I’d Give My Liver To See Her Shiver
Posted on July 15th, 2009 by D. Aristophanes
Megan McArdle confesses: ‘I don’t understand the ban on paying for organs.’
She thinks there ought to be a market for body parts and wonders why this might be ‘controversial’. It meets a need, see, on the part of both buyers and sellers — the former for kidneys and such, the latter for scratch. A healthy solution all around .. especially for society!
As for Megan’s own participation in such commerce, somehow I imagine that she envisions herself more of a potential consumer rather than one of the lucky suppliers.
Seb adds: Don’t forget the obligatory references to Thomas “Brother, can you spare a kidney?” Sowell.
Also, why can’t we own humans again? It would really be a lot simpler, and there is a market for that sort of thing.
I think she was talking about kidneys (not livers), which is actually a decent idea.
Reminds me of “Ralph Spoilsport’s new and used body shop here in the city of the future! Lease an organ or limb from our headless body farm, made in America from–Americans!”
Both would also be great ways for foreigners to earn their citizenship! Give me a kidney, or work in my garden for a decade or two!
WHat is it with right wingers and making a profit off my body?
I’m guessing she’d perform the procedure with nothing but a 2 x 4.
She really is a special kind of stupid. Just … dear lord …
Absolutely NOTHING can go wrong with these plans!
“Ralph Spoilsport’s new and used body shop here in the city of the future! Lease an organ or limb from our headless body farm, made in America from–Americans!”
Damn. He’s branched out from used cars AND fallout shelters????
I’m guessing she’d perform the procedure with nothing but a 2 x 4.
You’ve met her anesthesiologist, I see.
Perhaps if her organ market were implemented, she could buy a brain.
The fact is, I see no repercussions from private organ selling. Same goes for sniping high-speed getaway vehicles from helicopters. Also, know what would be cool? Chocolate microscopes.
You terrorist-coddling liberals would like to see America go without these things, wouldn’t you? Address my post, libs!
I’d like to sell her my liver. It might crack when they take it out but so what? I’ll get a cheap one from Consuela when she some to do the cleaning. I wonder if she has this in mind?
What’s the state of the art in humourless dildo transplants these days?
Meganlegging.
not understanding things is megan’s specialty.
Ralph Spoilsport’s new and used body shop here in the city of the future!
On the Antelope Freeway, just past the Santa Baby off-ramp.
All you latte-sipping East Coast liberals out there with two kidneys just aren’t hardcore enough to take the monoadrenal plunge!
You’ll get over the decreased efficiency of your digestive system just like I got over my decreased typing efficiency when I sold six fingers to a hungry Sherpa. It’s not like I need them to live.
I’m guessing Brother Niven is *not* on Meggy’s reading list.
that’s not funny.
Somewhere, a liposuction specialist is having a very bad idea about transfats.
WINGNUT: “I don’t understand why [insert free-market policy] is so controversial.”
PERSON: “Well, it would fuck over poor people.”
WINGNUT: *blank stare* “Right, so… what’s the problem?”
OT- TPM obliterates Jake Tapper. See ya, Lil’ Jakey!
The sad part (OK, one of the sad parts) is when you tell ’em “move to Somalia” they think it is a joke.
They are so out-of-touch, for whatever reason (rich, sheltered, Asperger’s – take your pick) they don’t get that, joking aside, that’s the sho-nuff reality of what they are talking about.
I’d would have thought the “objectively anti-Civilization” genes would have gone the way of the moa, yet somehow they continue to breed.
OT- TPM obliterates Jake Tapper. See ya, Lil’ Jakey!
Man, talk about your humorless dildo…
I don’t find it particularly surprising that someone who wondered aloud, publicly, many times about “what’s the big deal with torture” would now be suggesting, aloud, publicly, that the poor be re-purposed as organ farms.
But hey, she may be on to something here. Perhaps organ derivatives can supply the next speculative bubble needed to get this economy moving again. Like the last one, we can game the poor and middle classes to get this bitch rolling, and when we’ve all traded 100 billion kidneys back and forth and so on, we’ll discover that there are actually only about 14 billion kidneys in real terms – and you don’t even wanna know what this bailout is gonna look like.
Kidney Default Swaps?
Colon-ized Debt Obligations?
Maybe she should just check the lost-and-found at the U.S. Postal Service. I hear you can pick up some parts there pretty cheap.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6416459.stm
Logically, of course, Megan should therefore support prostitution on the grounds that if it’s okay to sell parts of the human body it’s likewise okay to rent them retail.
It’s only a matter of time before we have this:
Well, on the face this might not sound like a good idea, but it does highlight a couple of very real problems.
There’s a serious shortage of donor kidneys (and other organs, though obviously only kidneys can be donated while keeping the donor alive). The shortage has created a blackmarket for donor kidneys and poor people from third world countries get suckered into donating a kidney, but then get inadequate medical care and rarely get paid the amount of money they were promised.
So of course for Megan the answer is teh free markets. At some point we’ll probably be able to grow organs from tissues of the person in need, thus obviating all sorts of rejection scenarios, but that’s still a ways off.
Major Kong – exactly. Liver Donors, Inc. was in the back of my mind as I was writing that!
You’re right about the kidney default swaps I just defended, of course. They’re going to blow up and it’s going to be the shitstorm of all time. Nice shirt, by the way.
Also, why can’t we own humans again? It would really be a lot simpler, and there is a market for that sort of thing.
Again – you’d just be just purchasing organs wholesale! See? FREE MARKETS FTW
and you don’t even wanna know what this bowelout is gonna look like
Fixed!
Logically, of course, Megan should therefore support prostitution on the grounds that if it’s okay to sell parts of the human body it’s likewise okay to rent them retail.
*whew*
I’m glad somebody else said it.
D.A.’s just upset that there’s all this new public support for a kidney market now that he can’t find his.
Perhaps organ derivatives can supply the next speculative bubble needed to get this economy moving again.
So I can borrow your kidneys, sell them to highest bidder, then wait for the kidney market to collapse before I buy two back for you, thus making a pure profit!
Let’s keep making fun of the idea without addressing the facts that (a) we have a shortage of donor kidneys that results in more people dying, and (b) no one would force anyone to sell a kidney,so the poor people who supposedly would be “fucked over” would be in no worse position than they are today.
Megan is just slyly saying “Please ignore anything I say regarding healthcare forever X infinity.”
She’s a clever one.
Let’s keep making fun of the idea without addressing the facts that (a) we have a shortage of donor kidneys that results in more people dying, and (b) no one would force anyone to sell a kidney,so the poor people who supposedly would be “fucked over” would be in no worse position than they are today.
And you believe a free market would solve this?
Do you not see the inherent flaw in the logic that paying people for body parts is a win-win game?
So a “sanctity of life” conservative thinks it should be okay for the poor in third world countries to sell their teenagers’ organs to the wealthy, to raise the scratch to buy a new plasma TV. Got it.
Do you not see the inherent flaw in the logic that paying people for body parts is a win-win game?
Well it’s definitely got its problems but since it’s currently happening in blackmarket model, those poor people that are participating are getting seriously jacked.
This NYT article lays out a lot of the details:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/world/organ-trade-global-black-market-tracking-sale-kidney-path-poverty-hope.html?pagewanted=1
[apologies but the link won’t embed for some reason]
Let’s keep making fun of the idea
Okay.
So what then under Meganlogic would be wrong with using organs harvested from death penalty criminals? I mean, why let them go to waste when the profit can help offset the court and prison costs?
And then of course why not expand the program a bit? Why not take redundant organs like kidneys from prisoners in the first place? After all, it can be part of their punishment, and again help offset the costs.
And then, well, you know, people on public aid, well, they should pay the taxpayer back in more ways than just workfare and what better way than contributing to health care by giving up a kidney?
No, I can’t see how Megan’s idea could go terribly, terribly wrong. Nope.
BTW, let’s just take a look at the whole idea of “free market-controlled health care” to begin with and how that’s worked SO FUCKING WELL in this country in the first place.
So it’d be better if they got jacked in the open? Because that’s really the only difference between the two. “Free market” means exactly what it says; no regulation means that there would be no protection against poor people getting jacked.
To the claim that nobody’s forcing them to sell their organs: starvation is pretty strong coercion.
And on the other end, it is unlikely that they would be selling their organs to the people who need them directly— there would be a middleman (or a few) involved. Since donated organs are a necessity, the middleman can raise the price and know he’ll still get business, thus screwing over both the donors and and patients.
Let’s keep making fun of the idea without addressing the facts that (a) we have a shortage of donor kidneys that results in more people dying, and (b) no one would force anyone to sell a kidney,so the poor people who supposedly would be “fucked over” would be in no worse position than they are today.
Well, yeah, no one would force anyone to do anything, just like we don’t currently force people to work for minimum wage, even though they can’t earn enough to live, just like we don’t force illegal immigrants to work for even less than minimum wage…it’s a choice. And certainly it’s an insult to democracy if we stand in the way of letting people who’ve got the money buy this one thing when they’re allowed to own unlimited amounts of just about everything else. And really, the guy who can’t find work or help of any kind…we’d be doing him a favor by giving him a legal way to auction off body parts so he can feed his kids, rather than just giving him a handout.
It’s not enough that they own us economically; we need to create incentive for them to own us physically as well? (Not that they don’t already to a certain extent – just try getting a crappy low-wage job without first pissing in the cup. Doctors, lawyers, CEOs, or other high-paying positions? What’s a little weed smoking amongst friends, heh heh. Don’t bother with the cup.)
A friend told me they make these fake penii with fake bladders attached, so a male prosepctive employee can piss in a cup, with people watching, and pass a drug test, no matter what kind of drugs he does. I imagine one for women would be more difficult, but not necessarily impossible, to make.
McArdle isn’t a “sanctity of life” conservative, she’s just a self-centered glibertarian.
Or, alternatively, PENIS.
FYWP
PENIS
So it’d be better if they got jacked in the open? Because that’s really the only difference between the two. “Free market” means exactly what it says; no regulation means that there would be no protection against poor people getting jacked.
Well, usually “in the open” does mean regulated, in the same way that decriminalizing prostitution and various drugs can make the pursuit of those things safer for the people who choose to participate.
I think you point out one of the major moral pitfalls of this and that’s that the people who are choosing to donate are only doing so under a form of extreme economic duress. I think ultimately it’s not a great idea, but I think it’s also got a lot of nuance to it.
In related news, the release date for BioShock 2 has been pushed back.
FYWP
FYWP
FYWP
Click on this, and pretend the word PENIS appears where the link is:
http://www.ureasample.com/buy-drug-test-solutions/store/comersus_viewItem.asp?idProduct=1072
FYWP FYWP FYWP FYWP
FYWP FYWP FYWP FYWP
FYWP FYWP FYWP FYWP
FYWP FYWP FYWP FYWP
Liver Donors, Inc. @ about 2:34 into the clip.
This is one of my favorite scenes from that whole movie: The “Very Large Corporation of America”, the plaint about how there is still stuff they don’t own, the whole bit.
well, I support being able to buy brains at Whole Foods.
Problem is, conservative ones are usually small and not ripe.
Republicans do, however, contribute the majority of humorless dildos.
Let’s keep making fun of the idea…
Your wish is my command.
I’m Marrow Man! I’ll turn your Marrow into CASH! Oh YEAAHHHH!!!!!
…without addressing the facts…
I think Mysticdog did that back at 16:54, but since we’re being humorless dildos now, let’s do this thing.
Informed consent (see Declaration of Helsinki), including questions of guardianship and powers of attorney.
Murder for organ harvesting.
Donor follow-up care.
Payment default by recipients.
Persons with two kidneys filing bankruptcy or the potential for monetized organs to be used for debt securitization.
The devaluing of persons in general – e.g. the potential for kidney upgrading fads.
The fundamental inequity of rationing health care resources based on ability to pay.
Remember that the US is a place where wealth and income equality is, well it leaves a bit to be desired. I suspect that your primary concern of “ we have a shortage of donor kidneys that results in more people dying,” would not be addressed by an organ market. In fact, I suspect that a kidney market would actually increase the numbers of people dying for want of a replacement organ. Afterall, why donate an organ if you can score some major scrim for it later on?
Plus, Teh BUTTOCKS, also.
To the claim that nobody’s forcing them to sell their organs: starvation is pretty strong coercion.
And the status quo ban somehow makes starvation better?
A friend told me they make these fake penii with fake bladders attached, so a male prosepctive employee can piss in a cup, with people watching, and pass a drug test, no matter what kind of drugs he does. I imagine one for women would be more difficult, but not necessarily impossible, to make.
talk about your humorless dildo!!
I would think the observers would be suspicious of a guy with two dicks, however.
http://www.ureasample.com/buy-drug-test-solutions/store/comersus_viewItem.asp?idProduct=1072
Seriously, work this time.
Humorless dildo indeed. And if you google it, you come up with stories of people getting caught using these. I tried to post a link to the product website, but nooooooooooo…
Hmmmmm….rich, sheltered, or Asperger’s? Hard to say with this one – writes better than your average high-functioning autistic, so I probably have to go with sheltered.
I would think the observers would be suspicious of a guy with two dicks, however.
I think PeeJ already posted a PENIS link to that guy. Anyways, under the new ME-gan rules, he could just sell one.
Doctors, lawyers, CEOs, or other high-paying positions? What’s a little weed smoking amongst friends, heh heh. Don’t bother with the cup.
Actually that can be quite annoying.
I would think the observers would be suspicious of a guy with two dicks, however.
You forget – these authoritarian types tend to be Republicans.
They would probably be deeee-lighted with the prospect.
FYWP
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=fake+penis+bladder&aq=f&oq=&aqi=&fp=KxYPMM6r3XA
Maybe this will work? It’s the first search result.
Heh, leftists have a problem with people making a profit of selling organs, but no problem with abortionists making tens of thousands of dollars off killing unborn children in the womb!
2 dicks One wetsuit, Littlepig?
The free market is the solution to everything, including biology.
yeah, let those babbies be born, then kill ’em for their organs!!
Brilliant!!
Heh, leftists have a problem with people making a profit of selling organs
RedCrotch has obviously taken the initative and sold his brain already.
Adn whoever bought it got gypped.
2 dicks One wetsuit, Littlepig?
Indeed. All the benefits of DP without the geometry problems.
Why not take redundant organs like kidneys from prisoners in the first place? After all, it can be part of their punishment, and again help offset the costs.
I proposed a similar but more expansive solution decades ago. Now that I think about it, maybe California should look into it since they’ve got such severe prison problems.
Basic idea is to turn the incarceration into a profit center instead of shelling out all those taxpayer dollars as an expense. Stiffer sentences are necessarily part of it, as someone in for life doesn’t really need both eyes, after all. And all those people on death row? Do you have any idea how much it costs to keep that broken system going?
California, as an example, spends over $10 billion annually for its “corrections” program. A program which is widely conceded to be a complete failure. Making it a for-profit operation could balance their budget in one swell foop! Even better, the state could then outsource the operation to private industry and make a killing. (er, sorry)
Heh, leftists have a problem with people making a profit of selling organs, but no problem with abortionists making tens of thousands of dollars off killing unborn children in the womb!
I should have thought a conservative would have more respect for property rights – specifically the ability to kill trespassers who refuse to leave voluntarily. It doesn’t matter whether I accidentally left the door open and you wandered in or I invited you for dinner, but changed my mind when you showed up drunk and pissed in my fridge. Either way, I have the right to evict you from my property and you have to leave, assisted by the force of the state and whatever private force I can muster. If you end up dead in the struggle, tough. Isn’t that what conservatives say? So what’s your special beef with abortion?
Oh, yeah, it’s that you think women don’t have rights.
Of course, with the demand for organs it won’t be long before jaywalking becomes a prison offense in order to keep up with supply.
Say, that would make a good science fiction story! (which, of course, it already did going on forty years ago….)
OT, but this little bit on Ewick The RedState’s behind-the-scenes nut-gargling during L’Affaire Sanford should effectively nuke all past and future claims to credibility.
I don’t believe an innocent baby is a “tresspasser”. Would you shot a snall child in the face if he came on your property with no intent of harm? I don’t think so!
You wouldn’t break open his skull and suck out his brains with a vacuum cleaner, either!
…effectively nuke all past and future claims to credibility.
That ship sailed quite some time ago. POOH-POOH!
What you humorless dildos are failing to realize is that once President McSocialist gets done with is Commieslamofascist take over of the medical profession, all working white men (see Teh Plumber, Joe for example) will be forced to forfeit one kidney to the greater cause.
You’ll just be working at your plumbing job one day and go in for your regular checkup and BAM you’re missing a kidney. And, he’ll probably give the kidneys to poor black single mothers who don’t even need them ’cause they’re too busy doing drugs and driving around in Cadillacs.
PENIS, POOP, HUMORLESS DILDOES
Is that Megan McCurdle in the pic or Lyndie England?
FY FY FY FY FY FYFYFYFYFYFY WP
As for “womens rights”, what about the rights of all the female babies killed in the womb every year?
Here’s what happened to the brain RedCon sold.
“no one would force anyone to sell a kidney,so the poor people who supposedly would be “fucked over” would be in no worse position than they are today.”
Um. I know this is going to sound crazy, but a small increase in the minimum wage would have roughly the same net effect, without actually causing anyone to have to risk their life and health to accomplish it. But I guess I’m probably missing the point.
By golly, when I think about ovens killing chickens, I just want to cry.
Ah I remember sitting in the bar in Tokyo, on a rainy night, listening to the singer croon a song in English which came out, I swear to God, as “Cry me a liver”
The line “I cried a liver over you…” in particular choked me up to the point where I could feel my spleen ducts tearing up, but luckily I retained control and left no vital organs in my martini.
Ok, let’s try this again: here’s what happened with the brain RedCon sold.
FYWP!!!!
As for “womens rights”, what about the rights of all the female babies killed in the womb every year?
Conservative concern for “life” begins and ends in the womb.
Funny thing – there’s this thing called “contraception” been invented in the last thousand years or so (no wonder wingnuts don’t know about it) – it lets you have sex and not have to worry about pregnancy! Wild, huh?
It’s no wonder all of her thoughts have broken necks, forced to dive in the shallow kiddie pool that is her brain.
I guess it’s actually like Amazon’s “inventory on demand” or whatever that’s called, where instead of using people as cannon fodder in wars they start harvesting them piece by piece. I wonder if some day people’s organs will be drafted.
Damn.
What?
My spleen is saluting again. Basic training. It reports next week.
It’s no wonder all of her thoughts have broken necks, forced to dive in the shallow kiddie pool that is her brain.
WIN.
Also, she had a thought once, but it died of lonliness.
There is, in fact, a solution to the organ shortage that doesn’t involve a remake of that terrible movie The Island: Mandatory organ donation. This superstitious bullshit has to end, and I say this as a relatively unlapsed religiousman.
It’s certainly less offensive than McCardle’s “idea.”
You wouldn’t break open his skull and suck out his brains with a vacuum cleaner, either!
Oh? What makes you so sure?
That ship sailed quite some time ago.
Sure enough, and its not like anyone outside of the Trike Force believes a word he says, anyway. Its just rare to have documentary evidence of the shilling and it would be a tragedy not to use it as a pinata stick.
You wouldn’t break open his skull and suck out his brains with a vacuum cleaner, either!
I might not, but zombie rotten mcdonald most certainly would.
FYWP if this ends up double-posting:
The real solution to organ shortages is mandatory donation. Humans relinquish all rights to their bodies once they leave them.
So what then under Meganlogic would be wrong with using organs harvested from death penalty criminals? I mean, why let them go to waste when the profit can help offset the court and prison costs?
Hep C?
I would if he seemed to be intent on forcing his head through my cervix.
You wouldn’t break open his skull and suck out his brains with a vacuum cleaner, either!
Worst pinata evah.
I would if he seemed to be intent on forcing his head through my cervix.
That’s why the smart executive who doesn’t have time for birth relies on an answering cervix.
In Megan’s defense, it’s not her job to research subjects she doesn’t understand before she writes about them. Well, okay, actually it is, but I have to give the woman credit for being able to hold down a gig at the Atlantic with that consistently lazy and ignorant output of hers.
If you Google “selling human organs,” it will take a whole five seconds to find thousands and thousands of articles addressing the matter at length, presenting the pros and cons in detail. The latter outweigh the former at least ten to one. But I’ll cut Megan some slack. She’s got a wedding to plan.
it would be a tragedy not to use it as a pinata stick
Your wish, &c.
If he wants something more pooh-pooh for the blog to pooh-pooh. Obviously he’s got more than the usual suspects trying to make pooh-pooh out of this and we’re big pooh-pooh.
I always thought that libertarians really wanted to be zombies.
#
Smut Clyde said,
July 15, 2009 at 19:02 (kill)
You wouldn’t break open his skull and suck out his brains with a vacuum cleaner, either!
Worst pinata evah.
not at MY parties.
What?
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooo
Just throwing this out there, with very little thought (a la Megan): but why don’t we just have mandatory organ harvest after death? Or create a long and tedious process to opt-out of donating organs?
Seems like this might solve some problems.
Just a thought.
What happens if someone buys a kidney on the installment plan and doesn’t make the payments? Does it get repossessed? Someone should write an opera about that.
Oh, wait…
Would you shot a snall child in the face if he came on your property with no intent of harm?
At LEAST RedCon is honest in admitting a woman’s body is “property”!
Djur – sorry, but yes. She’s even already begun the wedding-blogging-disguised-as-posts-on-the-economy that was predicted by someone over at either FMM or the Hunting of the Snark. I expect her plunge to new depths of self-absorbed navel gazing to be comedy gold.
Why doens’t redcon believe in the free market system working so abortioinist can make money…why does he hate Ronald Reagan
Well it’s definitely got its problems but since it’s currently happening in blackmarket model, those poor people that are participating are getting seriously jacked.
As with the death penalty, I think it’s wrong for the state to encourage the taking of body parts. Anybody ever read Larry Niven’s The Jigsaw Man? Eventually in that universe, criminals were forced to have their body parts harvested, right down to speeders and double parkers.
As a biker, that’s not a bad solution just one I don’t want left to the hands of King George Bush III
The only innoculation for the poor from becoming organ harvests is to force feed them McDonald’s and KFC, make that their only cheap and easy food source and…
Oh wait!
My heart is in tatters here, folks. Give me leave to mourn.
That’s right, Djur, she won’t be serving the backroom at the Women’s Republican Club.
In my defense, the baby was being kind of a dick.
Anybody ever read Larry Niven’s The Jigsaw Man?
A-Hem. (17:14, 18:39)
Jeez, LilPig, who has time to read these threads????
Would you shot a snall child in the face if he came on your property with no intent of harm?
But what if you are not psychic?
I’m not using my brain. Any takers?
Yeah, I don’t know what that baby’s problem was.
The Real Lessons of Mark Sanford’s Hike:
I luurrrved that guy and yet he couldn’t quit his hot piece of Argentine booty. Now I hate him. Hate Hate Hate. My on consolation is that I can delude myself into believing that this doesn’t reflect badly on conservatives.
Note this is totally different from my Hate Hate Hate of John Ensign. At least not until e-mails connecting me with trying to bury that story as it was developping come out.
Speaking of coming out… note how totally different my response was to the Mark Foley thing. Not that I’m trying to say anything, but Mark (if you’re listening), you can text me anytime you want.
Erick Erickson.
A-Hem. (17:14, 18:39)
Plus 17:02. Also.
And “Would you shot a snall child in the face” – Hell, no, I’d wait until he grew up so he could apologize to me for it.
(There’s also a Michael Jackson (OR) Catholic priest joke for that, but I ain’t going there.)
Jeez, LilPig, who has time to read these threads????
Oh sure. Don’t read the thread, then brag about having a life. And I thought this was a “safe place”…..(exeunt stage left, sobbing uncontrollably)
Don’t read the thread, then brag about having a life.
Who said I have a life? I have a short att– oh, look! A chicken!
My heart is in tatters here, folks
In the image for the video in her latest posts, she’s indicating to Doug Holtz-Eakin what size implants she’ll be getting. Apparently she was inspired by all the peopl calling her a big boob.
Start a market in organs, and before long the industry reps will be lobbying to have voluntary donations outlawed on account of the unfair competition they create. See The Gift Relationship* for precedents.
* Now available in a recent reprint!
She’s got a wedding to plan.
It’s like you’re saying that there’s a guy out there even more brainless than Megan herself. That’s crazy talk, is what it is.
Totally OT. I am stunned. Amazed, really I am. How did I manage to get through half a century without learning how to open a banana?
All those wasted years!
instead of using people as cannon fodder in wars they start harvesting them piece by piece. I wonder if some day people’s organs will be drafted.
Robert Silverberg stole your idea nearly 40 years ago. But you knew that.
via Talking Pants Marshall,
Apparently what’s going to kill Talk Radio isn’t the Fairness Doctrine, it’s crappy management.
I so hate to put down another commentor by making a reference to Silverberg’s “Caught in the Organ Draft”, only to see it go into moderation because WordPress does not like put-downs.
Or puts-down.
PeeJ – I tried that this morning, and it doesn’t work so easy. I ended up with a smashed-up banana tip, which is sub-optimal. Made my cereal experience less than it could have been.
I wonder if, for ME-gan, it’s not less about the donors, and more about the recipients. I mean, currently, in theory, there’s a list, and the sickest people get their organs first. If organs were marketable, there would be more for the “productive class”, as the dirty little bastard poors wouldn’t be hogging all the livers.
I know I really want to be commoditized. How about you? That “pound of flesh” thing might be closer than you think.
that’s the problem with fruit-based videos today. It’s all special effects.
How did I manage to get through half a century without learning how to open a banana?
Yeeeesh, don’t tell me it’s the return of the “banana as proof of creationism” thing.
In my defense, the baby was being kind of a dick.
Ah, I miss classic Penny Arcade. It’s gotten weird and overblown and not-funny in the past few years.
tbati – Just had a late breakfast and it worked for me the first time just dandily.
I ended up with a smashed-up banana tip, which is sub-optimal.
Is that a veiled circumcision reference?
So, which are you implying? That I should give up my property rights, or my gun rights?
by making a reference to Silverberg’s “Caught in the Organ Draft”,
I just looked it up, cool. In fact, it was so good I couldn’t put it down.
That’s okay, no down-putting sensed. I’m sure I know things you don’t know also. Got to be something.
Totally OT. I am stunned. Amazed, really I am. How did I manage to get through half a century without learning how to open a banana?
It’s still not Kirk Cameron.
Boy probably had all sorts of masturbatory fantasies all it turned out, he wuz doin it rong!
Megan’s way behind the Glibertarian Curve on this one. Stossel’s been in favor of people selling their organs for over a year now! Sheesh.
“Weird” and “overblown” I can agree with, but PA’s funnier than it’s ever been. Today’s, for instance, made me spit my coffee.
Eat lunch first and think about it later, kid.
It’s gotten weird and overblown and not-funny in the past few years.
Bad timing on your part. Today’s installment has as the punchline:
Djamn you Djur!
As with the death penalty, I think it’s wrong for the state to encourage the taking of body parts. Anybody ever read Larry Niven’s The Jigsaw Man? Eventually in that universe, criminals were forced to have their body parts harvested, right down to speeders and double parkers.
The donor organ solution is temporary at best. It’s really a stage between where we are now and where we’ll be when we can use stem cells to repair the damaged organ:
[full article]
And really, to me, this argues against trying to work out all the nuances of regulating an open organ donor market, since the need for the market should go away soon. But we should be aware that in the meantime, people are using the black market out of necessity (because they either need the money that badly or because they can’t get the organ they need to live).
Yeeeesh, don’t tell me it’s the return of the “banana as proof of creationism” thing.
Conversely, the existence of the durian is proof of the Manichean heresy.
Hell, and just recently we’ve had “flay that shit,” Tiamat the customer service rep… nah. PA has the same crowd-pleasing mix of byzantine wordplay, dick jokes, ultraviolence, and occasional game references that it’s ever had. And it’s not like it’s hard to ignore the occasional CTS installment or whatever.
OMFG. The comic is beautiful, but Tycho’s post is deathless art.
the existence of the durian is proof of the Manichean heresy
So Simon Le Bon is proof Joe Namath had a mustache?
Did y’all see this?
A military robot that can eat dead bodies and “could roam on its own for months, even years, without having to be refueled or serviced.”
How could this possibly go wrong?
I wonder if, for ME-gan, it’s not less about the donors, and more about the recipients.
It’s absolutely about the recipients for Megan. People advocating this market in organs are almost certainly not envisioning themselves as suppliers, but could see themselves or a loved one as buyers someday.
The need for more organs for transplants is a terrible problem, but creating a new, market-driven incentive for the economically disadvantaged to seriously harm themselves is a bridge too far to go to address that problem.
Conversely, the existence of the durian is proof of the Manichean heresy.
clap
clap
clap
How could this possibly go wrong?
It couldn’t because it’s science and progress never bites you i the ass and shut up that’s why.
It is dubbed the EATR, but I think it should be called the NOM-NOM.
Clever Pseudonym — I did as you suggested and Googled “selling human organs.” I ignored one article (from Reason) that I guessed would support such sales, because I really wanted to see the arguments against this proposal, and read three others. I didn’t see anything like the 10-to-1 ratio of bad-to-good that you stated. Actually, two of the three articles generally supported such sales. The only counter-arguments were the vague issues mentioned by everyone here, that someone it would harm the poor, or that sales of human organs didn’t show adequate respect for our humanity.
But when the proposal for a market-based system has the chance actually to save many lives, those sorts of concerns don’t really hold water for me. I’m still waiting to hear actual argument, rather than invective, in response to McArdle’s suggestion.
A military robot that can eat dead bodies
Skynet Green is people! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Address his post, libs!
The only counter-arguments were the vague issues mentioned by everyone here, that someone it would harm the poor, or that sales of human organs didn’t show adequate respect for our humanity.
I’d hardly call “humanity” a vague issue.
If “humanity” was factored into the sale of anything on the market, if the true cost to the planet of every resource extracted was weighed in, if prices accurately reflected the negative impact of economic activity, then maybe, just maybe, we could consider “humanity”, in that context, a vague issue.
If Objectivists actually took the frikkin time to truly be objective, they’d understand how stupid they sound, arguing “Objectivism”.
If you don’t know why its wrong, I don’t think any comments on a blog thread are going to help you.
You need Empathy and Compassion to understand, and obviously you don’t have either, or are being willfully obtuse.
I just have this picture of MegMac needing a kidney, and me offering her one of mine, then getting her to come over to my place, taking a calf’s kidney out of a cooler full of ice, and putting it down the garbage disposal while laughing maniacally. (I’d do it with one of mine for reals, for the h4rdk0r3 bragging rights, but I’m afraid of surgery.)
I’m still waiting to hear actual argument
TEH BUTTOCKS!
Oh, sorry. Humorless dildoes – got it.
Okay, here goes.
Market for kidneys = why would I donate a kidney if I could sell it = fewer kidneys available to people without big $$$.
It’s the same argument that bleeding heart libs make up about universal health care. Kidney supply is finite – therefore it gets rationed. There is something inherently offensive about making access to health care and/or organs solely dependent on ability to pay.
Pretend I closed that tag.
Stupid government. They’re the reason he has to charge 25c per mustache ride, when you can get one in Mexico for less than half that.
You need Empathy and Compassion to understand, and obviously you don’t have either
I don’t have either, either, though I once went out with Prudence and Hope. Though not at the same time.
I don’t have either, either, though I once went out with Prudence and Hope
I had Charity, but I gave her away.
Wanton was always my favorite date.
I’m still waiting to hear actual argument, rather than invective, in response to McArdle’s suggestion.
OK, here’s a few more than two words for you:
Terri Schiavo would have been an organ bank long before her plug was pulled.
Nuff said?
Wanton was always my favorite date.
Dip her in the hot tub and you had soup, too.
Also.
I hear wonderful stories of the ultra wealthy foreigners coming to the Cleveland Clinic for kidney transplants (at 80+ years old) who bring their own kidneys!
I can’t imagine that those kidneys came along for the trip willingly, but the sheik brought ’em and the Clinic installed ’em, so what’s the harm?
Some poor fucker is lying in a ditch in Dubai with no kidneys? Fuck him, he’s brown.
Kidney donation is theft!
I kept getting the seven virtues mixed up with seven dwarfs. I’d go to bed with hope but wake up grumpy.
Rakim is dropping The Seven Seals. I like those little horns they honk.
More for rugger-lad jonny
Also let’s take this in context. Consider that we as society already think there are things on which there should be bans/restrictions on buying/selling thereof:
Guns, porn, kiddie porn, raw milk, stuff with (c)’s or ™’s on em, fireworks, medical services, accounting, lawyering, teh hawt hooker seXXorz, &c.
Honestly, do you think that there is zero potential harm in the practice of selling organs?
Jonny Fly-Half, surely?
I’d go to bed with hope but wake up grumpy.
You’re lucky. I woke up with Veedy.
Apparently what’s going to kill Talk Radio isn’t the Fairness Doctrine, it’s crappy management.
God, it would be so so so choice to see Rush Limbaugh reduced to blegging.
Nice catch, RB. I hope it doesn’t disappoint.
via Atrios,
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/07/calpers-rating-agencies-to-blame-for-huge-losses/
DKW:
Consider that we as society already think there are things on which there should be bans/restrictions on buying/selling thereof:
I’m sure Jonny b-side isn’t advocating a system in which there would be no restrictions. For example, organ transplant would be restricted to the wealthy. There’s your restriction right there!
Dragon-King Wangchuck — I can understand various slippery-slope arguments, but (as a commenter mentioned on McArdle’s thread) it seems to me that a carefully regulated process might be able to take care of those issues.
I really don’t understand the argument that by increasing the supply of kidneys available for donation, you’d somehow also increase the price of obtaining a kidney such that “only the rich” could afford a transplant.
Bottom-line, I don’t know if a market-based system would work or not, but when the alternative is to continue to allow thousands to die each year for want of a kidney transplant, I don’t see why it shouldn’t be tried.
or, we could allow stem-cell research and just regrow them from inside.
Jonny Scrum-half – kind of ironic that you’d take commenters at S,N! to task for not making an argument when we are basically responding to Megan not making one herself. She simply stated that she didn’t understand why people couldn’t sell organs. That’s was it, as if it were a simple, foregone conclusion that it should be allowed. My larger point was that, as a journalist, when Megan doesn’t “understand” something, she’s supposed to flipping RESEARCH the subject, not just say it’s good or bad and leave it at that. It shoddy, lazy, and brings absolutely zero light to the subject. If she didn’t understand the reasons why open market organ selling is forbidden, she should have bloody looked them up before commenting.
In the all the reading that you did, I hope you didn’t come across any of the stories about how painful, long-lasting, and sometimes terminal the health complications for kidney donors are; it will make your comment seem even uglier than it already does. There is nothing vague about the fact that this sort of thing would disproportionately fall on the desperate and poor. I understand your point about the value of saving lives, but maybe some of us aren’t comfortable with saving one life when the price is the ruin of another.
“I really don’t understand the argument that by increasing the supply of kidneys available for donation, you’d somehow also increase the price of obtaining a kidney such that ‘only the rich’ could afford a transplant.”
Well, if poor Megan’s brain perished in a motorcycle accident, and the person on the hospital staff who drew the short straw and had to talk to her survivors gave them the sad news, they would have a choice. Should they sell what Megan no longer needs for big bucks, or just give everything away? And if it was OK to sell kidneys, why not the corneas, heart, liver, etc.
I really don’t understand the argument that by increasing the supply of kidneys available for donation, you’d somehow also increase the price of obtaining a kidney such that “only the rich” could afford a transplant.
How do you propose that the poor pay for theirs?
It costs roughly $90,000 for a kidney transplant and then $16,000 PER YEAR for every year thereafter.
Do you think that the supply of kidneys has ANY bearing on the cost of a transplant?
I sure don’t. In fact, I can see where they would be initially more expensive until enough surgeons to handle this “new supply” could be trained and equipment purchased and that transplants would actually go down for the first three years.
cowalker-
FAIL!
She would have to have a brain in the first place, so your example is left wanting…
I think the overriding question that needs to be asked is this:
Who would sell their organs?
And the answer, of course, is the poor and desperate. The person who is (traditionally) undereducated to the extent that it would be impossible for him or her to understand the complexities of their actions and the consequences that will follow.
For Pasta’s sake, people didn’t read their mortgage documents, but I’m sure the form to fill out to get rid of a kidney will be much easier to understand.
Clever Pseudonym — I don’t read McArdle very often, so I can’t comment on her blogging habits. But I still don’t understand your second paragraph. I understand that kidney donations are painful and can have serious, and perhaps fatal, complications (at least in a very small percentage of cases). But why don’t you take that fact and say that no one can donate a kidney at all? Why does it mean only that people should be forbidden from selling their organs?
cowalker — I don’t see a problem with your hypothetical, but if I’m missing something why can’t one of the regulations that would apply to such a market be that cadavers’ organs can’t be sold?
My biggest issue is that selling kidneys shifts the assignment criteria: currently, organs are assigned to the most suitable recipient, based on blood type and current prognosis and time spent waiting, while if kidneys were up for sale it’d only depend on who’d have the most money to spend.
How does a hospital rectify having, say, five terminally-ill patients waiting for a kidney for a year and willing to pay $10,000, while the sixth patient with a chronic illness but a good prognosis has been waiting a week and is willing to pay $5,000,000?
actor212 — How are the “poor” paying for kidney transplants now, if they cost so much money?
why can’t one of the regulations that would apply to such a market be that cadavers’ organs can’t be sold?
You mean like these were regulated?
NC — Why can’t we regulate the market such that the system for selecting recipients remains as it is now, to prevent your hypothetical situation?
actor212 — Okay, so let’s not permit transplants at all, because sometimes people do fucked-up things and break the law?
tbati pointed to the less complicated solution. The opt-out needn’t be arduous either.
JHS,
They aren’t. They’re on dialysis which Medicaid pays for, and there are plenty of dialysis machines and no need to create more dialysis techs.
If they’re lucky, and there’s a donor kidney, then Medicaid will pay for it.
Creating a market for kidneys will crowd the poor out in favor of those with insurance who can pay immediately.
Okay, so let’s not permit transplants at all, because sometimes people do fucked-up things and break the law?
No, let’s not given them goddamned greater incentive to break the fucking law, idjit!
NC — Why can’t we regulate the market such that the system for selecting recipients remains as it is now, to prevent your hypothetical situation?
Then what changes?
OK, I believe amongst the exchange of barbs, facts, PENISes, myths and OT references, Teh Sadly (with the help of the free market and another decade of medical research) has solved the problem of abortion in the U.S.
When a woman finds she is pregnant, but does not want to carry the pregnancy to term, she will be required to rent a uterus. The embryo/fetus will be transplanted to the rental uterus. The biological mother will put the child up for adoption at the time of transplant. A responsible woman will have Accidental Pregnancy insurance to cover the cost of the transplant and uterus rental. If there is no way the woman or the father can cover the cost, the government will turn to funds earmarked for Accidental Pregnancy Salvage.
Eventually medical science will progress to the point where the earliest miscarriages can also be saved. They will be able to harvest the DNA from the blastocyst/embryo/fetus, insert it into an egg (already available for purchase on the open market), and re-implant it in the mother, or a rented uterus. And well worth it, because as soon as the sperm hits that egg, it’s a person with a right to life, amiright?
And there will be millions more infants available for adoption.
And I bet it would create jobs too!
What could possibly go wrong?
It would just lead to murder for organs, organs for money. Instead of spending shit tons of moolah on regulating a system to avoid that end, I would spend a relatively modest amount on organ donor outreach/awareness.
Where Megan sees rationality selling organs, I see irrationality in burying and burning them.
It’s already been addressed here before, Jonny, but can’t you see the potential for people that are under-educated, unaware of resources available on the subject, and/or desperate could be deliberately misled into believing it’s not a big deal? Or the disgusting idea that human organs can just be auctioned off to the highest bidder and not the sickest patient? There’s not even any guarantee that the recipient is actually going to survive the transplant. There are far too many avenues of exploitation that would open.
When a woman finds she is pregnant, but does not want to carry the pregnancy to term, she will be required to rent a uterus.
I got dibs on the “Hurtz” franchise!
NC — What changes is that part of the cost of the operation is a payment to the donor, which should create more donations and, therefore, more available kidneys.
actor212 — Thanks for the insult, but if there’s a shortage of kidney donors now, aren’t Medicare recipients already being pushed to the end of the line, if your assumptions are accurate about how things work? How would increasing the supply of kidneys hurt the recipients?
a carefully regulated process
Oh, yeah, ’cause I’m sure that’s what Megan would be suggesting.
*snort*
N.C. did a good job of addressing the issue of monetizing organ donations – selection criteria of recipients should be about more than just the amount they can bid.
But it looks like Jonny is advocating a system whereby selling organs is legal, but buying them is not. That does change the argument.
There is still the issue of the potential for abuse and preying on the poor and desperate. That’s still creepily bad. Also note that it’s no longer a market solution – it’s some central “organ” of government reimbursing donors. I suppose it would be paid for by tax dollars. McArdle would probably have a conniption about such a system – OMG The central Gov now owns your liver!!11one
This is a much more interesting scenario. I’d have to think about it some more to decide if I’m for or against.
Clever Pseudonym — Like I said before, I can understand some arguments, and the ones you mention make some sense. But I like to think that people should be able to make their own decisions, good or bad. We have no restrictions on who can have kids, for example, even though stupid and unqualified parents cause a lot of problems for society in general and their kids in particular.
Moreover, alternative to your concerns about under-educated people possibly being misled is that more people will die every year for want of a kidney. I don’t think that’s a difficult equation to balance.
deliberately misled into believing it’s not a big deal
c.f. the until-recently lucrative business in sub-prime mortages.
NC — Why can’t we regulate the market such that the system for selecting recipients remains as it is now, to prevent your hypothetical situation?
Uh…perhaps because under the scenario you just laid out, it’s by definition not going to be a free market at all anyway, so you’ve already negated the idea that perhaps it’s a viable way to do things in this situation.
The whole function of a “free market” is premised upon the idea that trade and prices are a function of supply and demand, and that the interplay of these forces establish the value of any given good or service.
So, you’ve already ruled out market pricing. How then do you establish the “value” of a kidney? Is that price an adequate reflection of what the seller is giving up? Who pays for the kidney? Is a kidney for a 15-year-old more valuable than a kidney for a 70-year-old?
It’s a sucky idea.
alternative to your concerns about under-educated people possibly being misled is that more people will die every year for want of a kidney.
Or we could be, you know, just totally fucking crazy and insitute a health-care system that would emphasize preventative health care as opposed to catastrophic, thus reducing the need for organ transplants in the first place.
Like I said, crazy.
(catastrophic health care being one of the reasons our health care is so much more expensive and less efficent than every other industrialized nation on the planet)
aren’t Medicare recipients already being pushed to the end of the line
Nope. Kidneys are doled out based on need.
No sale of cadaver organs permitted?
That would would allow the living poor (and ONLY the poor would consider selling an organ) to profit from selling their body parts, but not the child or spouse of a poor person who ended up brain dead. It would be quite a task trying to justify that law in the interest of the communal good of not allowing the supply of freely donated kidnies to diminish. I wonder what would be the chances of the disgruntled poor family simply refusing their permission out of resentment? Because they’d know that they could go across the hall and make arrangements to sell one of their own, which they might someday need very much.
That would would allow the living poor (and ONLY the poor would consider selling an organ) to profit from selling their body parts, but not the child or spouse of a poor person who ended up brain dead.
It would also create a legal nightmare with respect to the definition of death and can you imagine the malpractice suits filed against the doctor who called the death before the organs could be harvested????
If it’s the waiting list organizations that are directly buying the organs, then that negates most of my concerns, but I’m still concerned about the exploitation angle. You can only sell a kidney once (you can try a second time, but I think the dialysis costs might cut into your profits), and I can totally see some payday-loan-type operation springing up promising quick cash for a minor operation where they’ll handle all the details for you (and take 50% of your reward).
You can only sell a kidney once
What’s the old joke-song?
“Mister, mister! You can have my sister! She been a virgin twelve times!”
actor212:
“It would also create a legal nightmare with respect to the definition of death and can you imagine the malpractice suits filed against the doctor who called the death before the organs could be harvested????”
I’m thinking that would make some good TeeVee. Integrate your House with your Law and Order.
I’m thinking that would make some good TeeVee. Integrate your House with your Law and Order.
I said it before: Terri Schiavo.
Time to face facts, you blubbering Obots, your Messiah has ruined the economy to the point where a brilliant woman like Megan McArdle is forced to think about selling her organs. Hear that? That’s the sound of her boots walking away from your precious Obot Party, the sound of my boots, the sound of everyone’s boots. Maybe if you chose the best candidate for America both Blue and Reagan Blue, the Bubbas and True Americans of Democratic Appalachia, Hillary, you wouldn’t see us in this position. But when’s the last time Obots thought at all, hmm? New Rule: You respect us or we leave, Obots, how’s that?
When a woman finds she is pregnant, but does not want to carry the pregnancy to term, she will be required to rent a uterus.
Pshaw. Clearly the fetus must pay the rent; the mother wouldn’t be living in the rental unit, why should she pay for it? That fetus needs to learn about personal responsibility, the little mooch.
actor212 — If kidneys are given based on need now, why would that system have to change if people were paid to donate?
To everyone else who has shot holes in my argument — I’m no expert. Until I saw this link I hadn’t really thought about the issue. I’m sure that no system that I could create in 12 minutes of intermittent thought in-between trying to get work done is going to solve these complicated problems.
We’re still left with a choice between keeping the system as it is, which produces way-too-few donors, and finding a way to increase donations. It doesn’t have to be (and probably shouldn’t be) a completely free market. Maybe it’s a very limited market, which ultimately generates only another 50 kidneys a year, because the incentive is too low or the system is too comples. So what? That’s still 50 extra people per year who may survive because of a kidney that otherwise wouldn’t have been donated.
at 22:17 N.C. said,
“I can totally see some payday-loan-type operation springing up promising quick cash for a minor operation where they’ll handle all the details for you (and take 50% of your reward).”
NC, you cynic. You probably believe there are loan companies out there that loan money to the poor and desperate at an annual rate of 163 percent.
N.C.:
Do you think there could be an “equity” market based on your organs? So I go to the Dr. and get a clean bill of health, no hep, no cholesterol problems and a healthy urinary tract…can I then go to a bank and get a loan against my kidney?
Then, maybe, someone can sell the securitized assets to another bank as an investment and rate them AAA.
Now I’m on to something…
If kidneys are given based on need now, why would that system have to change if people were paid to donate?
Highest bidder. Remember, not every person can use every kidney. You have to carefully match the kidney to the recipient.
So if you had a rich person who could pay cash for the organ and a poor person who had to file a claim and wait for approval, the rich person would merely outbid the poor person and take the kidney, EVEN IF HIS NEED IS LESS!
Do you see it now?
As usual MST3K were ahead of their time:
Behold, the Vend-a-Gut
How about incentivizing post-mortem harvesting? Say a tax break for registered donors? Organs are distributed as-is, but the pool of available organs goes up. Plus, the Glibertarians are all for tax breaks, so there’s that.
You get the breaks with a non-revocable contract to donate any and all viable organs upon your death.
New Rule: You respect us or we leave, Obots, how’s that?
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
BTW, didn’t the Obots fight the Transformers?
That’s the sound of her boots walking away from your precious Obot Party…
Actually I think it’s the sound of her boots forgetting to register to vote so she never mattered in the first place.
FAILPIEFILTER!
actor212 — No, I don’t see it. Why would the system change just because someone is paid for donating a kidney? I’m not talking about an auction system where people put their kidneys for sale on E-Bay. I’m suggesting a carefully regulated system in which potential donors are given incentives, including financial incentives, to provide kidneys for transplantation.
I would be surprised if anyone is seriously proposing an auction-type system like your question suggested.
I’m suggesting a carefully regulated system in which potential donors are given incentives, including financial incentives, to provide kidneys for transplantation.
Uh huh. And this makes kidney operations, which already cost $90,000 a year WITH FREE KIDNEYS…cheaper how again?
Can Iris translate that from the original Gibberish
Did anybody contribute this one yet?
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/anonymous_philanthropist_donates
Hey, if kidneys get to be worth more than $10,000 on the market, can we tax the recipient for the difference as income when they get a donated kidney from a friend or family member?
Jonny Scrum-half – you should check out Postrel’s article linked by Megan, if you haven’t already. The selling kidneys idea is in there, but there’s lots of other ideas about increasing donor numbers, for example simply better publicizing the need and getting more voluntary living donors, maybe through churches (apparently there’s one small church in Australia that specifically promotes kidney donation to its membership).
It seems from the Postrel article that there are things to try that have some promise before we go down the very troubling path of a kidney donation market and the codification of organ harvesting for cash.
Notice my point about just reducing the need for organ transplants has gone missing.
That’s the American glibertarian way, though – selling your organs is shiny and cool and hip and full of “progress” so it HAS to be a better idea than silly old preventative health care.
D. Aristophanes — I’m fine with that. As I wrote earlier, I don’t know enough to have an informed opinion. I just thought that most of the comments appeared to be knee-jerk insults to even the thought of such an idea, and I didn’t see much to support that kind of negative reaction.
Iris is one dim bulb.
Although if Megan wants to sell her organs she should definitely do so. That wedding isn’t going to pay for itself.
Pere, I don’t know how big an effect that would have on the kidney market. I suppose it would reduce diabetes and all, but the people who are paying for kidneys are able to afford preventative care and are more likely to avail themselves of it.
But I haven’t really given it much thought.
I know it was forever ago, but when we’ve all traded 100 billion kidneys back and forth and so on, we’ll discover that there are actually only about 14 billion kidneys in real terms – and you don’t even wanna know what this bailout is gonna look like.
is really fucking funny
Pere Ubu — Of course your idea to promote healthful practices is a good one. But I don’t see why the decision has to be either/or. Let’s consider both.
most of the comments appeared to be knee-jerk insults to even the thought of such an idea
Clearly, much more thought went into those insults than you believed.
There are more than TWO facts to be considered; tho only one has any validity: that there is a shortage of kidneys. The second “fact”: that no one would force anyone to donate a kidney, is just laughable. The rich will always find ways to exploit poor people. The “Free Market” is the perfect vehicle for them to get anything they want, cheaply.
Suppose people were able to sell there organs on the Free Market when the housing boom collapsed? How many men & woman would have sold a kidney or half a liver to save their homes? Perhaps they’d be able to keep their homes, but it would be a clear case of the Rich (who caused the boom-bust) victimizing and robbing the less well off, again. (Just as right now the corporations, banks, insurance and well-to-do are buying up homes at practically nothing. You wonder why the Banks didn’t want “cram-down”? Because their investors and Directors were going to make Billions off this Bust. All the while receiving welfare from…us.)
Also. Giving an organ is not like having a tooth pulled. We have redundant parts because we often need them. The liver is an incredibly complex organ, performing functions we don’t even know about yet. Having half of it removed is dangerous, risky, totally life & health altering, not to mention painful.
Come and try my new parts, Megan.
Damn, try that <a href="again.
But I don’t see why the decision has to be either/or. Let’s consider both.
No offense, but that’s exactly what happened with torture. “Reasonable people” back in 2002 said “let’s just talk about the possibilities” and, well, look where THAT got us.
No. Let’s not even go there, because there’s no way, even with the best of intentions, that the idea wouldn’t end up being perverted and abused in favor of the wealthy and powerful, as 99% of other “free market alternatives” seem to end up.
JSH – the problem is that Megan runs directly to selling organs and skips over all the other interesting avenues in Postrel’s article.
Since wingnut welfare isn’t as lucrative as it once was, I wonder if Mad Meg will start burking in order to supplement her income.
You might try earning some of that respect. It’s hard for an idiot out there to get any respect, as you must know.
Of course, anyone who asks for respect never deserves any.
Respect me, Bouffant!!!
I for one would be happy to help Jonny Scrum-half supply the market with the organs it so desperately craves. See you at the breakdown, Jonny!
RESPECT ME MOST, LIBS.
Broast my chicken with Mr. Pibb!
I think the insults directed at Megan are based on the fact that she is so far gone with her “the market solves everything!” nonsense that she skipped automatically to, “why can’t we sell our organs?” without really thinking about the consequences. Next, she’ll be asking why we can’t sell children so long as there are buyers – it’s the market! Nothing can go wrong!
Arguing that organs-for-cash is doable in some government-regulated way is so far from defending Megan’s original point that it’s bordering on off topic.
We’ve been following this rule for years, and yet you’re still here…
Yeah. It’s all about her worship of that magical free market pony. It’s the economic equivalent to believing in Intelligent Design, except replacing Jesus with Milton Friedman. Capitalism can’t fail, it can only be failed, etc.
Make the picture bigger!! Just realized there’s something red going on in Mlle.‘s crotch/kidney area, But can’t really tell.
Don’t be shy, D. A.!!
Make the picture bigger!! Just realized there’s something red going on in Mlle.’s crotch/kidney area, But can’t really tell.
I think it’s a hand puppet.
Off topic, but I had a kick-ass kidney pie last night in the midst of a long drinking binge. I wonder if the steer was paid for the kidney.
It’s the economic equivalent to believing in Intelligent Design, except replacing Jesus with Milton Friedman. Capitalism can’t fail, it can only be failed, etc.
It’s basically a religion. They hang onto it as if it’s their Lord and Savior. They don’t need to explain it, because they just take it on faith. (And, also, it’s a means to an end – wealth concentration.)
It’s basically a religion.
In place of predestination (AKA “Gods hates you”) and original sin (in a novel I read thirty years ago there was a throwaway line “There hasn’t been an original sin since Leda and the Swan”) it has the invisible hand and free choice. A correlation that I believe Max Weber zeroed in on 100 years ago.
Of course, if we keep talking about this, the motherfucking free-market crazies will demand tax-exempt status.
My hymn is the sound of the boots of millions of proud Reagan Democrats marching away from the Obotic o-trocity you Obots have enabled and back into proud Appalachia, home of the free, the brave and the true blue Hillary boosters.
Of course, if we keep talking about this, the motherfucking free-market crazies will demand tax-exempt status.
They haven’t already?
They haven’t already?
Only for their corporate thievery, not specifically for the Church of The invisible Hand.
And let me say first: veiled masturbation reference.
So what then under Meganlogic would be wrong with using organs harvested from death penalty criminals? I mean, why let them go to waste when the profit can help offset the court and prison costs?
You are Larry Niven and I claim my five pounds.
Church of The Invisible Hand
…
veiled masturbation reference.
Win.
And, also, it’s a means to an end – wealth concentration.
And the naive fools believing it always think they’ll be the ones ending up the concentrated wealth. If only The Man wasn’t keeping me down!
And I’d sure as hell hate to be in a coma under Jonny Scrumbob’s setup.
And I’d sure as hell hate to be in a coma under Jonny Scrumbob’s setup.
yeah, you’d wake up in a bathtub full of ice….
And I’d sure as hell hate to be in a coma under Jonny Scrumbob’s setup.
Wasn’t that the plot of “Coma” by Robin Cook? It was so awful I’ve erased most details from memory…
Wasn’t that the plot of “Coma” by Robin Cook? It was so awful I’ve erased most details from memory…
I believe you are right, although I too am hazy. That was long ago, far away and altered states.
“altered states.”
Also long ago and far away.
(in a novel I read thirty years ago there was a throwaway line “There hasn’t been an original sin since Leda and the Swan”)
That’s a pretty good line.
That’s a pretty good line.
In a strange, strange book called “Superfolks.” It follows the career of a Superman type of hero (who’s proud of wearing a mask to hide his secret identity because it proves that his wife is far smarter than Lois Lane) as the world is threatened by a super-villain targeting him. It’s more or less a comedy and should have been better written, but it had its moments.
@N_B,
Wow, it’s got its own wiki, which I’ll have to dig into (got a few friends who manage to make modest livings inking and writing comic books so this could be pretty funny in an inside baseball sorta way). Thanks for the reference.
Anyone who supports a ‘free market’ in organs (and is incapable of understanding a logical argument) needs to watch Sympathy For Mr Vengeance. Besides being one of the finest films ever made (ta-ran-ta-ra!), it’s a scathing indictment of the naive view that such a thing would be a good idea.
Sorry to anyone who’s getting cranky about my recent attempts to illustrate points using films reviews I’ve done, but sometimes a film encapsulates an important point and provides entertainment at the same time. And this film is one that you damn well should watch – Park is one of the best film-makers on this (or any other) planet.
To wrench this thread back into relevance (yes, I can comment on topic. Shut up!!)
Meggers says “paying for organs” which implies she is talking about the demand side of the equation, not the supply side. So to me, yes she is suggesting that the people with the money should be able to pay for the organs they want, relegating need to a secondary concern.
Which is fully consistent with her previous clueless privileged prattling.
Now, back to your regularly scheduled off topic humorless dildo riffing.
How ya feeling today, DA? Gonna be recovered by Saturday? Half tempted to get a cheap weekend flight.
yeah, you’d wake up in a bathtub full of ice….
C’mon, zombie, quit pretending that, given MegAyn’s sinister little fantasy, you wouldn’t have Dr. Spoilsport’s House of Brains on speed-dial.
If you can afford a new kidney, having to be on a waiting list for one is just like being in a refugee camp.
FOR A WHILE THERE I THOUGHT THAT SOME OF MY SURPLUS CIVIL DEFENSE SALTINES WERE LIVER FLAVORED, BUT I”M PRETTY SURE THAT IT WAS SYNTHETIC LIVER FLAVOR RATHER THAN REAL LIVER!!! EITHER THAT OR IT’S BECAUSE THEY WERE BAKED DURING THE EISENHOWER ADMINISTRATION, NOT REALLY SURE!!!!
I guess I didn’t need to be sainted for that.
If organs become a commodity there will be a market in organ futures. I can’t imagine anyone ever trying to game that. Nope. Couldn’t happen.
But if it’s invisible, why bother with the veiling?
SALTINES WERE LIVER FLAVORED
I have no idea why I feel the need to say this: I use saltines in my leberknoedel.
“If organs become a commodity…”
I read that as “If orgasms become a commodity…”
Besides the fact that my mind is totes in the gutter, I started to boggle at the idea of an orgasm futures market and what that might be like.
Then I thought of the peep show downtown and realized there’s already an orgasm futures market. It trades in quarters.
Or so I’ve heard.
How ya feeling today, DA?
Wuzza? *gurgle* *HIC*
I concur with Johnny.
I also think we need to get rid of the excess regulation in the meat industry.
I use saltines in my leberknoedel.
is that what the kids are calling it nowadays?
PeeJ said,
July 16, 2009 at 1:47
If organs become a commodity there will be a market in organ futures. I can’t imagine anyone ever trying to game that. Nope. Couldn’t happen.
Dr. G. Sachs to the trading floor, paging Goldman Sachs…
But if it’s invisible, why bother with the veiling?
Only the hand is invisible.
BTW – if you want an intellectual punch in your own kidneys, check this out:
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/21169
I can’t decide who is the more annoying of that pair
It’s like they are auditioning for the part of one of Nelson’s victims in a live action version of the Simpsons.
Did somebody say Invisible Hand?
But if it’s invisible, why bother with the veiling?
Belt and suspenders…
…which is, of course, a veiled bondage reference.
Only the hand is invisible.
Depending on her choice of clothing, a female glibertarian might get away with this.
Which brings us back to Megan McArdle.
I know, I’m a bad person.
I use saltines in my leberknoedel.
SALTINES ARE A GATEWAY DRUG, FOR SOME FOLKS!!!!
SALTINES ARE A GATEWAY DRUG
Next stop, mainlining Goldfish.
Well, usually “in the open” does mean regulated, in the same way that decriminalizing prostitution and various drugs can make the pursuit of those things safer for the people who choose to participate.
Ha ha, ha ha ha, HA HA HA.
Yeah, maybe in Europe that’s what it means.
America, this plan is going to lead to 10,000 lawyers jumping through hoops to ensure the new “organ-legging” sideline of OPC doesn’t have to pay any taxes, and that you’re more likely to get a healthy organ from the black market in Juarez than here, while keeping *that* option illegal.
Next stop, mainlining Goldfish.
You laugh, but when you wake up after spending seven hours snorting Cheez-It off a pliable hooker’s breasts, and the hooker’s dead, you have an tranq dart in your ass and the dog is cowering in the corner, you’ll know the dangers of cracker addiction.
St. Trotsky, I will purchase the negatives at our previously agreed upon price.
a pliable hooker’s breasts, and the hooker’s dead
Unrealistic scenario: rigor mortis.
Tepid Snark Section
Judging from her writing, I’m guessing Megan has already availed herself of the free-market model on the topic … & somewhere out there lurks a former lobotomy-case who’s unusually savvy on the subject of economics – & sometimes feels a strange yearning to check on the status of a trust-fund they never had.
Humorless Dildo Section
The stem-cell approach holds promise, but my guess is that it’ll remain prohibitively costly for many years to come – & with a rapidly aging population, it doesn’t look like a magic bullet.
I’m a registered donor & if you’re not, you should at least consider it – even if not much winds up being viable for transplant, you can still help med students to learn how to help the sick &/or save lives by letting them “Play Doctor” with your mortal coil once it unwinds. I find the alternative POV to be pretty weird on the face of it: what’s the big hairy whoop about someone else getting your expired tripes once you’re done using them? After all, the ants, worms & beetles will still get to make a buffet out of them eventually one way or another.
Make (viable) organ donation mandatory* upon death from natural causes, & anyone who wants to opt out can do so via snail-mail. Lots of lazy folks among us when it comes to addressing envelopes & buying stamps … giblets for anybody who needs them, nobody gets “burked” & nobody gets sick or dead from selling something vital when they’re hard-up.
Of course, within days you’d have the likes of Hannity & O’Reilly raising the specter of Maggot Food-Banks & black-beetle welfare-moms, but heck, every silver-lining has a cloud. Or something.
__________
*cf.:
Rugger-lad,
…why would that system have to change if people were paid to donate?
You have made an interesting point about legalizing the selling of kidneys, but not the purchasing. Some method of incentivizing donation without giving rich folks the inside line to getting organs. I admit my primary objection was based on the idea of Mr. Moneybags being able to corner the market on body parts.
But to explain why we had the knee-jerk reaction to McArdle’s suggestion – well your suggestion has nothing to do with what Megan wants. She’s all Invisible Hand De-regulate De-regulate De-regulate. She’s suggesting free-market organ management and all the attendant capitalistic ills that would ensue.
Anyways, I’ve thought it through some more, and I still don’t think it would work. Any such system would be complex and expensive enough that those resources would probably produce more organs with simple outreach programs and awareness campaigns. I am however – pulling that assertion out of Teh BUTTOCKS.
From the Pot Meet Kettle .files.
Debbie Schlussel calls LPGA golfers – “bearded lady circus sideshows
P.S.
I am slightly disappointed that you (Jonny) ended up not being a Milton Friedman worshipping troll who was all “teh Market will fix everything” and instead just someone who’s concerned about the lack of available organs for folks who need transplants. Because I really wanted to use “Jonny Scum-half” as part of a clever rejoinder.
And relevant to nothing but my own amusement, Glenn Beck may in fact be Troofie.
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Baldrick from Black Adder versus Bjork’s fugly baby-sister on the bailouts – & the loser is … everyone in range with brain-cells.
I believe Humorless Dildo is well on its way to becoming an Internet Tradition.
I am SO proud.
BTW – if you want an intellectual punch in your own kidneys, check this out:
I watched for almost a whole minute before I realized that Matt wasn’t going to be able to spit in her face through the tubes.
Dragon-King Wangchuck — Thanks for the substantive response.
And you can save your planned rejoinder for some later thread. While I don’t think that I’m as crazy as many Libertarians, I do generally agree with Libertarian principles and, especially, that the free market is the best and most-free system. So I’m sure that at some point in the future you’ll have an opportunity to break out your comment.
While I don’t think that I’m as crazy as many Libertarians, I do generally agree with Libertarian principles and, especially, that the free market is the best and most-free system.
It already exists, my son.
Bon voyage, and such as.
Man, I hate to close the dump up early, but we’re just losing money here.
*urp*
One more.
Aw-reet, that one’s on the house, now clear out, OK?
Blogwhore! No poop, at least not on purpose…
I just thought that most of the comments appeared to be knee-jerk insults to even the thought of such an idea
I would have responded with a knee-jerk insult, but I sold both knees a few months ago.
Also I have been biting the invisible hand that feeds me.
even if not much winds up being viable for transplant, you can still help med students to learn how to help the sick &/or save lives
Not to mention the bawdy med-student humour. You can go to your grave cheered up by the knowledge that parts of your body will soon be props in some dissection-room slapstick.
Though the med schools reckon that these days there’s sensitivity training in place and no-one does that any more.
Sure.
And certainly no one uses the medical cadavers for the car pool lane any longer.
Make (viable) organ donation mandatory* upon death from natural causes, & anyone who wants to opt out can do so via snail-mail.
IIRC, the Anatomy Act of 1832 (introduced in response to the Burke-&-Hare episode) was along similar lines. Any recently-deceased body became fair game for teaching purposes in the nearest med school, unless there were objections from someone else with a family-type claim.
One result (and the underlying intention) was that poor people became teaching aids for training the doctors of wealthy people. Result #2 was to discourage the less-wealthy classes from going to hospital (or work-houses), what with knowing that the doctors would claim their body as payment if they died there.
Maybe someone has read “Death, Dissection & the Destitute” more recently than me, and can tell this story more accurately.
You can go to your grave cheered up by the knowledge that parts of your body will soon be props in some
dissection-roomcafeteria slapstick.Fiqqst.
the Anatomy Act of 1832 (introduced in response to the Burke-&-Hare episode)
There is a strip club in Edinburgh called “The Burke and Hare.”
There is a strip club in Edinburgh called “The Burke and Hare.”
While reading up on the Anatomy Act of 1832, I found this related factoid
…and Scotland will retain an Inspector of Anatomy.
In the US we seem to have an Anatomy Inspection Corps, judging by the large numbers of roving guidos wearing a uniform of stained jeans and “Bikini Inspector” tee-shirts.
Bob “You don’t have to wear a clock around your neck to know what time it is at Bob’s” said,
I’m in bed asleep (like even Fletcher is sometimes) and you guys are busting out with the obscure Firesign references. Bleah!
I got to go sell some demons (the dog’s not for sale, though) and then stop by the Chemical Corn Bank on my way to the ‘Toad.
Durham’s Pure Leaf Lard said,
July 16, 2009 at 1:59
I concur with Johnny.
I also think we need to get rid of the excess regulation in the meat industry.
LITERARY REFERENCE WIN.
Pere Ubu said,
Logically, of course, Megan should therefore support prostitution on the grounds that if it’s okay to sell parts of the human body it’s likewise okay to rent them retail.
Exactly! This is the same kind of person who has problems with me wanting to RENT a vagina!
why rent a vagina when a latex version can be had at a fraction of the cost? On the shelves right next to the dildos (humorless)
Scrumbob, the Niven references and “Dr. Goldman Sachs” *were* substantive responses, were it not for your naive libertarian belief that people would never do anything like that..
round here, any response that doesn’t contain POOP, PENIS, TEH BUTTOCKS or dancing badgers IS a substantive response.
stop by the Chemical Corn Bank on my way to the ‘Toad
Where do you go when you’re Toad Away?
I do generally agree with Libertarian principles
When did they grow a pair and get “principles”?
I use saltines in my leberknoedel
That must hurt!
When did they grow a pair and get “principles”?
Now, now, Libertarians have principles. Number 1 is “Never Give A Sucker An Even Break”
And Principle number 2 reads “Government of the confidence artistes, by the confidence artistes, and (most importantly) for the confidence artistes, shall not perish from this Earth.”
#3 is “There is to be no abusing the Abbos….if anyone’s watching”
#4 is “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO POUFTAHS!”
the confidence artistes
The preferred term is “ecdysiast.”
While the dangers of allowing rich people to buy organs are pretty clear, the problems with allowing poor to sell them have been a bit more obscure.
Of course, a sort of forced sale is one possibility, but I think bigger risk would be poor donors. Right now there is lack of donors, but if they were paid good money for the kidneys, the donors might line up for the operations. However, not every donor can be accepted. Some deseases and drug use will likely remove you from acceptable donor list.
So, what to do when you want to cash in on the money? Get some less honest doctor to stamp you as healthy, in exchange of small part of the money you get from your kidney. Sell kidney, and pay off the doc. Sure, it hits news sooner later, big scandal, doctor taking money, killer kidneys etc. Headlines scream, but the damage is already done.
I suggest the “everyone is donor”, unless the opt out via free report.
Hospitals would be drowning on kidneys then.
and since brains are not transplantable, zombies would thrive as the food source expands….
no more need to slowly, lurchingly chase the living through deserted streets !!
Jonny Scrum-half said,
July 15, 2009 at 21:53 (kill)
actor212 —
Jonny Scrum-half said,
July 15, 2009 at 21:55
Jonny Scrum-half said,
July 15, 2009 at 22:26 (kill)
actor212 —
etc., etc. and so forth. Is there an e-mail list that will let us know when this shit stops?
Also:
They are so out-of-touch, for whatever reason (rich, sheltered, Asperger’s – take your pick)
Where’s The Kid From Kounty Meath to tell you to bite your own dick when you need him?
Is there an e-mail list that will let us know when this shit stops?
The WATB list? I do believe you’re already on it.
Where’s The Kid From Kounty Meath to tell you to bite your own dick when you need him?
If you’d stop blowing him, he might get a word in edgeways.
(and yeah, I know that’s a Simba B nymstealer)
All you lovers of government control and haters of free markets surely realize that the current law requires donors to give their body parts to big, profitable corporations that can then sell them however they want. Right?
“Current law proscribes the compensation of donors, ostensibly for their protection. But it also allows virtually anyone else to buy and sell tissue. Publicly traded companies are pumping out treatments that use the remnants of the dead to cure the bodies of the living;”
http://www.reason.com/news/show/118517.html