Imagine if you will...

Muzman on 4/9/2009 at 03:55

You can have your po-lice.
I'll keep my guns, money and freedom.

jay pettitt on 4/9/2009 at 08:34

Can I maybe very quickly point out that the whole chuffing point of living in a civilised society is that you do give up personal freedoms, 'cos it makes life a hell of a lot better for everyone if you refrain from: being violent, taking other peoples stuff without asking, hogging resources, polluting the environment etc, etc, etc...

Humorbot on 4/9/2009 at 12:43

It's supposed to show how stupid America's health care system is, by showing how stupid it would be if the Police operated the same way.

henke on 4/9/2009 at 12:59

Code:

UNIT DESIGNATION: HUMORBOT
PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: BRING THE LOLS
MISSION STATUS: MISSION FAILED

just kidding Humorbot, welcome to TTLG :D

gunsmoke on 4/9/2009 at 13:25

Reminds me of the first story in the movie 'Heavy Metal' with the cabbie.

heywood on 4/9/2009 at 15:07

If the public health care system was as inefficient as the police, we'd all be fucked.

CCCToad on 4/9/2009 at 15:23

at heywood: true, but which one is more corrupt is debatable.

Quote Posted by Humorbot

It's supposed to show how stupid America's health care system is, by showing how stupid it would be if the Police operated the same way.

And its also whats known as a "red herring" argument.

Stitch on 4/9/2009 at 15:45

This thread botches the argument pretty badly, but "so you'd agree we should privatize our police and national defense, then?" is a perfectly valid reply to anyone stupid enough to argue that health care is too important to trust to the government. It takes a ridiculous notion to its ridiculous conclusion.

heywood on 4/9/2009 at 16:09

I don't think corruption is widespread in either profession, but certainly corrupt cops cause a lot more harm than Medicare scammers.

I'm thinking more of the efficiency of it:

Somebody spends 2-4 years of their time and money to get a criminal justice degree, and then the taxpayer spends a bunch of money to send them to a police academy, and then their department spends a bunch more time and money to train them to become a competent LEO. So now we've got this highly trained, highly motivated individual all ready and gung-ho to fight crime... and we put them on traffic duty. :(

Around here the police forces spend the vast majority of their man-hours responding to traffic accidents, directing traffic, doing speed enforcement, working details at construction sites, and periodically picketing the mayor's office because they didn't like their raise. And then when there actually is a crime wave, they don't respond and the Guardian Angels have to ride up here from NY to walk the beats because the cops won't (no joke).

My beef with the police departments is that they make extremely inefficient use of a limited resource, and waste good trained LEOs on duties that don't really require the skills of a cop. Both public & private health care systems make way better use of their trained professionals, if you ask me.

Stitch - We are slowly privatizing our national defense already.

demagogue on 4/9/2009 at 17:45

Oh, I guess I did miss that. But then it's sort of an arbitrary analogy ... What about private electric companies, private banks, private construction companies, private highways, private mass-transportation, private mail services, private militaries, private phone companies, private universities, private airports and airlines ... I mean each category you pick is a completely different can of worms that has its own pros and cons for public vs private management. You let the needs and limits drive the argument about which is better, not some dogmatic notion of the argument drive what you think the needs and limits are. So I'm not such a fan of argument by analogy in this area... It's another reason I can't be a strict libertarian or social democrat. You just can't decide this stuff on ideology alone IMO.