Grmpf, my DSL was down.
quote:
Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
"Those who are irresponsible enough not to wear seatbelts usually aren't prepared to fork out major amounts of cash to pay for their medical bills. Then what do you do? Let them die on the road, or treat them and never get the money?"
Let their family deal with the bills, the immediate ones anyway. The ones after that too, if they go there.
I'm not a big fan of protecting people from their own bad choices by laws.
Phoenix-D
Problem in Germany is, you cannot do this. Our constitution forces the state to care for your health (free hospitals, EMS). Of course it is not “free”, you give a certain amount of the cash you earn in a insurance. However, EVERYBODY has to pay into this so if you go out and do something most stupid we all have to pay the bill. I know, you want to say that everybody has to care for his own and your are right, to a certain degree at least. But this system has its benefits: We don’t have poor people that are in very bad health or die because they cannot afford to get treatment.
Re: Safety belts. Dmm, you said it all. I was thinking about the anti-drug-law reference myself but you already posted it.
Regarding Germany:
We do have states in Germany, too, you know?
You have to report where your lat/house/something is to the community you live in as it they get taxes from you. You don't report this to the police. How do you do this in the US with IRS anyway? I’m curious.
There are two situations you have to report your religion to the IRS. You are either a member of the catholic church or of the protestant church. Why? Because these two big churches collect their fees over the German IRS.
If you are a Jew, Moslem or Hindu or not a member of a church at all for example you are not required to report anything about your faith to the Government.
Some people in the US (some Hollywood people, I remember Dustin Hoffman) called us “religious intolerant” because one faith did not have to report membership to it to the IRS. This faith made not very friendly statements in magazines throughout the US about it. The background was (but of course they never told it this way) that this faith wanted to be recognized as a church in the way the big two churches are so the IRS would collect their money for them. German courts denied that for several reasons but not because they were not a church in the sense of a religion. Everyone is free to believe (or not believe) what he wants. But not everybody can have the state collect money for him.
quote:
Originally posted by PvK:
This is also why I said I'd call for a public referendum - that means asking for a vote to make sure that the people really want to be policed in these ways, and that it's not just something being imposed upon them.
Yea, but this insight isn't that popular in the world after 11th of September around the world anymore. Every community has to defend itself against terrorism but I sometimes ask myself if not to many of our liberties as citizen are going down the hill. At least here in Germany many politicians where very eager to bring up laws that they could not pass before the 11th September.