"Conservatives Interfere With Health and Research"

I just posted on another thread about the dichotomy of Richard Riordan's "stupid, dirty girl'' blurt and the scam of USA conservatives trying to sell themselves as 'compassionate'.

Well, this is also what 'compassionate conservatism', USA-style, looks like.

The only thing they are compassionate about is money.

And the thing they get really passionate about is taking other peoples'.

Remember that when you go to pull the lever or punch out the chad or push the touchscreen in November.

(Wish you could come over and vote, deb.)

Isnt it amazing that the people who profess such a profound belief in individual freedoms, fail to endorse freedoms that have anything to do with personal habits, entertainment, etc.

Like Michael Moore said recently, and I of course paraphrase
"when something offends a liberal mind, a liberal minded person avoids the offensive thing Or tries to provide more information about it.
when something offends a conservative mind, the conservative wants to make that thing totally unavailable to everybody"

He was talking about his movie but you get the significance of the reference.

PDiddle - just because one "gentleman" in California has shown himself to be a horse's ass, please do not tar every Conservative with his stench.

I'm not tarring him with anything, Jim.

He's doing a fine job of that without any help from me.

In the middle of a forest one loses count of all the trees.

In a mushroom house, one mushroom pretty much looks like aall the others. Its all I could think up

Scary stuff, eh?

Not to mention what is happening with American sponsored family planning clinics overseas...sigh.

And I'm wondering whatever happened to the old fashioned concept of the person who wants a service paying for it himself/herself and not expecting others to provide it for him/her. Most of us find the money to do what is important.

I suspect then that you would find a toll both on every street corner to pay for the roads you used quite congenial and would cheerfully limit your travel accordingly.

No, streets and roads are necessary for promotion of the common welfare and therefore are a legitimate function of government. I don't have any problem with toll roads to build and/or maintain a road if the road is needed and the government is short of funds to build it however.

Public Health is equally necessary for the common welfare, and that includes health issues related to our sexual behavior.

Yes. And the government should keep track of communicable diseases and be prepared to quarantine as necessary for public protection. Sufficient laws to provide a sense of decency and propriety are appropriate. I don't even object to having a Surgeon General with a modest staff who can keep abreast of trends and publicize health information important to the general public.

Otherwise, how much involvement do you want the government to have with your sex life? Isn't it rather specious to expect the government to fund whatever program you want related to your sexual behavior but otherwise stay out of your business? I think if we don't want the government involved in our business, we should just pay for what we need ourselves.

I have no problem with private help that may be available to those who need it.

Did I mention I am Libertarian?

Yep. THAT makes a lot of sense.

Of course, the adolescents and people on benefits in your country can do user pays very easily.

These are the main consumers of such free services.

And the very people who many feel most able to criticize for having children.

Of course, abstinence is such a well-proven method of birth control that we ought by all means be saying "Just say No!" and expecting it to work.

And, the very adolescents and folk on welfare, who are most likely to have unplanned babies in the first place - (the most vulnerable and unlikely to cope adolescents are the very ones most likely to fall pregnant - again, speaking broadly), or the same factors which led them to be in poverty in the first place (broadly speaking) - are the very ones who, research suggests, are (again broadly speaking) are most likely to have poor outcomes with their child raising, AND be thrown into poverty traps by having a child, or more children.

Good long term economics Fox! And such compassion.

Does it benefit your society more to have very good prevention of unplanned pregnancy services - and excellent sexual health clinics - or to end up paying far more heavily for health, welfare, and correctional services down the line?

Do you want 'em learning about condoms, or pay for the AIDS treatment for instance?

Not to mention the toll on the mothers and kids themselves.

This would be compassionate conservatism in practice?

As for the family planning clinics in the third world - which are also talked about - did you notice? The consumers of such services are, of course, well placed to pay. This is why many countries contribute to such services. Many countries recognize that everyone benefits from helping to address the enormous problem of over-population in many third world countries. It makes enormous sense - does it not - for the US to cut its funding for the most effective of the means offered in such clinics?

It is good to see the supposedly secular government of the USA joining in with the enlightened practices of the Roman Catholic Church in such matters. After all, these methods have proven to be enormously effective, have they not?

Oh, sorry - they have been effective in assisting in over-population and economic misery, haven't they? Damn!

Also, you have entirely neglected to address the long term research etc issues raised.

I'm a conservative who believes in science and unadultered heath care and research, including abortions and research and all else. Not everyone has thoughts that fall into lump sum categories.

Damn fine thing, Portal.

And sometimes what we tout as compassion turns out to be not so compassionate. When I see reliable statistics that show unwanted pregnancies, abortions, and STD are actually reduced with the programs the mean conservatives are refusing to fund, then I will rethink my position. I have seen no such statistics. Throwing money after programs that do not work or that actually encourage behaviors that cause the problems is not compassion no matter how righteous one feels about it.

Perhaps you simply are not looking Foxfyre. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence that programs based on birth control and condoms have been successful yet some conservatives continue to oppose programs that are not based on abstinence for religious reasons.

Here's a very clear example:

In the summer of 2001 Brazil faced down Bush's administration in the WTO.

Here's the background:

Brazil was on the verge of an Africanesque AIDS epidemic, their response has garnered nearly universal praise as the definitive example of how cuch a country should combat AIDS. To give an example, the World Bank's projected AIDS cases in Brazil ended up being cut in half by Brazilian efforts. The United Nation's Special Session on HIV/AIDS singled out Brazil's feats in combating AIDS.

But the Bush administration had sought to take the fight to Brazil and force Brazil to pay the inflated market prices for imported AIDS drugs.

The US had to back down after a well orchestrated PR campaign that threatened an international backlash against the US. CNN called it a "potential public relations disaster".

From CNN:

In a statement, the U.S. Embassy in Brazil said: "This dispute was not about health or access to drugs. The United States never sought or intended to undermine Brazil's successful anti-AIDS effort. Let there be no mistake; we applaud this effort." Privately, a senior official at the U.S. Embassy admitted, "Brazil handled this really well. They had world opinion on their side and played their cards beautifully."

Here's the story:

In 1999 Fernando Enrique Cardoso declared AIDS a medical emergency to evoke clauses within Brazil's patent laws to allow them to produce generic medicine.

Brazil had tried to negotiate lower prices with US drug manufacturers but they did not lower the prices enough for Brazil to maintain their AIDS program and Brazil issued temporary permission for certain of the AIDS cocktail's drugs to be produced locally.

Brazil was able to reduce the costs by 72.5% through production of the generic drugs while in the same period the imports only dropped by 9.6%.

Brazil was therefore able to continue to successfully fight their AIDS problem. But the Bush administration did, in fact, attempt to interfere and backed down because of a worldwide backlash.

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America got the Whitehouse to try to take Brazil to the WTO over the generic drug production.

The US recognized that this meant removing up to 100,000 Brazilians from treatment but very cynically called this "tough love", arguing that the number of lives lost in the short term would be dwarfed by the number of lives saved by the drug companies revenues for future research.

FHC's health minister Jose Serra responded to these arguments saying:

"The trouble is, the patent for AIDS drugs represents a pure monopoly condition in what's become a global epidemic. "The drugs' prices are about 10 times their cost. Is this necessary to finance investment and research as their manufacturers claim? I don't think so."

This is a very clear case of a conservative administration heeding pressure from American corporations to interfere with a demonstratably successful health program.

They openly admitted that their move may cost loss of life and claimed the loss of life would somehow be recouped by the American Pharmaceutical inductry if they were allowed to continue to price their drugs at 1,000% of the cost to manufacture them.

In a thousand years, Margaret Sanger may be the Jesus Christ of women of child-bearing years right across the planet . . . it would be fitting . . .