On Mon, 29 Nov 2010 09:38:07 -0500, "Alexandros Nipirakis" said:

> Since my opinion adds nothing to the conversation (RE: how moral is
> the postal service, how good is it for the government to regulate
> price gouging) I won't say my opinion (and besides, others have
> already expressed it so it would be redundant at this point).  I think
> the only relevant thing I can bring to the table is that this is (in
> my opinion) clearly political, and I think you really have to look
> past a good deal of the conversation not to find the politics in here.
>=20
> In the US, there are two theories, one that says the government can
> and should provide certain services, the other that says the
> government cannot and should not provide certain services.  The debate
> is clearly partisan between left and right, and even if you are not in
> the US, the debate is essentially the same everywhere.  I trust that
> all those involved know that what they were posting was political, and
> they are also able to predict the obvious consequence of such an
> action.
>=20
> I think that people on this list already get up in arms enough about
> issues having nothing (or little) to do with politics without
> interjecting core (and largely subjective) conversations onto the
> list.  I feel that if this is what the list is to become, it will
> become boring for most people that actually follow the list.
>=20
> With that said, I think that the admins have the ultimate right to
> decide what is and is not allowable.

Excellent summation of my feelings, and better than anything=20
I could have written.

But I can share something that may help some of you understand why I may
seem more sensitive than others.

Earlier this year I helped save a man's life. One of the other tenants
where I work burst into my office and said "come quick, Steve's hurt
bad"(His name isn't really Steve). He was laying dead of a heart attack
just inside the large courtyard of the business complex my office is in.
I gave Steve CPR while my neighbor called emergency services(911). About
six or seven minutes later a fire truck with paramedics showed up and
took over. A few minutes after that an ambulance came. They gave Steve a
hypodermic in the chest and also jolts of electricity and got his heart
going and off they went to the hospital where he spent three weeks in
intensive care and another two in the cardiac center after having an
implanted defibrillator. He's doing fine now and scheduled for a bypass
operation soon. Steve is a small business owner and in today's economy
has lots of debt and almost no income and has no health insurance. But
he has gone through the paperwork to be declared indigent and his
medical bills are going to be paid by the state.

If any of the Vitaliy's social or economic policies had been in place,
Steve would be dead today. Either there would be no emergency phone
number, the firemen wouldn't have been trained paramedics or would have
refused to come, the ambulance wouldn't pick him up because he had no
means to pay, the hospital would have refused him, he wouldn't have
gotten the defibrillator, or he would have committed suicide because of
the $729,000 final medical bill(yes, I saw it, it really was $729,000).

So I don't want to hear about Libertarian politics. My friend is alive
today, and they'd have him dead.

Thanks for listening.

Best regards,

Bob

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