Comment Re:I have a better idea. (Score 1) 382
Probably just feeding the trolls here, but: Seriously? That's the best argument you can come up with? Just because something wasn't done before the modern era means that we shouldn't do it now? So we shouldn't have advanced medical care at all? We shouldn't have enfranchised women? Ended slavery? Have the Internet? I could go on, and on.
There really is no valid argument as to why "Society" shouldn't (to some extend) be "Socialist" -- since that's the whole *point* or society, and for that matter, civilization.
"Removing incentives" is a bullshit argument. Most Human beings have plenty of incentive to be meaningfully productive members of a society, it's called a conscience, and a full set of operating emotions. Unfortunately the people paid to come up with the memes like that one seem to be in the group of humans that lack both.
Yes there are people who abuse the trust of others. Some of them get foodstamps, but they don't really do much harm, they maybe add a few pennies a day to your taxes whereas the people truly causing harm are a small number of vampires sucking the life out of most of the world's population, and at the same time pitting those people they are abusing against each other so they lack the time and observational powers to notice what's really happening.
If we want to go ahead and be all "I've got mine Jack" and "Don't tread on me" and "Every man for himself" then we might as well go back to being stone-age nomadic hunter gatherers, so we can learn what "society" means again, and what it's for.
All that said, "Obamacare" probably isn't the best idea, but not because it's "socialism" -- BECAUSE IT'S NOT! It's a fucking insurance exchange where private insurers compete for the dollars of the uninsured, and soon-to-be uninsured with an allotment to subsidize those earning below 150% of the poverty level. The insurance companies LOBBIED FOR THE BILL.
The rest of the "civilized" world has fully socialized medicine (some places for almost a century), but Noooo, we can't have that, that would be *baaaad*.
*facepalm*