Man at homes laughs at TV show, ends up getting pepper sprayed by cops
Chris Cocker, 36-year-old man from Blackburn England, was watching a comedy show at home. He laughed so hard he fell off his sofa. His neighbor in the apartment below heard the thud and called the police. When the police came to Cocker's door, he refused to let them in. Cocker tried to shut to door, but the officer stuck his foot in the door and pepper sprayed Cocker.
After being sprayed with pepper spray, Mr Cocker was put into a police van and taken to a police station where he said he was stripped naked and spent a night in the cells.The BBC has a video. Link (via Arbroath)A spokesman for Lancashire Police said officers used a pepper spray as "reasonable force" for their own protection after they feared for their safety when he became aggressive.
the latest
latest episodes
No possible way we're missing a piece of the story somewhere?
None?
See? I told you television was bad for you, but does anyone listen to me? NOOOOO!
He handled the door confrontation poorly, probably. I wonder what he was watching. If it's that funny I have to see it.
Can you sue for punative damages in England over something like this?
It seems to me that attempting to close a door, regardless of how angrily you might do it, is not "agressive" unless someone's head is in said door.
Where's all those british CCTV's now? I want footage!
How great would it be if he was watching cops.
Enochrewt,
"Have I got News For You" is a great weekly political/current affairs quiz. It's very funny, and one of my favourite shows.
Enochrewt
Also, as the BBC article points out, they're on season 35, and have been running for nearly 20 years.
http://www.tv-links.cc/tv/have-i-got-news-for-you.htm
LEAVE BRITAIN ALONE!
Oh wait, not Chris Crocker?
His teeth should be in the big book of British Smiles
What piece of the story could be missing? It seems perfectly reasonable that telling the police "Thanks, I'm fine. Hell no, I won't let you into my residence without a legal warrant. Now bugger off." already seems to count as aggression against the authority of the state and is grounds enough for forceful entry and arrest in the UK these days.
The lesson? Always be afraid to open your door, it could be the police.
Ok, I just clicked on the link to watch the video, but the sight of that man's teeth almost made me vomit.
I could bring myself to watch the video after looking at them.
*shivers*
"He laughed so hard he fell off his sofa. His neighbor in the apartment below heard the thud and called the police. "
So either he weighs 600lbs or the ceiling/floor is very thin? Laugh so hard you fall off the couch? C'mon people there's more to this.
He must've pissed those cops off a goodun for them to both force entry and incapacitate him.
"The bit where I lost it the most..."
Problem solved; he went apeshit.
I would be pretty upset if someone attacked me to the point of shrieks and thumps audible in the next apartment, the neighbor called 911, and then the responding police left when the attacker answered the door and told them everything was all right.
I would also be pretty upset if the police used a manufactured report of shrieking and thumping as a way to get into my apartment for an otherwise-illegal search.
Is there an easy solution for this?
another example of how police become lazy when given "non-lethal" weapons. Suppose this man has asthma? A heart condition? Police expect the "cooperation" of the public? How about "abject, craven surrender appropriate for beaten down prisoners in a third world hell-hole"?
The more this is tolerated the sooner comes the day that any cop entering an apartment building will find heavy objects falling from the roof at the entrance way.
this sounds like there were drugs involved...
I like his meth teeth.
Winkingskunk, buck up sunshine, not everyone in the world has flawless Disney teeth.
Sounds like he was off his tits on something or other and needed a night in the cells to come down.
Don't worry, we'll all get teeth like that when socialist healthcare comes a knockin' - but at least we'll all be equal!
I don't know about Britian, but in Canada, dental isn't covered by healthcare.
Which is alright in that, in my province at least, if it was handled by healthcare getting a filling would be labeled "optional" and it would take six months on a waiting list to get the root canal you eventually need.
Pretty safe to say that it was 4:20 at the Cocker Manor? I don't think I have ever literally fallen off of anything laughing without chemical encouragement. Would also explain his reluctance to allow the constabulary into his house.
and what if he was drunk or stoned in his own home?
Vonmises, he has the same option as you to pay exorbitant prices for dental care. The difference is, he also has the option of free teeth from the NHS, which it doesn't look like he's opted for.
Thou shalt bow down before authority, no matter how fucking Kafkesquian it is.
@14, Manny:
The fact that a neighbor can get involved should prevent the police from simply making up excuses for a search. If this case ever goes to court, the neighbor will be a witness.
Likewise, if the police were to barge into an apartment without reason, it is likely that neighbors could be polled to determine whether there really was a disturbance before the police arrived. This isn't a perfect solution, though. The police busting in could be interpreted by neighbors as the disturbance. Or, if you live far from neighbors, there might be no one to hear you scream.
It's not perfect, but it should provide some reassurance.
This reminds me of the story where a guy was watching porn and a neighbor thought a woman was being assaulted and called the cops.
"So either he weighs 600lbs or the ceiling/floor is very thin? Laugh so hard you fall off the couch?"
You're right. It's almost as preposterous as claiming to have fallen off the couch from choking on a pretzel.
Years ago there was a story of an Englishman literally 'dying of laughter'. He was watching on TV a comedy sketch in which a man fought a bagpipe like it was an attacking octopus. He expired from some natural cause brought on by the laughing jag.
If we had TV that was actually dangerously funny I might watch it now and then.
So the man falls off his couch and makes a loud noise when he hits the ground. A neighbor hears the noise and immediately calls the cops.
Maybe it's just me, but if I heard a noise that sounded like someone falling in the apartment above me, I wouldn't think "Crap, gotta call the po!" I'd think someone more along the lines of "Oh that sounded like it hurt" or "Guess the neighbors are having relations" or both of the above.
If you've ever seen the show, you'll know that Paul Merton in particular goes off on some incredibly surreal rhetorical excursions. I don't know if I've ever fallen on the floor, but I have had the occasional respiration difficulty. "Am I the only one who's always tempted to light the wick on top of a beret?"
This reminds me of the story where a guy was watching porn and a neighbor thought a woman was being assaulted and called the cops.
If we're thinking of the same story, he didn't call the cops so much as bust into the apartment on his own with a samurai sword. And then got arrested.
I'm largely with #32, although if it sounded more like "AHAHAHAHA-" **thump** I might call an ambulance on the concern that my upstairs neighbor had DIED.
But more likely I'd go upstairs and knock, or just whack the ceiling with a broomhandle a couple of times and yell at him to knock it off.
As was mentioned above, the guy does say "The bit where I lost it the most was when..."
Not even "the bit where I lost it," but "the bit where I lost it the most."
Sounds to me like there was an argument over whether the police would come in (reasonable), guy slams the door (maybe not reasonable, but probably legal), police stops the door from being slammed in their face (may or may not be reasonable, depending on the situation), guy goes ape-shit, possibly violent.
It's a funny story, as it started with hysterics, but not necessary an example of police brutality unless we know the actual story.
The cops aren't blameless here, but let's not lose sight of the real dumbarse here: the downstairs neighbor.
Think this through from the police perspective. They get a call from a guy who thinks a murder's just been committed in the apartment upstairs. They show up and the guy at the door refuses to let them in. Within his rights, but doesn't consider that the police in their "Suspect everybody" mindset assume he's just committed a murder and is getting ready to barricade himself inside.
Who the hell calls the police after hearing a thud in the next apartment? If you're concerned, go up and knock. Otherwise, go back to your own little life.
the police forced their way into an innocent man's home and assaulted him. THAT is what matters.
If the trend continues, no one will trust the police. Barricaded doors, unreported serious crime, pay-offs to mafia "protectors". Do you want to live that way?
Police work by consent. There are a pathetic few against a huge mass that could rise up at anytime and kill every last one of them in a single day. We do not respect (and sometimes fear) the policeman, we bow to the uniform,to the IDEA of the law.
When the conduct of individual police, sanctioned or otherwise, bring the law's representatives into disrepute, we are ALL threatened. Like it or not, we NEED cops. We can't let ordinary citizens, cops themselves or pandering politicos ruin that.
These cops crossed the line. They hurt all of us. If they are not sanctioned, then expect ordinary people to fight back at the expense of the rule of law.
The neighbor could've been calling in a noise complaint, too. Maybe they have a history of not getting along? We'll never know, because this incident is just an excuse for the BBC to run a dumb, lazy story about the surprising! hilarious! consequences some guy incurred by Falling! Off! The Couch!
He was probably charged for bed and board by the police, too.
#31:
I don't know where you get your dental insurance, but on my health insurance dental for the whole family costs $12/month more. $120/year. Two days pay at minimum wage. That's an interesting (or biased) definition of "very expensive".
Yeah, $144/year, not $120. Somebody will jump on me for that I'm sure. Oh well.. I had originally written $10/month, but changed it after I looked at the bill to double check and realized it went up $2/month this year...
While true that this may not be the whole story I think this is important to keep in mind.
75% potassium nitrate, 15% softwood charcoal, and 10% sulfur
Remember
Seeing as how England keeps descending into a police state, my bet is that the guy was not hopped up on something or overly agressive.
My ever falling U.S. dollar is on the overly agressive policeman who apparently didn't have enough functioning neurons to figure out the situation. Either that or he was just a cruel asshole. A jail cell I can understand, but striped naked? Come on.
Yeeah nice way to mock someones teeth,winkingskunk
Are you always this shallow?
Rossindetroit the guy in question was watching "The
Goodies" on BBC the one about the Lancashire martial art of "ecky thump". I see a trend developing here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goodies#Fatal_effect
ah Hassan! Latecomer! I believe Feral challenged you as well you know. Will you give him honor?
http://www.llapgoch.org.uk/
Who is this Feral of you speak?
Who is this Feral of you speak?
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/06/10/mennonites-in-downto.html#comment-210362
go ye, and be responsible unto thine words
That link is hilarious Tak:
fight! fight! fight! :D
The best part of the story is learning that the Brits call a couch a 'settee'. It sounds so much sillier!
I think there must have been some sort of on-going thing with the neighbor, for them to call the police so hastily. Either that, or they are just major assholes. Calling the police on your neighbor should be a serious last resort.
Don't panic, it's OK to have bad teeth in Great Britain.
If I ever call the police to investigate a possible violent crime that I am to frightened to first check myself, and they walk away without positively ascertaining that there is no victim laying within, I will call in the news media.
It would be better if the police employed a skilled interview by an experienced officer capable of eliciting information without putting subjects on the defensive. Then again, it would be better if they didn't get the door slammed in their face when called to possibly rescue someone for whom the clock may be ticking.
There is no prosecuting the fearful neighbor with the head up their arse--this "innocent victim's" true persecutor. She was within the limits of an honest mistake.
Interactions between people are at best imperfect. With the exception of children of 6-years-old and under and the mentally infirm, it is alwasy up to everyone present to do their best about that.
Go ahead, see if you can find an exception to that absolute statement!
People who fail to see their ability to contribute to outcomes, whether they have control or are dealing with imposing authorities, tend to have disastrous lives.
That being said, I find the police state in Great Britain very scary and somewhat hard to comprehend the inception of. Everyone there is so safe, because they don't have guns, that their every move is watched and remote control hovercraft with cameras are starting to follow citizens around the streets.
Wingo, or indeed: a couch :)
Thank goodness for floridated water here in the States. I have never seen a dentist, and I still have all of my teeth. Yes, those teeth too.
Settee? Couch? Very Non-U. It's a sofa.
Settee? Couch? Very Non-U. It's a sofa.
Settee? Couch? Very Non-U. It's a sofa.
Takun-Aaww geez did people(Adam)take being offense at being called "hate filled"? Profound 'pologies all round ,but hey hate kinda defines and drives my aesthetic as well so...My point was that I was enjoying the post and didn't think the contributers
were being bigoted at all.My point was with foofoodoodoo(who defended his position admirably if I may say).
dont want combat wit no-one especially Mr AP,He knows people,If you know what i mean;)
>don't know where you get your dental insurance, but on my health insurance dental for the whole family costs $12/month more.
I suspect this is a "vary by state" thing, or perhaps you are enough younger than I am to qualify for significantly cheaper insurance. Or perhaps you are fortunately enough to have your insurance paid by your employer. I'm older, but comparatively healthy, so my individual rate for insurance is a bit under $400 per month. Dental add-on is $50 per month, and I turned it down because the maximum payable benefit is $1000 annually. That is right: the dental plan offered wants $600 a year for $1,000 maximum in benefits. I double checked. No, that does not exclude preventative care, not even routine exams. Third party dental is even wores.
>The best part of the story is learning that the Brits call a couch a 'settee'. It sounds so much sillier!
Unless Wiki is lying to me (always a possibility), couch is a general term and sofa/settee/loveseat are all names for couches with a specific number of seats (3/2.5/2 respectively).
My intuition tells me there is more to this than presented in this news report (perhaps news STORY would be a better description).
This strikes me as a very one sided representation of events by the BBC (which surprises me; I thought the BBC upheld higher standards).
I'm also surprised that BoingBoing have decided to reference a story which at least appears to be lacking in factual and proportional integrity.
People form opinions and make judgements as a result of information like this, and if that information is not accurate then neither is the opinion it's based upon.
Medical cost inflation due to over-reliance on insurance from employers not only creates overwhelming rigidity in the labor / knowledge market (i.e. fear of losing/changing jobs), but also prices the services so high that those with jobs that do not include dental insurance benefits have resorted to pulling teeth at home with pliers rather than having a proper root canal done.
This is the fundamental problem with focusing on insurance (which is a subsidiary racket of the Wall Street fractional reserve scam -- one which all medical industries seek to fleece), rather than focusing on cost of service.
I sincerely hope that Obama's language in the election doesn't shift too much from his previous "the problem is medical cost" to trying to appeal to Hillary's "we need government to provide insurance for everyone" (which would cement a medical-industrial complex, just as we have a military-industrial complex). I don't mean to proselytize for any particular candidate, but rather on the (already tangential) subject of cost of dental care, if you're genuinely worried about this issue, examine the political language carefully for whether a candidate talks about "insurance" or whether they talk about "medical cost".
Hmmm... I'm wondering if the poor fellow didn't have TiVo and was irate at the police who showed up to interrupt the laugh fest.
Pausing live TV is the best invention since the VCR. That way you don't have to rush to get in a bathroom break during commercials and you can get your popcorn when the nuker go 'beep' all without missing a single one-liner.
Oh, I forgot.
...and answering the door for police who are concerned for the well-being of someone who might be hurt inside the residence and who might think the fellow at the door simply wants the cops to go away so he can continue to do his will against the person he is keeping captive.
But he could have been a terrorist or anti-democrat!1!1!
Late post this, but to put his teeth into perspective here is a nice shot of Shane McGowan genius front man from the Pogues:
http://www.flickrholic.org/images/Shane-McGowan.jpg
Beat that!
,,,and pepper spray is good on eggs!
>routine dental checkups (every 6 months) cost $50 without insurance, and each cavity costs $250 to repair
Adult cleaning and exam are more like $250 bucks in my neck of the woods. Small town, not close to Mexico...
Other expenses higher in proportion...
#66 innocent until proven guilty.
This man was innocent. RESTITUTION! And making sure it does not happen again.
The following is an excerpt from "The Manual for the Husbandry and Care of Homo Sapiens" stolen from a secrete Reptilian library.
"The purpose of a police state is simply to be a police state. There is no increase in safety or decrease in crime. So what you do is you inculcate in people a constant state of fear along with instructions that they should call the police at he slightest provocation. If a suspiciously enough brown person rushes to catch the train the frightened cattle call on the police and he is beaten and murdered and lies are fabricated. Eventually every person will be tagged and their every movement tracked so that undesirable traits can be weeded out."
@ #20: Actually, countries with tax-financed healthcare have better and more efficient health care.
Also, there's the most important issue of who decides what "better" care is. Whether "medicine" or "poison" / "healthy" or "unhealthy" is ultimately a subjective evaluation. Sure, we can objectively understand the mechanics of body chemistry and homeostasis, but there's extremely important philosophical difference between "what can the body do" and "what I want my body to do.
* is-ought problem
* naturalistic fallacy
* moral hazard
* principal-agent problem
* economic calculation problem
* morphological freedom
* self-ownership
* cognitive liberty
* neurolaw
#72 Actually, no they don't, but you'll have plenty of time to reflect on that while the waiting times to see a health care provider exponentially increase.
The most efficient care results from people paying for their own health, not government forcing everyone to pay for everyone else's care. It's an obvious truth that most people can see without much problem when applied to ice cream or cars or underwear, but the emotion tied to health causes wish-fulfillment to take the place of reason.
@ #72 (That was me, the author!):
Well, that above comment goes for health in a population.
Filthy rich can of course get even better care for themselves and if money is no obstacle, efficiency (health/$) doesn't matter.
@ #73,74:
citation: http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?a=778197 (swedish only, about a study released tuesday)
ps. #20, 73, 74 [also also citation needed]
universal health care works. It is a human right. It is the normal order of things in a human, humane society. In time, the user-pay-or-die model will be seen as the barbarism it is. Just as Magna Carta limited the power of kings, just as Human Rights declarations ended institutions such as legal slavery so eventually will the right of every human in human society to be cared for will be recognized.
Dreamers dream of the end of war. Medicare ALREADY exists successfully in many countries. It is only the voluntary choice of those who will not accept it.
For 13 years I had the privilege of working in the home offices of three different health insurance companies. They were run and staffed by intelligent, hard working people who dedicated great efforts to making health insurance work as well as it possibly could for their customers, and for the most part they succeeded.
Those home offices, dedicated employees, marketing campaigns, buildings and all associated elements didn't actually cure, heal or ensure the health of a single person. No matter how good the efforts and intentions of the participants, insurance is just an allocation function that is a net cost to the system of providing health care.
When we transition from an insurance system in this country to a single payer system, those insurance companies, and unfortunately the jobs of a number of friends, will go away and the resources that they now consume will be available to provide more and better health care. The change will not be easy, but the superiority of the result is evident from numerous examples within this country and elsewhere.
Okay I realize I'm so far down the list... This makes me quite glad I live where I do. Although it might take a better lawyer, in my state you are within your rights to use deadly force on a trespasser. Once the officer's foot was across my threshold (or in my case, beyond my PRIVATE PROPERTY sign), I am within my rights to defend my property as I see fit. Everyone is saying oh he lost his temper etc etc, yes, AFTER the officer forced his foot in the door. I actually had officers disturb my family while sleeping at 2am once. They came to an open window I was sleeping near and were shining flashlights in. I, of course, cocked the 12 gauge and asked the trespassing officers if there was a particular reason they were trespassing on my property. They subsequently left.
Why does it seem like every second post these days has at least one comment that refers to "socialised" healthcare as being automatically terrible?
Are those espousing this view just brainwashed and ignorant or is there something else at play?
As someone who lives with universal healthcare I have nothing but praise for it. I have CF, if I'd been born in the US I'd have been in big trouble. As a Canadian, I get a 3 hour workup by 7 professionals every 6 months and all of my medications are free.
US citizens...stop listening to this bulls*it propaganda. Almost any form of universal healthcare would be better than your system. Look at the other countries in the G8.
This whole "socialism will kill you" meme is a right-wing load of crap.
Check out the work of Weston A. Price.
Bad teeth are hereditary and a product of poor nutrition. My father grew up on a farm in a teensy town in Slovenia with no electricity or plumbing. (This was in the 1940s!) He was the middle child of five. There was no dentist in town, save the guy who would pull out rotten teeth with pliers. He ate whatever his family could grow or kill. He drank raw milk straight from the cow. He drank well water. They brushed their teeth with ashes from the fireplace.
His teeth are perfectly straight and white. The only cavity in his mouth occurred after he had been living in the States and served in Vietnam - he was in his 30s.
By asserting "universal health care works"; I would raise the questions of why we don't "universalize" other necessities: food, clothing, shelter. Most of us are able to afford food, clothing, shelter, etc. without a government monopoly on their provision. What makes health care any different?
My response to universal health care is the same as always: keep cheating on my taxes so I don't have to fund it, and keep paying cash so I don't have to suffer it.
But as far as the police here go, while I'm perfectly fine with them having general arrest powers on the road or the public square, they should have no right to enter a private residence without the consent of the owner.
Free market economists often focus on what is seen, and what is unseen. People who are unable to afford medical technology and services which are possibly available is relatively easy to see. What's less obvious are the Brave New World implications of a government that controls (more than it already does) what we can and cannot do with our bodies based on some "common sense" notion of normalcy and "professionalism".
I also want to emphasize and underscore a point: both the USA system and the socialized systems are greatly dysfunctional. Arguing that the option is either-or constitutes a false dichotomy. Just because the insurance industry dominated corporatism of medical practice in the USA is terrible, does not prove that the socialist system of universal healthcare is correct.
Your arguments are not without merit, Zuzu, but to the extent that they depend on your premise:
"Whether "medicine" or "poison" / "healthy" or "unhealthy" is ultimately a subjective evaluation"
...I must disagree. There are perfectly practical ways of determining whether, for example, a particular substance prevents infections; this determination has nothing subjective about it, and if health care decisions are being based on some other means of finding these truths out, something that yields only subjective results, what would that be?
...and the Wikipedia article you linked to on Negative and Positive Rights really spooked me - it was like reading a philosophical essay to which no one would attach their name. Eerie.
But there's an entire popular culture, much like religion, where a "priesthood" claims a privileged domain of expertise over our bodies. These are the doctors who claim we're too ignorant to make decisions about what's best for our own individual bodies. Sure, we may not all have the accumulated knowledge of a medical school, but ultimately we must make decisions for ourselves -- not the tyranny of the experts (imbued with the force of law). We may choose to pay for experts to consult us, but cannot allow them to dictate to us.
I don't understand why you feel spooked. Would you elaborate?
(*Presuming that such a political stereotype would also favor "single-payor" i.e. socialized healthcare.)
I was playing multi-player video games late one night with a friend of mine. He got a little rowdy, and a knock came at the door. I was really surprised, because I lived in a secured building at the time. It was the police. They said they heard reports of fighting. I said, no fighting here, just playing video games. Would you like to look around? They said "It's okay if we come in?" I said "absolutely." They walked in the door, looked left and right, thanked me for my time and left.
We promptly fell about laughing. I'm glad they didn't pepper spray us then!
This was about 14 years ago, maybe nowadays they would have just handcuffed us just to be sure.
I don't know. I strikes me as verging on the edge of a personality cult. I know nothing about economics and I don't want to spend forever trying to figure it all out. As afar as I can tell every economic "school" is made up of true believers all marching to their own tune. My guess is that nobody knows what the "correct" economic theory is. So what I do is I think along the lines of power. Who has it, who doesn't and how they are trying to keep others from getting any. It's simpler and it makes more sense to me.
The reason this guy got crapped on is because it's in someone's interest to keep those of his class down. The reason that health car doesn't work very well in the US is because it is in someone's interest that it not work. It's the same with education and with everything else.
The goals and objectives come first, the political or economic theory is simply the means by which you justify your preconceived ends.
Example - The corporation as legal person. The way this came about was that some psychotic control freak CEO wasn't able to do whatever the fuck he wanted to do. He ran into the Law and the law said no. But these sociopathic fucks don't take no for an answer and so levers were pulled, favors called in or whatever it took until the laws were changed. Then you just backfill. You buy an intellectual, useful idiots can always be found, to write some bullshit theory to justify your bullshit actions. But make no mistake about it, the end is always to grab more power and keep others from getting what little remains, period.
We are a troop of primates on a dirty rock in an empty universe. The only imperative is to get more bananas than the rest and if that means genocide well then that's just tough shit.
It's a deeply cynical even poisonous view but if the last eight years have taught me anything it's that it is probably not cynical enough.
I've searched the Wikipedia page, and the only place where the name Isaiah Berlin appears in in a reference to:
Two Concepts of Liberty: a lecture by Isaiah Berlin which distinguished between positive and negative liberty.
Perhaps you have misunderstood me. The contents of the page (above the Criticism and Response section) contains the sort of argumentative writing I am used to seeing people take individual credit and/or responsibility for - to find it without attribution makes it suspect to me.
Dear Zuzu
The sick can't work. Society exists to keep and make humans. Not money. Not having universal healthcare makes no economic sense. The alternative is to kill the non productive.
eustace - Isaiah Berlin and his failed concept of positive and negative liberty figure prominently in Adam Curtis' The Trap It's a good documentary. You can watch it on Google Video or if you like there's a torrent of it on PirateBay.
I have argued that the alternative is to put an end to the economic distortions caused by a collusion of government, Wall Street, and the medical-industrial complex who have made healthcare artificially expensive in the process of filtering and funneling monetary expansion into their pockets. Indeed, medical cost inflation makes a select few artificially wealthy at the expense of incalculable human lives.
The conceptual failure for most people has been an unfounded and inculcated belief that "for some reason" or because of "fancy equipment" medical costs are "inherently" expensive. This belief is, in fact, false. We must recognize this first if we're to properly view the remaining circumstances regarding healthcare in the world.
I love Adam Curtis, but his portrayal of negative liberty and game theory in The Trap is a misleading caricature. (A bit like Bertrand Russell's misconstrued assessment of Friedrich Nietzsche.) The concerns presented are perhaps better expressed in the field of behavioral finance. (The segment on the Rosenhan experiment is excellent though.) Isaiah Belrin's work on value pluralism is also quite worthwhile -- somewhat presaging modern studies of subculture. Ah, I did misunderstand you. I've always heard of it referred to through Two Concepts of Liberty. The gist is that any organization large enough to provide you with "positive liberty" will be captured to service a select elite at the expense of everyone else.Flamingphonebook:
Feel free to opt out of "socialized" fire and police services while you're at it. After all, you haven't helped fund it, so why the hell should we provide you with free emergency services like CPR?
Vonmises:
If universal healthcare is "socialist," than so is a nationally funded military. Or are you prepared to renounce the Armed Forces as "socialist" national defense?
Here's a tip from your ol' Uncle Nick: if you're worldview is internally inconsistent, it's probably just a useless hodgepodge of inherited, unexamined prejudices and knee-jerk reactions.
"My response to universal health care is the same as always: keep cheating on my taxes so I don't have to fund it." (flamingphonebook)
"Don't worry, we'll all get teeth like that when socialist healthcare comes a knockin' - but at least we'll all be equal!" (vonmises)
Zuzu - I don't disagree with your assessment of medical cost inflation, but ending the economic distortions you enumerate would be quite a task, mostly because the only instrument available to do the job is already intimately involved, Government (via Medicare), and it reforms itself poorly and incompletely. But we shouldn't let work dismay us.
And thx Noen for the links.
When our son was 6 months old he was up at 3 am crying and playing with the home phone.
5 minutes after I removed the phone from him there was knock on the door and to my amazement two police officers.
It hit me that our son must have dialed 999 (911) by accident so I apologised and told the officers that everything was fine and that they could leave.
They insisted on coming in and confirming that the wife and child were OK. Apparently this is standard procedure when they receive 999 calls and hear children crying in the background.
I was very impressed with this and I believe that safety of a human being overrules any "PRIVATE PROPERTY" sign posted in the front yard.
THINK OF THE CHILDREN! (This time no sarcasm in that saying)
If he was Brazilian they'd have shot him in the head.
The USA already has government-provided medicine for tens of millions of its citizens. Ask someone on Medicare or Medicaid how they feel about their medical care.
It's been quietly succeeding all around us for decades. It's not perfect, and as with any system that has to meet the individual needs of many people, probably isn't perfectable, but you'll hear far more complaining about insensitive and unresponsive insurance companies than about Medicare.
The fight against government-provided medicine was over years ago when politically conservative senior citizens started accepting and being satisfied with it.
The present debates about extending its reach have less to do with health care than with the issue's symbolic value in our larger political context.
Noen said:
I do the same thing with global warming, i dont understand the science and dont care to learn, so i choose to believe that global warming is a hoax. Its all a big conspiracy to make money from mandating "green" technology. As an added bonus, because i do not care about facts, i can not be proven wrong.
Noen said:
I do the same thing with global warming, i dont understand the science and dont care to learn, so i choose to believe that global warming is a hoax. Its all a big conspiracy to make money from mandating "green" technology. As an added bonus, because i do not care about facts, i can not be proven wrong.
Never forget that insurance companies are a subset of the banking industry.
Let's break down health care to small model. A doctor and a dozen of potential patients. To keep the model simple, leave third parties out of it, such as insurance companies and governmental agencies/ministries.
If health care is a right, then does it follow that each of the dozen can demand free treatment from the doctor? If that's the case, what incentive does the doctor have to continue this arrangement? I suppose the dozen could hold the doctor captive and rely on the doctor honoring the Hippocratic Oath.
You speak, of course, of potential patients who bring home 100% of their salaries and have never paid any taxes at the national, regional or local level.
Yes, government and insurance companies exist outside the model.
I can never understand this conceptual blind spot about funding health care. You pay taxes. You get stuff because you pay taxes. Roads. Armies. Aqueducts. Why can't you get doctoring when you need it too? Is medicine magic? Killing all those Iraqis for a slipping grip on non-sustainable oil just cost a half a trillion dollars. Sheesh.
Again, the problem is who decides. When you pay taxes (which are not voluntary, i.e. theft), and bureaucrats spend your taxes, you face the aforementioned principal-agent problem -- particularly moral hazards.
True, the baker bakes bread for his own benefit (not immediately for the hungry), but he does so in voluntary trade -- mutual exchange for both-benefit . The baker knows that he can do something that others are willing to do things for him in return for.
And the old? The disabled? Those who can provide no return service? Do we euthanize?
@baldhead
Really? Here in the land of the not-free, the job I worked for neglected to re-obtain dental insurance after they merged with another office.
I waited three months for a root canal, with an infected root swelling my cheek, as they waited for the insurance carrier to give them a bid. And at the end, I gave up and paid for it myself - so far, I've spent USD1800 and will pay more out of pocket. The coverage we finally got wasn't retroactive and certainly did not cover pre-existing conditions. Since you live in a province and not a state, perhaps an explanation is in order for that term: it means any condition you had prior to the beginning of the contract is never, ever covered.
Isn't it great to be part of the free market medical insurance system? My boss's explanation for the coverage gap: She didn't know so many people used our dental coverage. So she didn't make getting it activated a priority.
She got a raise.
Routine dental coverage is not a part of Canadian health plans. Even a root canal, as elective, wouldn't be. If it were medically necessary, yes. My wisdom teeth were not covered by OHIP, though the anesthetic was.
When I was 18, I head a commotion outside my back door. Some doofus was there pounding and screaming, looking for the 18 year old girl next door who had apparently dumped him. I took initiative and chatted him up, trying to calm him down.
The police arrived. They listened to me, told him to get lost, and then shoved my brother and I aside - literally to the floor in my brother's case - and casually walked through my home as my brother yelled at them to get the hell out. No provocation. They just wanted to. The dogs went insane, as I recall; thank FSM that they were tied up that day.
Care to guess what would have happened had we tried to stop them? Criminal record for me, I'd say. Some jail time. Who'll the judge or jury believe?
Seriously, since then, I've always designed my future home plans with steel doorframes, heavy steel doors, and airlocks that jig back and forth a bit to slow down charging idiots with SWAT door killers. If I have a chance, my home will not be kicked into without major league firepower. I don't have the sanguine adoration that most white suburbanites have for the men with the body armor. The majority are cool, but eventually you WILL meet up with a psychopath with a gun and a uniform. And they come in pairs, sometimes in squads. Remember, killers look just like everybody else...
Takuan: "I can never understand this conceptual blind spot about funding health care. You pay taxes. You get stuff because you pay taxes. Roads. Armies. Aqueducts."
I also get a whole lot of stuff I would not want even if it were free.
* Airports that resemble outposts of the Iron Curtain.
* A "War on Drugs", to include crime created by a black market on narcotics, the funding of DEA and narcotics divisions, the clogging of the court system, and the cost of incarcerating buyers and sellers of narcotics.
* Not being able to legally obtain Cuban cigars.
* Having to play book keeper / accountant all year for the IRS.
* Farmers not growing things.
* Increased cane sugar prices.
* Not being able to purchase a five-gallon flush toilet.
* The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.
* Police officers whose sole duties consist of hassling prostitutes, their customers, and those who violate the state's monopoly on gambling.
* Foreign aid to countries that will hate America in ten years.
* The "War on Terror" with unprovoked attacks on two countries.
* Having to store my trash cart and recycling cart in my garage, or having to deal with the municipal trash police. Leaving them outside the garage means a $300 ticket and mandatory attendance to "garbage school".
I could go on, but you can get the point. And for the stuff that could be considered a useful, I either get far too much of it (military), or it is of inferior quality (roads).
Oh - yes, point taken, dental is private in Canada, something I did know and forgot for the post.
Point is, when you are covered by a private company through your job, you are at the boss's mercy. Private carry is a recipe for abuse, and they waste no time. Screwing us over for three months for the absurd reason given saved them tens of thousands of dollars. Since I paid out of pocket, the dentists charged the moon. Standard practice here for doctors and hospitals - no coverage? They gouge. And a fun side fact is one of my dentists - my regular, not the specialist - mentioned that her husband and the other dentists downtown met once a year and fixed their prices, privately. I don't think that was part of the Free Market System as I understand it. No shopping allowed, secret unions for the professionals.
As for the old... it's called planning for retirement.
As for the disabled... some mix of planning/insurance, family, and charity, depending on the particulars. And with a rising knowledge economy, how many disabilities preclude thinking for a living? Stephen Hawking seems to do alright.
Axis networked embedded Linux cameras aren't prohibitively expensive, and can be mounted in the home for evidence in exactly such an invasion of your home by police. You can even stream the MPEG-4 to offsite hosting in case your equipment is "seized".Zuzu: Ugh, no no no. Do not frame this in terms of incentives; that betrays the informational value of a small-model analysis (and encourages Machiavellian manipulation). The issue is perhaps subtly but importantly actually about signaling.
I was thinking more about how such a system was not much different from some folks who got a free boat ride and an "opportunity" to work in the field of agriculture in the New World.
BTW, what is the proper technique for quoting a previous post?
@118 Zuzu: love that camera, love the streaming even better. There's a business niche: people pay for monitored alarms happily,how about a live feed video witness monitor business for subscribers who want any police/government illegality (warrantless entry,excess force etc) to be on record and go out live on the web? If North Korea has live cameras on their reactors for UN inspectors, I want a doorstep camera for that 3:00AM knock. Just knowing it might be there will make for better behaved cops.
So, while you may tacitly understand this, by experience I've found it extremely important to vocalize this distinctive point in discourses on economics.
The blockquote tag in HTML.I'm all for it; particularly as an extension of citizen journalism (itself a form of direct action).
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=586091
Zuzu,
You've written a textbook worth of economic theory in BB comments, but you are extraordinarily out of the loop on real life. You've gone over to the dark side where people are just numbers and lives are only theoretical models. What if they didn't plan for retirement? What if their stock value was wiped out by an economic downturn? What if their home is now functionally worthless due to a real estate crash or a local industry drying up? You theorize and theorize and theorize, but you never say anything that could actually be of any value to real, live human beings. It's not reality. It will never be reality. Your whole economic platform boils down to "Let them eat cake."
Not one thing he's posted precludes charity.
As for your other remarks... therein lies the difference between description and prescription. Medical science can account for what will happen if you administer heroin intravenously, but it cannot say whether such an activity is "good" or "bad" -- that's a subjective preference, unique to each individual. You seem to want me to prescribe "don't do heroin".
Accusing me of "Let them eat cake" and "going over to the dark side" is awfully presumptuous.
What exactly do you want me to tell you?
Zuzu,
Your statements are bloodless, armchair, dissociated from humanity. I want you to say something that displays some compassion. I want you to say something that acknowledges that much of the human race is not educated enough or intelligent enough or resourced enough to plan for retirement. I want you to say something that acknowledges that widespread disaster and its consequences are an intrinsic part of earthly life. I want you to stop using disingenuous arguments like the one that suggests that Stephen Hawking is a good example of how disabled people don't need any help. And I want you to go look in the mirror and see the bureaucrat that looks back at you. You have reduced life in all its complexity to an organizational diagram.
...but beautifully well drawn!
You reason well and compellingly, but from incomplete premises, I think.
...and I'm still snickering over #8. Pork and Beans!
What it boils down to is, are you willing to give up every benefit you started life with, and every extra thing you've gotten because of said benefits, and then fit yourself within your already self-defined systems. You are not special, you are just another human being, and one that seems to feel self entitlement for something that you ultimately had no control over. Grow a heart.