I wonder if the honourable member would support an amendment to the legislation that would maintain the NHS in its present form, but ameliorate existing inequalities by cutting the salaries and equipment budgets in the currently best performing hospitals.

I heard one of them yesterday complaining that foundation hospitals would lead to a 2 tier health service, which would mean some of his constituents getting a 2nd class service.

He doesn't seem to realise that at present, they are all getting a 2nd class service.

Astonishing... that is tantamount to Taylor saying he is against anyone getting a better healthcare... and would prefer crap for everyone as it is more 'fair'.

I think he really sincerely means that, Perry.

I wonder if Labour MPs realise how unfair it is that hospital operations happen in an order? [Due to the scandalous fact that there is not yet a properly-equipped operating theatre staffed with surgeons and nurses for each and every patient in the NHS] Isn't it essentially wicked that anyone gets their hip-replacement before someone else? Surely it would be better if no-one ever got a hip replacement at all so there could be no queue anyone could be said to be at the front or back of?

Just stop the operations altogether, and the vile biasing of health-care towards people who get operations earlier than others for outrageous reasons of surname-spelling, coin-tossing, "accidental" proximity of hospital bed to operating theatre, and other disgusting con tricks played at the expense of the working people of this great nation, Can Be Finally Stamped Out At Long Last.

He is sincere in preferring equally poor service to different levels of excellence. The same applies to education of course.

Equality is their god, their supreme being. Nothing can challenge it.

David Moonbat, MP for Barking.

Perry de Havilland writes:

"Astonishing... that is tantamount to Taylor saying he is against anyone getting a better healthcare... and would prefer crap for everyone as it is more 'fair'."

I'd bet you a penny to a pound that is *exactly* what he thinks. It's an argument I've encountered among old socialists time and again - frequently applied to education. The sheer illogicality of it is close, in my estimation, to a form of madness.

He would probably admit proudly that he is against any improvements that would be available to fewer than all. I have had lefties and statists of varying stripes take this position to my face without the least sign of embarrassment on a variety of issues.

They would rather everyone be equally miserable than have anyone be better off than his fellows, for any reason.

The non-utilitarian amorality of this position is lost on them completely.

I've heard the same sort of things from Canadian acquaintances. I suggest to them that it's a fundamental human right to take care of oneself, including by paying for one's own health care. And then I ask why Canadians should have to go into "exile" to exercise this right. You should hear the responses I get.

What's most depressing is that the Canadians I talk to generally talk about their health-care system with a sense of moral superciliousness.

I'd have to check with my mum* and dad but I'm pretty sure that I said out loud at a fairly young age, "what is the point in everybody being equal in Russia when everybody has nothing". If I can work that out at roughly 10 years old what's wrong with these socialist buggers? But how do you argue with someone who is so covinced that we should be poor and miserable together? Or, and that this is a good one, that Poles going to work on trawlers in Iceland is, get this, 'unethical'. So in your mixed up logic voluntarily exchanging your labour for mutal benefit outside of your own country is 'unethical'. I was beating my head against a brick wall there I can tell you.

*at Christmas I got her to do the self-gov.com nolan chart quiz. You'll be pleased to know she came out high up in the top right!

The idea of equality-come-hell-or-high-water is an old one, and has been admitted to openly for decades. Referring to Ayn Rand's 1973 article "An Untitled Letter" in 'Philosophy: Who Needs it" (also originally found in three parts in The Ayn Rand Letter, January and February 1973), she quotes CUNY philosophy professor Marshall Cohen, a reviewer of John Rawls' "Theory of Justice":

---
However that may be I, for one, am inclined to argue that once an adequate social minimum has been reached, justice requires the elimination of many economic and social inequalities, even if their elimination inhibits a further raising of the minimum.
...
[we] ought to forgo some economic benefits, if doing so will reduce the evils of social distance, strengthen communal ties, and enhance the possibilities for a fuller participation in the common life.
---

In other words, Rawls thinks total equality is the moral ideal but we must be practical and acquiesce in the barest minimum inequality required to have productivity enough to fund the welfare state, and that leftists think Rawls is being too generous in what inequalities he 'allows' for those of greater abilities even if eliminating them makes everyone worse off.

There is nothing, never was anything, and never will be anything that is even REMOTELY moral about modern egalitarianism. It is not about abolishment of genuine political classes - they haven't existed in the West for over a hundred years. Egalitarianism is pure hatred and envy, and openly admitted as such! Equality-worship is evil through and through. Thus, T Hartin, "amorality" you say? You're being just a wee bit timid in your judgement, don't you think??