Do people 'deserve' universal health care?

[Thorne]

Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with socialism. American fear of the concept is depriving its underprivileged citizens of a decent living while its wealthy capitalist czars gorge like parasites off them and their labours.

The problem with socialism, as I see it, is that you wind up with an underpriveleged class who feel that they deserve everything they can get without working for it. They become true parasites, sucking from the government teat, which is kept full by the hard work of the middle class. The wealthy, in any society, will always reap disproportionate rewards, but they generally provide at least some jobs. The welfare class provides nothing but more mouths to feed and strident calls for free everything.

[gagged_Louise]

The problem with socialism, as I see it, is that you wind up with an underpriveleged class who feel that they deserve everything they can get without working for it. They become true parasites, sucking from the government teat, which is kept full by the hard work of the middle class. The wealthy, in any society, will always reap disproportionate rewards, but they generally provide at least some jobs. The welfare class provides nothing but more mouths to feed and strident calls for free everything.

You're free to view people who don't own their house and almost never have the money to go abroad as white trash who show they've never had the guts to make it into the middle class, but quite often, where people are landing in terms of work, and how fast they'll take off, is limited by restraints they don't control themselves and cannot "vote with their feet" to avoid. Lousy schools, outdated models of work, lack of a billfold of useful connections or "getaway money" isn't stuff that people choose to live with, they may not ven be aware of it.

The idea that people who are rich always deserve it would be reasonable if folks like Bill Gates or Nelson Rockefeller had dug their riches out of the barren rock, just by using their own ingenuity and hard work. Of course they didn't: Bill Gates or Larry Page (Google) may be businessmen of genius but they would never have got very far if they had had to work in a "free" economy without powerful public programs for engineering and computer facilities, libraries and education (how would Bill Gates or Steve Jobs have assembled a team or formulated their ideas if they'd had to literally go door-knocking and putting in small ads for money gathered from delivering the morning papers, instead of being at home in, and allowed into, a business and research community that was around before they came along?)

Of course if you treat the "underclass" (in America often the descendants of black slaves or of illiterate farmers from Asia and eastern Europe) as parasites and dumbheads and block their way to the good future, they are likely to keep on being criminals, hustlers, shirkers and liars - at least some of them - because that's all they get the place to do and that's the image of them projected everywhere. But it doesn't say much about their real potential. It's shortsighted to think that people from South Gate, LA and people from the Hamptons start from nearly the same baseline when it comes to education, money, health and exercise - or ability to get advanced work and get on the career ladder.

[Thorne]

You're free to view people who don't own their house and almost never have the money to go abroad as white trash who show they've never had the guts to make it into the middle class, but quite often, where people are landing in terms of work, and how fast they'll take off, is limited by restraints they don't control themselves and cannot "vote with their feet" to avoid. Lousy schools, outdated models of work, lack of a billfold of useful connections or "getaway money" isn't stuff that people choose to live with, they may not ven be aware of it.

It was never my intent to label these kinds of people as trash, white or otherwise. Sure, there are many people who, perhaps through no fault of their own, are always on the bad end of every deal, unable to pull themselves up. And programs which help them, which give them the opportunities to get out of that rut can, and should be, of high priority in any society. But there are many who are more interested in what the government can give them rather than in learning what the government can do to help them build their lives. I have no problems with programs which teach people. I only question the efficacy of programs which give away benefits and priveleges to those who do not want to earn them and who will actively oppose anything which might force them to earn it.

The idea that people who are rich always deserve it would be reasonable if folks like Bill Gates or Nelson Rockefeller had dug their riches out of the barren rock, just by using their own ingenuity and hard work.

Rockefeller, of course, is one of those who inherited his wealth. While less impressive than someone who's earned it on his own, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. Should we force people like that to give away all their money and start from the bottom? That's ridiculous!
But Bill Gates used existing infrastructure, the same kinds of things that anyone else could use, to identify a need, build a product to fulfill that need, market that product and create an empire from it. As far as I know, he didn't have any more to work with than anybody else could have access to, other than his own intelligence and abilities. Shall we condemn him because he was smart enough to recognize potential? Shall we strip him of his money, just because he did something we didn't think of? Also ridiculous.

It's shortsighted to think that people from South Gate, LA and people from the Hamptons start from nearly the same baseline when it comes to education, money, health and exercise - or ability to get advanced work and get on the career ladder.

Of course they don't start at the same baseline! And yet, there are many who manage to crawl out of the jungles of LA and become successful business men, or athletes, or even just good, hardworking middle class citizens. Sure, it takes more work than starting with money, and perhaps some lucky breaks. But it can be done. But if they're not willing to try, not willing to do the work, they will be stuck where they are, and they will teach their children to accept what they are, rather than work to make themselves better.