[tome]

I agree with a large extent to what you're saying, but I don't like the way you've used it as a platform to presnt an anti-government opinion.

In the UK we have a government body http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NICE which oversees which treatments the NHS can provide. This is another way of avoiding paying for treatments rather than cures.

I suspect both a market-based approach, and a single-buyer approach can work. In the US you have a weird government supported insurance industry driven approach with leads to the worst of both worlds.

[stretchwithme]

government is coercion, the use of force against peaceful people. I can't imagine why that would do anything but destroy. People look at what escapes destruction as if government created it.

yes, we have a weird government supported insurance industry driven approach that is quite distortive and destructive. I am fully in favor of ending it and letting peaceful people make their own choices.

[tome]

Sorry I don't buy this. When it comes down to it, society in itself is coercion. If you don't like that you can go and live on the moon, but whilst you live with and near other people, coercion will exist.

The problem is to accept coercion and discover its most beneficent form, not eliminate it.

[kiba]

Most part of society doesn't involve coercion. Most of us don't go around threating people with murder because we believe it to be wrong. If most men are criminal, we wouldn't be able to have a civilization.

What people really should be striving for is voluntary alternatives to coerciveness measures, not trying to find the best form of coercion.

[stretchwithme]

it is possible for people to voluntarily cooperate. they can do so in matters of mutual defense and many other things. THAT is what civilization depends upon, as a matter of fact.

In fact, this is exactly how most people live their lives. They wouldn't think of using force against others, except when it comes to defending themselves and the people and things they care about from those who use force against them.

But when people get together in a group, they suddenly feel they aren't bound by the same standards. They somehow acquire rights beyond simple self defense. And history is littered with corpses as a result.

coercion is not necessary to cooperate, to have a society. coercion IS necessary to take advantage others. that does take the use of force. people don't seem to go along with being abused willingly.