Worldview Wonders...

Against my better judgement, I got involved in a Usenews "discussion" with David Friedman about healthcare, among other things.  Its not going well.  Part of the problem is I just really really can't see the world through his eyes and I find his worldview as troubling and uncomfortable as that of the communists he appears to hate.

In fact, arguing with him reminds me of mistakenly trying to have a discussion at University with representatives of the Socialist Workers Party - the fervour is the same, the cold logic, the unyeilding belief in the cause.  Its all there.

I have some sympathy with a libertarian worldview, but during the course of our discussion the lengths to which David attempts to apply his Anarcho-Capitalism to pretty much everything regardless of the impact on others or the population as a whole are just insane, or seem to be insane to me.

I'm wondering if this is a "fannish" thing in general, or if I'm just a middle class snob from Hertfordshire who shouldn't have worked in recruitment in the Northwest...  all things are possible, but David's rather starry eyed Henleinian vision of man is pretty much a180 degrees from my rather depressed cynical one I developed doing a lousy job like that.

I'll admit I was working on one extreme of the social bell curve but it wasn't fun.

No Debate...

Came across this as part of my debate with David Friedman.  It still amazes me the anti-healthcare feeling in the US.  In some respects it is like the creation/evolution thing, most of the industrial world wouldn't even consider it worth debating.

It also amazes me to see the dis-information bouncing around as actual research.  If you scroll down the article there's a bunch of links to articles explaining why, for example, "Healthcare is not a right".  

Proponents of this type of thing, Rand Simberg, for example, tend to be pro-space settlement.

Would you rather settle a space colony with a bunch of social-democrats or a bunch of anarcho-liberatarians?

There's probably a novel in there...