Capitalism and Fascism Part 3 of 3

[Ranger4564]

I am with you brother, but I hope you realize that you are speaking to people who are for the most part, complicit in the crime and willfully ignorant, so that they can sleep at night. I am of the opinion that most people are not ignorant of the harm that capitalism causes around the world, they just choose to pretend those truths don't exist, so they can continue to exploit others for their own welfare, all while pretending to be decent people. Truth is, most people are criminals themselves.

[shemphowardfan]

Is that a Chick tract in your intro?

[zthustra]

Yes it is. A kind of humorous statement of sorts. I keep a huge pile of these tracts. I have no idea what I am going to do wtih them, but I think they are funny.

[shemphowardfan]

@zthustra

The comedy gold of a Chick tract is unmeasurable. Keep up the good work Uncle E.

[crimthann86]

and for Christ' sake make your comments open to the public.. and there are jobs in NE Pennsylvania with the natural gas drillers and it's not expensive to live here.. FYI.. especially if you got your CDL.. but they need other workers too.. they hired a friends x wife with good pay and she ain't near as smart as you..

[crimthann86]

more unsolicited advise.. putting a green screen behind you and putting some scenery in your vids woud be nice.. also make them less than 3 minutes as that's important for peoples attention spans.. I can't bring myself to putting my self on camera so I should talk But since you got that far you could do a little production work and get your point across better then you would get even more christian trolls like me giving you a hard time.. ;-)

[stjimmy933499399493]

it is my understanding that modern socialism, particularly democratic socialism or marxist-humanism is a refinement of Marx's theories, much in the same way that modern evolutionary theory is a refinement of Darwin's theory. though Darwin's original theory was very problematic his crude understanding of natural selection was correct. in this way Marx's original solutions are problematic, his crude understanding of the necessity for people to control the means of production is, imho, correct

[stjimmy933499399493]

@stjimmy933499399493 and you may call me a marxist if you like, i take it as a compliment :)

[zthustra]

I don't guess I would be offended if someone associated me with Marx of Engles, and I don't think anyone should be.

I guess my point is that I am NOT a Marxist or a Fascist and anyone who labels me in that way is intentionally mislabelling me hoping to stir some emotional responses. I don't want that person in my life or on my channel. They are unwelcome here.

Marxists and Fascists are both welcome here, especially if they are honest enough to tell us they are Marxists or Fascists.

[zthustra]

Big thumbs up!

That is how I view Marx. I don't agree with some of his ideas but I appreciate his genius just the same. I hate it when people everything someone says just because they disagree with one point.

[crimthann86]

no comment section on your channel.. :(

reading the very end of your channel description you would think you're a die hard fundie awaiting the rapture to wisk you away from this orwellian world that we created.. **sigh** the alternative is that things might be getting better and the 20th century wasn't that great anyway.. Jesus Loves YOU ;-0 have a swell day.

[zthustra]

I must disagree! The 20th century was the most awesome and unbelievable period of human advances in science, technology, quality of life, education, philosophical change, and damned near everything.

It was an awesome century because we spent the energy savings of millions of years of oil accumulation and the easily accessible mineral wealth on our selves without regard for sustainability and future generations.

There are limits to growth and now we are in overshoot. Read about overshoot.

[zthustra]

I curious why you think that this person called Jesus loves me and what that is supposed to mean to me.

Yes, I understand the context in which you posted and it and I appreciate your well wishing for me. But I don't understand why you would post it knowing that I am an atheist and don't believe that a mortal or divine Jesus, as represented in the Bible, exists or ever existed.

And yes, I plan on having a swell day, with or without Jesus' love.

[crimthann86]

I was just being a smart ass as I read your profile.. in that context it probably wasn't something to be appreciated.. I guess there is a little troll in me but not that I don't consider other people.. it's a rainy yucky day and I should have better things to do.. ;-)

[zthustra]

Sometimes the troll just needs to get out and play. My troll is always waiting for someone to post something like "Jesus loves you" so it can get out. I guess our trolls feed off one another.

[crimthann86]

Yes, you are right about the Troll.. but it's much easier to drop the Troll bomb when somebody has their comments section on their channel active..

As the 20th century.. good riddance. Yes, we exploited and did things in the early industrialization days but they're were benefits too and the liberal and conservative machines both were bought and paid for by a few powerful people. All is true but it's getting better and there is evidence of that also.

[crimthann86]

oh and Jesus does love you, just to be clear, but I have no issue with atheism but it often is just trading one fundie thing in for another as reality is never black and white.. but I understand the frustration and the cynicism.. that's not always a bad thing either.. Peak Oil.. well probably not, but so what..? I wish they would bring back the trains and get the trucks of the highway..  and make everybody buy health insurance but hmm well.. God bless America :-)

[Yahkadog2]

death of the middle class by design....how do we fix this? any ideas?

death of the dollar...whos behind tha?

[TheAtheistPaladin]

Immigration is all well and good but there does need to be a limit to the number that comes in. Not only to keep the markets from being flooded by super cheep labor but also to keep the infrastructure (schools, police, roads, ect.) from imploding from the strain of the additional population. Services can only grow so fast before they are out striped by immigration.

[zthustra]

I wish I could give you two thumbs up on that comment! Infrastucture investments that might have been good for 50, 75 or more years are now insufficient because of population growth. Without massive immigration, population growth would be negligable. Western human monkey things have socially evolved a bit and we don't make quite so many babies as third world immigrants do. They will turn that corner too, but it will be too late for our economy.

[TheAtheistPaladin]

It all pc to say that immigrants don't have more children, but I would bet anyone 50 bucks if a non-basis study was conducted, that would be their conclusion: Immigrants have more children.

[AncientAtheist]

Living on scraps, I thank you for taking the time to do these 3 videos.

[MotionFur]

Speaking of abusing words. What do you mean by extortion? Sounds like you wish to apply some sort of subjective word like "reasonable" to voluntary transactions. In the example of the men providing water, did they threaten people with force, or use force against those who wanted to choose not to buy? Should no one make money from anything? Or should it be only for luxuries? Sounds like you want to shame farmers for making money off of bread, how can you make money off the staff of life?!

[MotionFur]

But at the end of the day, if you had to choose, would you have kept those men away from providing water from the people who needed it, if that was the only way to stop them from profiting from it?

[MotionFur]

In fact, I'll just answer this one for you. Yes, you clearly see the use of violence legitimate against people engaging in voluntary transactions. I would argue, this idea that violence against voluntarism can be "good" is the very root of so much inequality in the world before you today. Once people are okay with using threats of violence, or actual coercion, against others who have not initiated aggression against anyone else, you create a great niche for those who truly with to exploit.

[zthustra]

I object to calling what those men did "extortion". I guess I didn't make that clear in the video. After three takes you think you said things that you didn't. My point was that the courts called it extortion, but they never call medicine extortion even when people might die without it and the cost in the US is THREE times what it is in the U.K. and double almost any developed nation.

[MotionFur]

"I object to calling what those men did "extortion"."

Oh, I think I may have mistoook a sarcastic parody of the court's view as your own. But I fully agree to the double standards presented by the courts. Not that I agree that a doctor putting high prices on his labor is extortion, but of course our medical situations here in the US are so manipulated, doctors are able to charge high prices because supply of medical services are politically restricted.

[evensgrey]

Yes, government actions have managed to restrict the supply of medical services quite badly in the US. If you want to see a worse situation, look at Canada, and even worse, the UK.

[zthustra]

Excuse me, but I am wondering how the government in the US is restricting the access of people to medical care? If you have money, you can get anything you want in medicine. Check with Micheal Jackson on this one.

It seems to me that the people who decide whether or not most people can get money to pay for a medical procedure are privately owned insurance companies. Hospitals and clinics always check with them first before they decide whether you get healthcare.

[evensgrey]

The medical insurers don't actually have anything to do with the artificial scarcity of health care providers in the US. It's actually a fraction of the doctors who decided that the cost needed to go up, convinced the government to help them (under the guise of 'improving quality') and drove many doctors out of medicine, while creating a market of modern medical insurance.

The old way many poorer people got health care was Lodge Practice. You got it as a benefit from lodge membership.

[zthustra]

Oops, I didn't notice that there was a "scarcity" of health care providers in the United States. Seams like there are hospitals and clinics all over the place. In fact, it seems like we have an overabundance of specialists.

Now Honduras, Nigeria and Afghanastan, those are places where there might not be enough doctors.

Here in the US it has nothing to do with how many doctors there are, it has to do with whether or not you can afford to see them.

[evensgrey]

That's what you get when to government creates an artificial scarcity. You might THINK there's an abundance, but there really isn't, and there isn't much in the way of freedom to choose a style of practice for individual doctors, either.

[zthustra]

Everyone is free to purchase the healthcare of their choice. It's just that some are more free than others. Oddly, those who have the most wealth seem to be the ones with the most freedom to choose.

Evensgrey, you assume that you know a lot about what is going on in my head, and you don't. I have 20 years of experience in medical technology, many of those in management.

I have also had a lifelong fascination with alternative healthcare and I know how licensure and regulation limit choice.

[evensgrey]

You've made another trivial error:  Equating alternative healthcare and alternative healthcare PROVISION.

[zthustra]

I didn't equate alternative healthcare to alternative healthcare provision, I equated it to style of practice.

Rereading your previous reply with the most recent one, I guess you were talking about how an MD or Do (allopathic) physician chooses to manage their business, more specifically how they bill their patients.

If you have enough money, none of this matters, you will get the healthcare you want, allopathic, naturopathic, or whatever. If you don't ... well to bad.

[evensgrey]

Yes, government action has eliminated low-cost styles of practice.

[zthustra]

You have posted so many jewels like this one. Look through your comments and replies and you will find that I have given many of them a thumbs up. I don't do that often, but points like this one are awesome.

Why is it that government is working to eliminate low-cost styles of practice? Not only things like lodge practice, but also naturopathic approaches? Who benefits from high cost medicine? How many ways do they benefit?

[evensgrey]

Naturopaths have three problems: Most of it doesn't WORK, some of it is DANGEROUS, and there isn't any real principles to it. It also isn't being generally suppressed, and is not a style of practice, it is a hypothesis about medicine itself.

Lodge practice specifically was effectively destroyed at the behest of some doctors who found it objectionable that anyone but doctors was setting the billing rates.  Lodge practitioners were paid much less per patient, but had a guaranteed income.

[zthustra]

Something like lodge practice was recently being implement, someplace in California I think, and the government forced them to change to conform with standard billing practices. That sucks! I wish I could remember the details.

Are you familiar with Christian Brotherhood? I used to sell health insurance. I bumped into this awesome system of taking care of one another's medical bills. It is run as a ministry to avoid insurance laws that would prohibit it.

[evensgrey]

That's what happens when you don't have a free market.

I've never heard of Christian Brotherhood in the context of a medical payment system. It doesn't really sound superior to any other system that would be implemented without a free market.

[zthustra]

We agree that most of what falls into the area of alternative medicine is NOT all that great and is often dangerous, especially if it keeps people from seeking effective treatment.

These practices end being almost like a black market and that is the government's doing. The good stuff like low-carb diets, more green plants, vit/min supplements, exercise and some herbals (maybe 15%) needs to become readily available and the bad stuff like crystals and homeopathy needs to be officially exposed.

[evensgrey]

All black markets are the result of government actions. All black markets foster fraud, artificially high prices, and all manner of dangerous goods.

All the crap in alternative medicine already HAS been exposed, many times. It still goes on, of course. The black market aspects only help it continue.

[zthustra]

The way many poor people get food is to go to a soup kitchen and pretend they love Jesus. It's always good to keep the poor people under your thumb. You never know when you might need a supply of cheep labor and obedient soldiers.

[evensgrey]

Perhaps you should learn something about lodge practice first.

In lodge practice, the lodge leadership (which is popularly elected by the lodge membership) would select a doctor to provide, on contract, medical services to the lodge members. If services were not adequate, it wouldn't be renewed.

This would be one of a range of services the lodges provided to their members. Most people could choose from a range of lodges, often related by profession, area of residence, religion, or hobbies.

[zthustra]

Once again, you are arguing with the strawman. I'm sure you feel confident that I am an idiot and don't understand, but you are missing my point totally and competely. I'm not even going to bother trying to reword things to make my point. Maybe someone else can tell you what my point is.

[evensgrey]

Pretending that you didn't make statements is unable to make them strawmen.

[zthustra]

I'm not pretending that I didn't post a comment or reply, I did. What I am saying is that my comment or reply had nothing to do with whether or not lodge practice was well managed.

[evensgrey]

That makes you reply irrelevant, pointless, and worthless diversion.

[tattooskin72]

I'd actually put almost all of the blame on the pharmaceutical and health insurance providers. I'd have to look into it more, but I think most Doctors are out there for the good of all and are bound only by their relationship (uneasy at that) pharma and health insurance... If a doctor is honestly only out for money, I don't want him/her working on me.

Great video and I will definitely have to make a response to this video in particular.

[zthustra]

If you worked a little closer to the physicians you might begin to be more cynical about their motives overall. Yes, there are some awesome docs but most of them are in it for the money. I have so much more to say but I should say less.

[tattooskin72]

As much as I love it when you do say more... if you feel uncomfortable expanding on that then it's ok :) I'm only less cynical about doctors because of my history with my plastic surgeon. As a child born with a cleft lip, I had to wait 2 years before my parents actually found a doctor that would perform my corrective surgery. He did it at a cost next to nothing. Then again, he could do that because of how much he charge those that came in for "elective reconstructive surgery".

[kurtilein3]

tattooskin72:

remember the table, and things leftover falling from the table? you got your bit. in a country where you have socialized healthcare, they would have fixed it right away, and depending on the country your parents would not even get to know how expensive it was, because the bill directly went to the government or some government-controlled entity. society already decided that you are covered before you were born and already paid for it using taxes.

[tattooskin72]

I know that... I'm just saying that the doctors, to me at least, are less at fault in all this than the pharmaceutical companies an insurance providers. While Z might know a bit more about it from the doctor perspective. I wish we did have socialized health care here... it shouldn't be a for profit venture. Insurance I mean.

[evensgrey]

Non-emergency surgery in countries with socialized medicine takes WEEKS. For instance, UK data is at

w w w. dh. gov. uk /en/ Publicationsandstatistics / Statistics / Perform ancedataand statistics/ HospitalWaiti ngTime sandListS tatistics/ index . h t m

(That some finding, not too much).

Wait times are interesting: As of October 31st, 621401 waiting, only 72649 for LESS than 1 week, for inpatient surgery. I couldn't locate a legend do I can't tell if it has a breakdown by type of surgery.

[Bernd1964]

I was a member of a socialist party (SPD) in Germany for more than 10 years and I never had any problem with communism. I can hardly understand why the people in the US detest so much communism. Communism is a broad movement with many faces. But as I said before, most established social and political ideologies offer no real prospects for a resource depleted world. To look for new answers, we first have to discover that we all belong together and that greed is the root for social injustice.

[zthustra]

Communism - a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.

I think there needs to always be room in any social-economic system for private ownership. Even in the socialized healthcare system in the U.K. there are many private clinics. People need to feel that their personal property is there's and they can, if they wish, be entrepreneurs and own their business.

[zthustra]

Socialism - a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

I think that so some degree this is plausable and necessary but the question is to what degree. Should auto manufacturing be owned by the people collectively like the post office is? I don't know.

Communism is ALL, socialism is SOME important sectors. At least that's how I read it.

[Bernd1964]

If we talk about Capitalism or Communism we talk about social orders that evolved in the age of plenty, in which eternal (economical and social) growth was considered possible. But nowadays we face everywhere the limitations of the finite sphere called Earth. Greed is a very ugly quality of human beings. It was and still is the reason for many bad social and political developments in history. To have a future we must invent a new social order without the need for economic growth and wars.

[dewonthegrass]

I feel a lot of bitterness in your voice.

I agree that there should be more regulation in the health industries.

People don't realize the presence of exploitation by the ruling classes.

[zthustra]

I might be a little angry, but more frustrated.

People outside of medicine don't have any idea how big a marketing scam is being pulled on them. The science of medicine is awesome but the money/business of medicine is a HUGE problem. The people are not getting what they should while the professionals and owners in medicine are becoming insanely wealthy ... at least in the U.S.

Yeah, maybe a bit jaded!

[MrUnscientific]

Shocking medicine prices. Eye/Ear drops as far as I know here are less than £5 over the counter.

I have to go out but I'll watch the last of this vid later...

[zthustra]

What I am buying is over-the-counter Maxitrol (neomycin, sulfa, polymixin B plus dexamethasone). I get two 5ml dropper bottles shipped from Europe to the U.S. for $75 + $5 S&H without a prescription. I'm sure it's illegal but I don't care.

One bottle of the same brand and size is $72.26 in a U.S. pharmacy. Generics are MUCH cheaper, only about $11.99.

But you have to add the cost of the doctor's office visit which will be $100 - $200.

There is more to this but no room here.