ArgumenTyion is excessively creative, refusing to accept conventions as norms of discussion. He is a moving object in any debate, and will adjust his position according to changing circumstances. ArgumenTyion will frequently speak without thinking much in advance, or formulating a cogent opinion. He relies on a stream of consciousness approach to discussions which makes understanding his position very frustrating; this is not because of his own cunning, but rather because he has not static position.
Ultimatius is a quick study of any issue, but his analysis is almost always through the lens of social democracy, and against homogenizing political phenomena that do not advance social democratic ends. He is not reliable, especially if he is in a position of suboridination, which he feels is always an injustice. As a static observer of the world around him, Ultimatus believes that everything can be explained through the political theories of the 19th, and early 20th century. Needless to say, he lives with his parents, and adores the state.
Debate: Is the superbug a new justification for anti-immigration policies in the UK, and elsewhere? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-10925411
ArgumenTyion http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/canada1946/chapter2.html
Fairclough famously let in Hungarian refugees into Canada in the 1950s. These folks had viral infections etc. Very controversial; epidemic was averted by isolating the Magyar speaking immigrants, making them cook gulash for the Canadian immigration officies. And it was all good.
Ultimatius
Um, not sure about that. Famously, Hungary had the best system of healthcare in the world at the time. No kidding.
ArgumenTyion
I can’t say much about Eastern Block healthcare, insufficient data. I know quality of healthcare requires economic stability/growth, health knowledge diseminiated to the public, perhaps certain aspects were superior to the NHS not sure.
There were political refugees, however, in the 1956 era, disease is always possible where there is poverty; some were smuggled in potato sacks.
Hungary in the 1950s may have had germinated bacteria and viruses in their closed territorial space. When they were exposed to new human carriers an epidemics could have happened. Small pox reduced the Indigenous populations of the Aztec peoples, (for example). My Dad’s friend on a trip to China, contracted a strange virus which almost blinded him.
The point is geographic mobility can spread diseases, on a global scale in 2010. Quickly from Mexico, to London, leading to a 65% reduction in classes sized in November 2009 when I was teaching in France. The right wingers could use these facts to curb immigration, they have to be defeated with counter-arguments. What are they?
ArgumenTyion
they have to be defeated with counter-arguments.
Ultimatius My father arrived in the UK in a sack.
Eastern Bloc healthcare was good. There were a lot of doctors and nurses, and it was one of the areas where Soviet knowledge/technology was as advanced as Western knowledge/technology.
Ultimatius
What is more, the healthcare system worked much better in smaller countries – easier to plan, to organise, to allocate. With regards to arguments? Hmmmm. I would recommend that the argument would go something like this: if we curb the freedoms of immigrants, under the assumption that they carry diseases, we ought to curb the freedoms of ordinary people, under the assumption that they too carry diseases. otherwise we’re being inconsistent, because it both cases it’s an a priori assumption backed up by little evidence.
ArgumenTyion
People who endure stressful life-changing events at early ages tend to work harder than complacent perfect-little-childhood People.
Soviet knowledge/technology may have been in fact more advanced, probably in preventative care but the standard of living, I speculate, was generally over a period of 50 years much lower, therefore even with the best healthcare system, patients die more frequently; and are more susceptible to sudden illness.
COUNTER-ARGUMENT: Short-term, you’re correct and it’s a weak counter-argument. SO long-term, we need to invest in technologies that quickly assess the bacterial, viral content of a given individual, either a tourist, a returning Brit from abroad, a refugee, or an immigrant. No discrimination. Such technologies will be needed to quarantine disease-carrying individuals who are then placed in high quality NHS care-centres. All doctors will be forced to wear space suits, work in levitation harnesses, thereby floating above and around their patients. Patients can apply for jobs from their beds using interactive non-touch-screen computers programmed in over 2,500 forms of communication. It’s the 21st Century, we can save these people and get them working for a better Britain.
A lot of Irish – who came to Montreal in 1820s – where put on isolated islands in the St. Lawrence River where they died by starvation. We can do better than that.
Ultimatius
Sometimes that’s true. But having a shitty, abusive childhood just made me lazy and despondent. It is widely acknowledged that: in the Eastern Bloc, relative standards of living today is now lower than it was in the 50s and 60s, but that’s no reason to endorse the Soviet system. Statistically, Americans are more likely to be infected with diseases than Europeans, on account of healthcare being less available generally, so should we stop US citizens from emigrating into Europe?
ArgumenTyion
The US conversation again?! Tres passe, monsieur. I’m talking about a post-nationalist discussion here.
US citizens are naturally more likely to get an infected disease, there are 310 million of them with a hierarchical approach to quality healthcare & other opportunities including a push to turn the internet into a tiered system, faster for the richer, slower for the poor.
The EU is 500 million with universal healthcare almost everywhere(?). So yes, this technology – as long as it preforms at the 90 percentile – should be used indiscriminately against any individual entering the geographic space known as the UK.
The Soviet system preformed well into the 1960s with massive industrialisation projects: innovations, entrepreneurs with big dreams for a better future. That is according to some academics, it was only when reactionary elements within the intelligensia came to power in the 1970s that the USSR and by default the Eastern Bloc suffered declines in standards of living. What is essential to note however is that there were massive black markets in the Eastern Bloc caused by the inefficient command economy, especially in the 1970s and 1980s. There was a surplus of television sets and scarcity of toilet paper in the late 1970s within the USSR, for example. Healthcare is essential but only part of a larger public policy puzzle.