Another Little Englander speaks.

If Labour don't keep up the pressure on this pig's ear of a piece of legislation, they don't deserve anyone's vote

They haven't deserved anyone's votes since Wilson's days.

When I advance to reading the Daily Mail then you can class me as such.

The British Army isn't perfect, it's underfunded, undermanned and too often has cliques of stupidity/over-aggression like those seen in the US Army. (deepcut, Abu ghraib etc) but I know the view of several serving British Army officers toward our cousins across the lake and it appears to be a view shared by many other nations.

It's generalising obviously, but the US soldiers appear far more removed from reality and robotic (blindly parroting phrases obviously taught them in basic training) whereas British soldiers appear more "normal".
There are obviously issues with PTSD but far too often in the US Army there are "incidents" with soldiers who haven't particularly seen any intense combat.
Then there was that massacre a few years ago (I forget where it happened but the courts martial/inquiry has basically just cleared the US soldiers) where because one of their troop was killed they went on a rampage deliberately murdering innocent civilians. In their evidence some of the privates described how their training put them in that mindset.

Now the Americans are going to have more incidents simply because they have far more troops out there than anyone else. And as I said, it's a generalisation. But there is certainly an issue with the "mental condition" of many US soldiers

Which is an example of acceptance of a prevailing view.

If you get presented with the view of US soldiers being a bunch of gun-toting yahoos that will shoot indiscriminately and cause massive collateral damage, most people will accept this view, despite the fact that they have no actual experience of dealing with the US army. It is something we have been conditioned to believe.

Its like we are conditioned to believe things about state provided services being inefficient and private sector being efficient. Most people will for instance say by default that there are too many civil servants and the civil service is inefficient and bureaucratic. And yet Whitehall is at its smallest in headcount since the Second World War and it administers a hugely difficult task of providing services to 60 odd million people.

We are told to believe that the private sector is efficient and the state is inefficient but how many private sector companies have a few boom years and then go bust.....is this efficiency? The civil service can't be 'wound up' it has to carry on, when times are hard, it just has less money to use.

It all depends how efficiency is measure doesn't it? I'm sure most Enron shareholders though the company was efficient, right up to the moment the sky fell in.

The danger is when we start using commercial standards to measure how efficient a public service is. To my mind, a public service is efficient when it delivers a quality service to those it is serving. Nothing more, nothing less.

My mind was wandering someplace else this afternoon and I found myself thinking...

If a Government could give you the option to not pay your tax and national insurance to them, but instead pay the equivalent amounts of money to various private establishments in order to provide for yourself rather than depend on the state, would you do it ?

So (just for arguments sake) 20% of your equivalent tax take would go to a private health insurer, 20% to a private pension provider, you'd pay per mile for driving on all public roads, you'd only pay for the police if you called them out but they'd be allowed to keep any fine revenue they imposed on you, your public transport and utilities would no longer be subsidised but have to charge exactly what it cost to offer their services to you, you'd have to look after your parents when they became ill or senile, or pay for someone else to do the work - you get the idea ?

Would anyone really opt out ?

For what reason would you pay the armed services? Defending the garden shed? Undertaking pogroms in West Yorkshire? Imperialist adventures abroad?

The Queen would pay them, they're her soldiers after all

Well its work in progress for sure, but maybe we'd only have as many armed forces as could be raised by public donation, you know, those tub thumpers down the pub who's persistent solution to all manner of insurrection in foreign parts is to "send the troops in" - I'm sure those people would be well placed to contribute a small token of recompense in order to pay for those troops whereas those who didn't, wouldn't.

Or - have an insurance company collect premiums just in case your house ever needed defending from marauding heathens...

Well the problem would be public goods like street lighting, where you can't exclude people from using them, so everyone has an incentive to 'opt out' and rely on the fact other people would opt in and they could free ride on them.

But yes your point is a very valid one and the idea of pay-per-mile on roads is usually one that the advocates of small-state privatise everything balk at, if you suggest that it wasn't the state's responsibility to provide for roads but that they should be sold off to private owners that can then reserve the right to charge what they want (based on market demand) for people to drive on them. That would also result in the most efficient allocation of cars on the road as people would naturally avoid roads that were in high demand as they would have expensive tolls, and look for alternative routes. But the advocates of privatise everything hate the idea that they might have to pay to use things they expect to be provided for free.

I'm just curious as to the reaction of those who promote free enterprise above state intrusion and exactly where they draw the line between individual responsibility and the state responsibility.

I'm pretty sure that if you could cost the NHS contribution as a percentage of the basic rate tax and then offer that percentage as a credit to individuals on the proviso that they take out private medical health insurance instead and that if they ever turn up at an NHS hospital its on the basis that they produce their documents and get charged for treatment, then I think a lot of people would actually consider that to be a viable option.

I don't, not for one minute, but I'll bet that many people would, they would be mainly in the 18-40 age group, the ones who could get private health insurance for a reasonable rate but I'll bet that within that age group there are a lot of disgruntled individuals who object to paying for something that they perceive as a waste of public money - pensions is another huge minefield where an opt-out from NIS would be of huge interest to the same age group.

Of course when you're in your twenties you never dream that the private health provider of choice may one day refuse to renew your premium for any reason whatsoever, or may double your premium just because you're 45 this year, or may, as I've seen happen in America, only pay for a limited amount of treatment - the example I saw quoted by someone who was selling a mobile home to raise funds was of a cancer sufferer who's insurer had paid for 12 months of treatment and then no more, if they can cure you in 12 months then you're laughing, if not you die.

Thats where the individual freedom to purchase social care falls flat on its face.

I think a really fun one to consider would be whether or not one could opt in – or out – of 'defence'.

My Nigerian neighbour says he's staying firmly on his side of de fence

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Meanwhile, over at 38 degrees they have voted on what they want to do next about the NHS billl. They are trying to force a Commons debate on whether to scrap it and there's a petition calling for that. At present it's up to 60,000 names on it and if/when it gets to 100,000 names it can force the debate as HM Gov says any petition of 100,000 means a debate happens. Petition is here ---> epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/22670

Meanwhile, over at 38 degrees they have voted on what they want to do next about the NHS billl. They are trying to force a Commons debate on whether to scrap it and there's a petition calling for that. At present it's up to 60,000 names on it and if/when it gets to 100,000 names it can force the debate as HM Gov says any petition of 100,000 means a debate happens. Petition is here ---> epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/22670

Quote ="El Barbudo"Meanwhile, over at 38 degrees they have voted on what they want to do next about the NHS billl. They are trying to force a Commons debate on whether to scrap it and there's a petition calling for that. At present it's up to 60,000 names on it and if/when it gets to 100,000 names it can force the debate as HM Gov says any petition of 100,000 means a debate happens. Petition is here ---> epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/22670'" does this constitute a mass debate then ?

Quote ="El Barbudo"Meanwhile, over at 38 degrees they have voted on what they want to do next about the NHS billl. They are trying to force a Commons debate on whether to scrap it and there's a petition calling for that. At present it's up to 60,000 names on it and if/when it gets to 100,000 names it can force the debate as HM Gov says any petition of 100,000 means a debate happens. Petition is here ---> epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/22670'" does this constitute a mass debate then ?

The Commons is largely populated by mass debaters, so yes.

Far earlier than that young Gilder. It was probably written by one of: Bill Oddie, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Frank Muir, Denis Norden, Barry Cryer, Marty Feldman, Ronnie Barker, Ronnie Corbett, Dick Vosburgh, Anthony Jay, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones or Michael Palin.

Or possibly some lesser-known writer of The Frost Report

many of the above of course greatly influenced by Peter Cook

Coddy and sanjunien – indeed!

God, I feel old!

And Gilder attempting to pretend he's young!

Quote ="El Barbudo"Meanwhile, over at 38 degrees they have voted on what they want to do next about the NHS billl. They are trying to force a Commons debate on whether to scrap it and there's a petition calling for that. At present it's up to 60,000 names on it and if/when it gets to 100,000 names it can force the debate as HM Gov says any petition of 100,000 means a debate happens. Petition is here ---> epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/22670'" Over 100,000 by 21.25 tonight

Quote ="El Barbudo"Meanwhile, over at 38 degrees they have voted on what they want to do next about the NHS billl. They are trying to force a Commons debate on whether to scrap it and there's a petition calling for that. At present it's up to 60,000 names on it and if/when it gets to 100,000 names it can force the debate as HM Gov says any petition of 100,000 means a debate happens. Petition is here ---> epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/22670'" Over 100,000 by 21.25 tonight

113,548 as of 9.34am.

Oi, cheeky - compared to some on here I'm a relative whippersnapper.

All things are relative, dear.