![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyVia ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zingerella, the second-most disturbing news I've read this week: A 12-year-old boy died because his family didn't have dental insurance. It would have cost $80 to save his life. And we Canadians aren't in a position to be smug about it, either; with dental coverage excluded from provincial health care plans, this could have easily happened here.
This, dear readers, is why I get so incensed when I encounter people who are against universal health care. There still exists a pervasive myth, at least in North America, that the invisible hand of the free market will solve everything. As far as I can tell, the invisible hand of the free market exists only to give hand jobs to the rich and knock the teeth out of the poor.
The most disturbing news I've read this week comes via Lenin's Tomb, and it has to do with the revival of the use by the U.S. of the strappado, a medieval torture device. It's apparently also known by the Israelis as a "Palestinian hanging." Hey, remember when the Israeli government claimed that it banned torture and didn't torture people anymore? It's not like anyone believed them, but it was indicative of an idea that the general public considered torture distasteful, and something that should at the very least be kept under wraps. I guess we can forget about that.
zingerella, the second-most disturbing news I've read this week: A 12-year-old boy died because his family didn't have dental insurance. It would have cost $80 to save his life. And we Canadians aren't in a position to be smug about it, either; with dental coverage excluded from provincial health care plans, this could have easily happened here.This, dear readers, is why I get so incensed when I encounter people who are against universal health care. There still exists a pervasive myth, at least in North America, that the invisible hand of the free market will solve everything. As far as I can tell, the invisible hand of the free market exists only to give hand jobs to the rich and knock the teeth out of the poor.
The most disturbing news I've read this week comes via Lenin's Tomb, and it has to do with the revival of the use by the U.S. of the strappado, a medieval torture device. It's apparently also known by the Israelis as a "Palestinian hanging." Hey, remember when the Israeli government claimed that it banned torture and didn't torture people anymore? It's not like anyone believed them, but it was indicative of an idea that the general public considered torture distasteful, and something that should at the very least be kept under wraps. I guess we can forget about that.
