[ExI] Yet another health care debate.

[Samantha Atkins]

On Sep 23, 2008, at 8:06 PM, Damien Broderick wrote:

> At 07:55 PM 9/23/2008 -0700, Fred Moulton wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 2008-09-23 at 18:31 -0700, Lee Corbin wrote:
>
>> > I'll even claim that in a nation of millions, (does the reader
>> > really know how big that is?), it is probably optimal for the
>> > greatest good and maximal progress that a very few people
>> > starve to death each winter through having alienated absolutely
>> > everyone who would help them, and a few people freeze to death
>> > every winter (because we don't have universal 1984 type
>> > surveillance, and so none of their neighbors even knows,
>> > assuming they'd help some real nuisance guy or gal).
>>
>> What you just wrote is disgusting.
>
> I rather thought that's what BillK and I were saying, Fred--that the  
> opinion is disgusting yet one can find it enunciated by some  
> libertarians, even here. ("Even" here? You know, I've rarely seen it  
> spelled out so brutally anywhere else.)

It was neither disgusting nor what "some libertarians" think.  It was  
merely nothing that a dynamic imperfect system has optimal points  
within the limits of its capabilities that still allow significant  
misfortune to some number of people within the system.  It is a truism.

- samantha