Boom. There. Right there. There's your problem. If you're a fellow American, if you're a fellow member of Western Civilization, how does that not offend you to your core? "Their lives exist solely for someone else's profit" is the working definition of slavery. How can you possibly find this to be an acceptable situation?

Which is how we ended child labor and instituted the 40 hour work week in this country, BTW...

Common misconception. Prices are set not by what the costs of production are but by what the market will bear. Ever hear a company say, "Our costs allow us to make a 300% markup, but we felt that amount of profit was unconscionable, so we marked the price down..."?Rising production costs don't get passed on to the consumer because the price is already set at the maximum the market will allow.

God Help Us, then let them complain. Let's call this the "Papa John" principle. When Papa John complained last month that providing his workers with healthcare would cost an extra quarter per pizza, the first thing that came to my mind was "Cool. You mean I can ensure my pizza guy doesn't have tuberculosis for an extra quarter? What can we get those poor guys if I kick in fifty cents?"

Seriously, if I pay an extra 20 bucks for my iPhone, I can eliminate slavery in China? Good grief. Bill me. If I kick in $40, can I free the North Koreans too?

The whole point of the elastic clause is to enable us to keep forming that "more perfect union."

That's why we eliminated slavery, despite it being enshrined 3/5ths of the way into the document. That why we established the air force, despite no mention of it made in the Constitution.

But leaving all the nit-picking aside, here's the real issue:

Are we going to take care of our own or not?

Are we going to leave the weakest among us to die in the gutter? Are we going to stuff our prisons full of people with schizophrenia, autism and Down's Syndrome? Are we going to follow Sparta, and bash out the brains of defective children, or are we going to find our humanity and care for those who cannot care for themselves?

Sure, but the question is, how do we -- as a society -- deal with our population of schizophrenics?

Do we put them in jail? Leave them to fend for themselves on the street? Or do we decide we are a civilized people and give them the help they need to live productive lives?

Yep, it's a real shame the country was founded by Hippies like us. Franklin and his free love obsession, Jefferson and his miscegenation, Washington's stalwart stance against Authoritarianism...

Seriouly, you need to read the document you're flailing around. "We the People," "Form a more perfect Union," "Establish Justice," "Secure Domestic Tranquility," "promote the General Welfare," limit military spending to two years, decentralized power structures, and a firm argument against including the Bill of Rights for fear that some "blockhead in the future," might think these were the only rights we had and not a merely listing of some of the more obvious ones.

The only thing those Hippies were missing was rock-n-roll. Sex was plentiful and both Jefferson and Washington grew hemp (marijuana) on their farms. Can you imagine how awesome our nation might have been if Beethoven had been born a mere 30 years earlier to complete the "Sex, Drugs and Rock-n-Roll" trifecta?

We had a name for Conservatives in 1776, and that name was "Tory." Our founding fathers were "black bloc" anti-corporate terrorists that got blitzed at the local tavern, dressed up and painted their faces like savages and dumped corporate property into the water like they were "Fight Club" members smashing Starbucks.

You got no right to wrap yourself in a flag until you're ready to ride through the night warning the undesireables that the cops are on their way....

OK, so we're arguing we shut the programs down without replacing them because we were trying to improve care. Have we considered the theory that the bureaucrats and politicians used the accusations of gross misconduct and malpractice as political cover to simply stop funding mental health treatment? Especially considering the stated intention of the 1980s GOP to dismantle the "Great Society" programs?

I see in your other posts where you argue that we just don't have enough to go around, and even if we did, government is entirely incompetent to deal with anything, so simply taxing the rich won't fix our problems. OK, fair enough. The problem is that our nation's experience in the 40s, 50s and 60s contradict your stance. If the government is as incompetent as you argue, then why on Earth do we trust them with national defense?

We've been cutting taxes for 30 years, and instead of boosting employment, wages and employment have been falling like rocks. How about we try this as an experiment? Let's put taxes back where Man-Who-Defeated-Hitler-Republican-President Dwight D. Eisenhower put them. We put the new funds to work. We then refund education at the same rates Nixon did. We re-instate Glass-Steagal. We rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, and then modernize it with the introduction of true fiber-to-the-curb. We lower the age of medicare coverage to 55 ... seconds before birth. :-)

Let's run that program for five years and see where we are.

In fact, "Ensuring Domestric Tranquility" and "Promoting the General Welfare" is right there in the first line of the first page. Sort of like they though it might be important, you know?

The sad commentary on our times is that I can't tell if this is a troll or someone's legitimate belief...

Think of it as working the problem from all sides. :-)

Anyway, here's where you, I and Bertrand Russell's ghost undoubtedly agree. I think it would be great if the Church would disengage from politics, rediscover humility, and go back to providing food, clothing, shelter and medicine to those in need. Yeah, I know it's not all you'd wish for, "last king and the entrails of the last priest" and all that, but surely we can agree that it's a start?

Now, apart from the flame war, what can we do for the poster? Can we find him the breathing room he medically needs, or do we literally kick him to the curb and then prison?

Undoubtedly. So, what are we as a society going to do with our schizophrenics in particular, and the problem of mental illness in general?

Let's begin with the understanding that schizophrenia, like autism and Down's Syndrome, is an organic problem, where something physically went wrong with the body. It isn't the result of harsh circumstances like PTSD (also a very real and crippling problem) or a "learned behavior" like certain phobias. This means we can put schizophrenics right next to victims of childhood polio who can no longer walk. The disabilities they face aren't their "fault," and any "bootstrappy" behavior we might expect from them is right off the table. These people, who certainly can still live full, meaningful and productive lives, are simply going to need some help and consideration.

It's really unlikely that their condition is going to make them brilliant crimefighters.

This is supposed to be where the "compassionate" part of "compassionate conservative" kicks in, but unfortunately, it's actually the case that proves "compassionate conservative" is an oxymoron. They say the problem with mental illness is that it's "invisible," that it's harder for people to empathize with a schizophrenic than say, the blind, because mental illness doesn't show obvious trauma the way that MS does.

I'd be more inclined to agree if my state's schools for the blind and deaf didn't keep getting their funding slashed time and again. I can tell you from first-hand experience that my State's plan for the handicapped, despite an awesome amount of empty spin and window dressing, basically boils down to three choices; Family, Homelessness or Prison.

The people of the United States used to unanimously agree on this, that we had an obligation to care for and support the infirm, that a basic benchmark of civilization was that we took care of people who could not care for themselves. We lost that conviction sometime around the time when Reagan turned mental patients into homeless people, and then used that collection of homeless people to demonize the poor.

So, I guess the question I'm asking here is aimed at my fellow citizens and especially fellow Christians who identitfy as "conservatives." How about this guy? Schizophrenia. An actual medical problem, no fault of his own. Able to lead a productive life if we just shield him a little from the Darwinian bloodbath.

Can we get your heart to bleed at least a little bit for him? Can we set up a filthy Socialist program to make sure "the least of these" gets the help they need, or are we going to sit back and cheer as Ayn Rand slashes his throat?

They want captive audiences. Maybe I had an advantage seeing through the nonsense after spending so much time in Texas.

When oil prices are high, the oil executives chant "Free Market! Laissez-faire!" When oil prices drop, they demand the government step in to protect their profits, claiming that the government had a duty to protect national infrastructure from the vagaries of the market, that it would be wrong for the government to "Free-market them to death." (Good grief, how I miss Molly Ivins.)

The people in charge in this country believe in nothing but their own bank accounts, and will only wrap themselves in a flag or an ideology when it suits their purposes. This is much to the sorrow of Tea Party/Ron Paul supporters who just fell victim to the rule change that allows Mitt Romney to replace their grass-roots delegates with his wealthiest campaign supporters.

I'll lay off trying to get you and yours to pay your fair share of taxes if you'll do me one favor. Make good on the blood debt you owe me and mine. The next time the call goes out, how about you girls stop hiding behind your Mommy's skirts and your Daddy's money and actually enlist to fight the war you got us into? I'm pretty sure our disagreements will disappear with the first shot you hear.

Looking forward to having you on the team,
And I promise not to razz you about all this too much later...

Tortius Interference

Basically, interfere with the business of someone richer than you and there will be heck to pay Just Because You Got in the Way.

Yes, this includes bad online reviews if they can find you. Yes, it's an oppressive idea right up there with "All game animals in the wilds belong to the King."

You were supposed to stop reading at the second paragraph. :-) But, yes, undoubtedly. It's just the endorphins. You should pity us as you jet off to Carnivale.

Because people like you always seem more than willing to call for more work and sacrifice from other people. My and my kin are the ones that fight the wars you start, clean up the messes you and your little Wall Street buddies create and generally try to care for the victims your "Screw You, I Got Mine" mentality strews about the countryside.

Tell you what. You stay on your side of the fence with Carnegie, Rockefeller and Rand, and I'll stay on mine with all the other famous Lefties like Bishop Romero, William Faulkner, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, William Wallace, Sir Thomas More and all the rest stretching all the way back to the original Bleeding Heart, whom, BTW, I would never dare to try to use as an epithet.

I'm very comfortable letting God and history judge between us.

Yeah, no, he didn't. Kids with a garage band create more than he did. Little old ladies with Victory Gardens produce more. Grad students in English departments contribute more to Man's knowledge.

He sat on a chokepoint between doctors and patients and exacted a rent on the healthcare industry. He denied care to patients who were in desperate need and pcoketed the money that should have went to alleviate suffering.

The BEST you can say he did was he caused more suffering to patients, killed some people who didn't need to die and contributed to the general misery in the world. He's a foul, filthy man and when he stands before God one day, I don't want to be anywhere near him and his Billions in blood money.