As Corporations and Government merge, what other "products" will we be required to buy?

[Junkdrawer]

Soon, we'll all be required to buy health insurance from private companies.

I think this sets an interesting precedent and opens up a whole new world of profit.

Sell the roads and perhaps a transportation lease will be required. Garbage collection also comes to mind.

Any others? Just think: what services do my taxes now provide?

[Junkdrawer]

1. Police protection. Fire protection. n/t

[Junkdrawer]

2. Taxes and mandated purchases blur....

So, on the one hand, I tax you and then spend the money on a privatized fire department.

- OR -

I require you to buy fire protection and I fine you if you don't buy.

What's the difference? Doesn't that extend taxing authority to this private fire department?

[rrneck]

3. If the wealthy oligarchy has its way, air. nt

[Shandris]

4. Isn't the proper, original word for...

...the Corporate State 'fascist'? I hate how often that word has been thrown around lately, but IIRC that is THE original definition.

I am appalled at the forced merging ideas. Car insurance was bad enough, now health insurance. Will we get new, private contractors to be our police force? I'm sure Blackwater or Xe or Xi or whatever the fuck its called now would just LOVE that idea...

:puke:

[Jakes Progress]

5. Coming soon.

You will be required to enroll your child in GE or Exxon schools. Your tax money to their coffers.

[Junkdrawer]

6. Ever see the original RoboCop?

Seems like we're racing toward that vision.

[Vidar]

7. Damned good question!

[busybl]

8. Grassley is so gonna lose his job

signed, an Iowan

[Junkdrawer]

9. Have you heard how they plan to enforce this? The IRS...

Your 1040 will now require that you submit proof of appropriate insurance.

Extend the idea and imagine filing taxes in the near future.

[clixtox]

10. A "Protection" surcharge is on tap...

for the mercenaries to protect you from the terrorists who "hate us for our freedom".

Hanging on to our crumbling empire is everybody's "job one"!

Our "armed forces" is a socialist boondoggle I don't hear any criticism about from the cement head crowd.

[Junkdrawer]

11. "It would be a real shame if something were to happen to your nice home"...

Said the man in the pinstripe suit with a toothpick in his mouth

[newspeak]

12. or maybe like the movie "Brazil"

remember the scene where they barge into this home and there's the family and they kill the father for not paying his bill? Then they find out it's the wrong address. "We killed your husband, the main breadwinner, we're so sorry." And the mother with her children are crying and asking what's to become of them now? And then there was terrorism everywhere, with giant public screens showing "the enemy-the terrorists". And people eating dinner while a bomb goes off and others are killed, and they are still acting unaffected. Then you find out that there is no resistance, it's just a corporate creation to keep the plebes in line.

I am against privatizing certain services-I believe that privatization leads to less accountability and more corruption. Look at Blackwater, Dynacorp? Has Dynacorp been held accountable for the alleged sex ring in Bosnia (holding young women and forcing them into prostitution) or the alleged rape and imprisonment of its' own employee? How about corporations using "forced" slave labor in Iraq? Remember the testimony in congress, those who had been taken by gunpoint, forced to do labor in Iraq? Has Blackwater really been held accountable for murdering civilians or using possible illegal weapons? These corporations don't have to follow the Geneva Convention. How about that prison story, where the judge was in cahoots with the private juvenile prison, to send more kids there? These corporations basically are given our money to provide a shoddy service, since they have to make a profit.

I believe that an efficient government can do certain things better, while paying their employees a decent wage. These government agencies have more accountability to their citizens than corporations.

[treestar]

13. How could it be enforced?

You go to the hospital and don't have insurance. What do they do? Arrest you?

[Junkdrawer]

14. See post #9 -- The IRS

I shit you not....

[treestar]

16. If you don't have it, what happens?

They keep your refund and use it to pay for the insurance?

[Junkdrawer]

17. $1000 per person fine...n/t

[Davis_X_Machina]

15. Everyone is Switizerland...

....after their experiment in health care provision, is obligated to buy 19 kg of Toblerone and a pocket knife. Annually. And the knife has no corkscrew.

It was inevitable.

[alittlelark]

18. The nightmare worlds of our Sci-Fi movies coming to life...

I love Sci-Fi... I thought we had learned from the genre.

I don't really know what to say.
:(