonna believe? Me or your own lying eyes?" How dare you think your president is a dissembling halfwit stuttering prick who's not even a halfway decent liar! It's just the media who makes him look that way, probably with some high-tech photoshop or special effects or something. You know how they are.
Just remember, when the SWAT team rings your doorbell by accident, looking for the crack dealer who lives one street over, or your hooked up because some fat lady on an airplane thought the Egyptian symbol on your baseball cap is an Al Queda secret code and you're suddenly looking at the inside of a cell, you're gonna hope all those lawyers haven't been shipped off to Darfur.
Just remember the story of the late Richard Jewell, a sad sack whose life was destroyed by an overzealous FBI who, oopsie!, accused him falsely of setting a bomb at the Atlanta Olympics. If he didn't have a kick-ass, liberal, New York, ACLU-loving, pinko L.A.W.Y.E.R., he might have spent his last decade in some cinderblock 8x8 with a seatless toilet.
socialized medicine (Score:1, Insightful)
It's a mediocre idea, but one that's better than the idea we're running with now. My dad's been working in public health for about 35 years, all over the world. He was telling me the other day that there are ex Soviet-bloc countries that have better child and maternal health statistics than major US cities. That's just plain _broken_.
Best would be for government to get out of the way. Socialized medicine drives up healthcare costs and or rations healthcare. Some say look at Canada's system, but I hear a lot of Canadians come to the US to get healthcare if they can afford it. US healthcare quality may be the best in the world but unfortunately not everyone has insurance and can afford it out of pocket. Because the government drives up the prices though, if it were to get out of the way healthcare prices would be lower.
FalconRe:socialized medicine (Score:3, Insightful)
As for Canada: so what if some Canadians who can afford it come to the US for treatment? The US is the most technologically advanced nation in the country --- is it surprising that you can get some stuff here (if you have the _money_) that you can't get in Canada?
The question isn't how the system handles the rich guy with brain cancer who needs American technology to save his life. He can get top-flight care wherever he is. The question is how the system handles the hundred other people who have mundane things like work-related injuries or childhood illnesses. And our system just falls down there.
Re:It's a good start (Score:1, Insightful)
This is true now more than ever, in this age where power is deeper and more consolidated than ever before in history. The sheer amount of revenue governments are pulling in today is nothing short of astounding, and most centralized powers can thank war for a very large part of that revenue.
Re:It's a good start (Score:1, Insightful)
People pushing the limits of the law just because they can, and especially the pocket law students out there (the guy that went to traffic court a few times and watched enough Law and Order to think he is a good attorney) cause a lot of unnecessary laws to be created. Free speech and search and seizure are very good examples of rights that we have that are constantly under fire because some person out there wants to push the limits and prove that...YEP, I have that right. If only the Founding Fathers would have written a "Common Sense" clause. There was never a law specifying that you could not give an officer of the law the finger. But, trust me, it isn't protected under Free Speech. You'd be surprised to find out how many people argue that case in a courtroom. You wouldn't be so surprised to learn how many lose.
The problem with the Patriot Act and many other laws out there is that it was developed in response to something that should not have occurred in the first place. Before 9/11 and the threat of global terrorism, would anyone in the government been so brazen about the creation of this, or even bother trying to fight to keep it around? Sure, there were spy programs out there (Newsflash: All governments have them and all governments are spying on citizens from their own country and other countries). Had one of those programs come out into the open as this one did, no President or any other elected official would have even dared try to back this program up. In the wake of terrorism, the reaction was to protect the country and the citizens at all costs...even at the costs of personal freedoms. Fortunately, US Citizens like our personal freedoms, and programs like this are challenged. Was the Government wrong for trying to protect the country? No. Did they go about it in the right way? Again, no. There are many alternatives to this than a blanket program of intrusion.
Now, in all fairness, the intrusion we are talking about is not aimed specifically at a single source. It is not going to randomly sneak in on Mr. Smith's conversation about how he likes to sleep with Mr. Pink's wife. The Government really doesn't care about your little life...sorry, you honestly are not that important. It does however pick up on keywords and other trigger events (I'm sure this is not news to anyone), and may then listen in on that communication. So, the intrusion is not going to be targetting the majority of people out there. Does it make it any less threatening? Absolutely not. On the flip side, what do you think the children/spouses of those we lost during 9/11 think about this subject? Do you think that you would be more inclined to push for fewer freedoms in support of keeping citizens alive if you were directly effected by this tragedy?
The real situation is, we want the Patriot Act gone, and the spying of US Citizens gone. What do we do to protect our country and get reliable information when a terrorist group is trying to do bad things. And yes, they are out there planning. What actions can we have our Government take that can keep us safe?
Re:It's a good start (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Emergency rooms are the most expensive places to treat people, short of a specialist. Many hospitals are trying to work around that by subsidizing low-cost clinics. It's cheaper to "outsource" their poorer patients out of the ER.
2. The costs are assumed by the hospitals, which means that costs are assumed by the people that actually pay their bills at the hospital. Put another way, assume treating a person costs $1000. Now, say two people walk into the ER to get treated, and only one can pay their bill. How much is the hospital going to bill the other person? That's right - $2000, and that's precisely how health billing is going these days. That's why insurance rates are going through the roof - we're already indirectly paying for the uninsured.
3. Wrecking the credit of poor people doesn't exactly help them not be poor.
Unfortunately, there are few good ways to solve this. We could...
1. No longer require hospitals to take anyone that walks into the ER. This'll drop rates down for everyone with insurance, but will completely screw everyone else. This is probably (thankfully) not an option.
2. Fully socialize our medicine. This sounds great until you realize that people are inherently cheap when it comes to approving taxes, meaning that we're either going to get really lousy care or we're going to throw the country even further into debt (probably both).
3. Semi-socialize our medicine by having the government make up the slack where the private sector can't (or won't) provide care efficiently. Basically, instead of having the hospitals assume all of the risk, we pass it off to the government and let them run the free/low-cost clinics and all that. Unfortunately, the instant you put into place a "catch-all" and remove risk from a system, people tend to become less risk-averse. In this case, that means that more people might opt to go uninsured since they know the government will take care of them anyways, making a bad problem even worse.
4. Let WalMart or some other low-cost innovator run low-cost health care and see if they can get some efficiencies going there. This actually isn't too far off - WalMart's Sam's Club is starting to push low-cost health insurance for small business, for example, and WalMart has also begun selling cheaper medications in select stores. The problem with this is that most people are (understandably) concerned about letting someone with a penchant for selling shirts that don't last six months take control of people's health decisions.
Unfortunately, there's no good answer here, just a bunch of really lousy ones.
Re:It's a good start (Score:3, Insightful)
The WHO has a hell of a lot more expertise behind its indicators than the pundits who are criticizing their ratings. You can either trust an organization that works with doctors and public health experts, or you can trust the tripe spewed by know-nothings working in a think-tank somewhere, your choice.
Statistics on mortality rates are next to worthless when comparing highly industrialized nations (eg, US, UK, Australia, etc).
In your expert opinion? Even a lay-man can tell "number of people dying divided by number of people" is a pretty good indicator of overall health...
Statistics on equity has nothing to do with the quality of a healthcare system
What equity statistics did I present?
Re:Patriot act ISN'T patriotic. (Score:3, Insightful)
To make people willing to go to war, or willing to give up their civil liberties, the basic principle is the same. Denounce the opponents for their "lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger", and the people will comply. As long as you can make people think that protection by the government and protection from the government is mutually exlcusive, then the tyrants and terrorists have won.
Re:It's a good start (Score:3, Insightful)
What about the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Seems to me that good health is necessary to life as well as the pursuit of happiness.
Re:Reality check time... (Score:4, Insightful)
You stated that it isn't likely that the Feds will be knocking down your door, so it isn't a concern. The problem is: the Feds can knock down your door while, ostensibly, Equifax can't. The government needs to be under greater scrutiny than the private sector because they have the power to deprive you of your liberty. With the PATRIOT Act and National Security Letters we don't know exactly why the Feds are knocking down your door and you can't tell us why. It might be for a good reason or it might not be. And if someone can abuse the power for a bad reason, they will abuse the power. And they have! The GAO has reported many abuses of the PATRIOT Act by the FBI since it was passed and nothing gets done about it.
In every generation, outside threats have always triggered a response to "increase security" while eliminating civil liberties and those responses have always been proven wrong by history. Japanese-American internment camps and the McCarthy-era black lists are the most recent examples. Ben Franklin's quote about liberty and temporary safety may be a cliche now, but that doesn't mean there isn't truth in it.
Re:Patriot Act sins by omission, not comission. (Score:3, Insightful)
International phone calls, etc. are carried by non-US companies over non-US property and usually involve non-citizens. The Bill of Rights does not apply; the government can examine or seize foreign property all it wants (at risk of offending foreigners). Immoral, arrogant, stupid, provocative, yes. Illegal, no.
Re:Reality check time... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:More partisan crap? (Score:2, Insightful)
Kenneth Lay - neocon - unethical thief.
Donald Rumsfeld - neocon - unabashed murderer.
Ted Haggard - neocon - homosexual, drug-using hypocrite.
Dick Cheney - neocon - war profiteer.
Your claims of your ideology aren't those of a neocon though.
The neocons started out as mostly Jewish liberals in the 1970's who wanted the USA to strengthen its defense and spread the reach of US industry. They became republicans in the 1970's and spread their hegemony through the guise of christian values.
Really, you are just fooled into following. Sad for you that you don't understand the truth.
a short timeline for you.
1973 US abandons "gold standard" for oil.
1974 OPEC sharply raises prices for oil to US. Oil shortage causes neocons to emerge.
1970's-ish Democratic Senator Henry Jackson's aides design new world order (middle east must be democratized to lessen threat to US through oil)
1978 USSR invades Afghanistan (we hate soviets more than afghanis so we help the afghanis)
1980 neocons convert to republican to use Ronald Reagan as the tool for their goals. (forcing either conflict or concord with the Soviet Union)
1980-1988 iran-iraq war (we hate iran so we help iraq)
1992 neocons miss opportunity to oust Saddam Hussein (Cheney publicly says it would be a quagmire. the power vacuum would destabilize the region)
2000 neocons stroll out Dubya. (His platform is against "Nation building" and military interference)
2001 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 neocons get excuse to invade iraq (something they've been planning since the 1970's)
2003 Dubya makes a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, HQ for the neocon policy goblins. (directly going against his platform)
2003 Dubya violates the NSA's single directive (don't spy on Americans)
2005 Halliburton begins building prison camps in America's heartland (dissenters beware)
2007 you wrote this post about your religious beliefs (not realizing the sweeping plan set under your own feet)
I hope you learned something new. Maybe you should re-evaluate your political philosophy.
If Jesus were alive today, he'd be a Left-Wing Hippie. (blessed are the meek, blessed are the poor, blessed are the generous)
You, Erik Martin, are an unthinking follower. You apparently haven't read your own bible. You're not following your own religious beliefs.
Me? I'm an American. I want to wear blue jeans and eat cheese burgers and listen to Rock music.
I also want to work for a living and take care of my family.
I believe We Americans can do this without causing harm, poverty, sickness, or suffering to other people in this country and others.
Re:The Judicial system: Freedom versus Tyranny (Score:3, Insightful)