1. “Here we go again” – I was going to write about this, but Jim Hines has saved me the trouble, and said it better than I could anyway.
2. This is not censorship:. Neither is this. Neither was the time I told a senior manager I really didn’t appreciate his use of the phrase “jew him down”, even though he didn’t speak to me for the next few months. (Fortunately, he wasn’t my direct boss.) Censorship is “You can’t say that”. Courtesy is “This word has connotations you may not realize – and I know that you’re a polite person who wouldn’t want to offend people accidentally.” One possible definition of “adulthood” is “the stage at which one realizes and is prepared to deal with the consequences of one’s own actions”. Admittedly I just made that definition up – but do you disagree? (And if so, why?) So when someone says “If you say that, I will be offended,” they are presupposing a degree of adulthood in you, and are courteously advising you of the consequences of a choice you face. You are then entirely free to try not to use that word (at least, not around that person) or to use it and face the consequences of causing offense. If the latter is your choice, well, that’s fine. Just don’t expect other people to deal with the consequences for you, by sticking around to be offended again.
3. Speaking of words that do not mean what people seem to think they mean, here is the Merriam-Webster definition of “socialism”:
socialism1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
I have now lived in two countries with nationalized health care plans. According to the definitions above, neither is a socialist state. They do both have socialist aspects: for instance, in the Netherlands the workers’ unions have extraordinary power, and must approve not only layoffs but also even reorganizations within a company. This is also why all workers there have 4-6 weeks of vacation time per year and get compensated (possibly with comp time rather than money) for overtime. In Taiwan, the government sets the limit on how high gas prices and utility prices are allowed to go. (And in the US the government sets standards for e.g. food and drugs, to which private companies are required to adhere.) Both the Netherlands and Taiwan have free speech, and practice it with gusto.
Further, I’ve heard stories about people being required to wait a long time for non-emergency surgery in Canada and even being denied care in England. I’ve also heard vehement denials that those things exist at problematic levels. But the point is, those are not the only games in town. The Wikipedia article on Universal Health Care lists sixty-five countries that have it. Again; it doesn’t matter if that number is completely accurate: point is, there’s a whole bunch of them.
I can vouch that the Netherlands has terrible dentistry and that Taiwan’s waiting rooms are noisy and crowded, and I’ve been told hospital food is so bad in the latter that families usually bring food to patients. So let’s not copy those aspects of their systems. Give me Dutch waiting rooms and Taiwanese dentistry, along with the standard of care in either place (I think Taiwan is a little better, actually) and I’ll be a happy and healthy woman.
In mountain biking, experts advise riders not to stare at a rock in the track. You’re supposed to look where you want to go, not where you don’t want to go. Similarly, maybe it would be a good idea to quit talking about what doesn’t work (other than the current US system!) and start looking at what does. Sixty-five other countries have obligingly shown us a wide variety of models to study; it would be downright ungrateful not to examine them.