The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by frumiousb:

As an American living in Europe who has seen both kinds of systems with a chronic illness, I've been both horrified and fascinated by the level of discourse. I think that the kind of rabid noise and Orwellian-speak of Palin (death panels! hee!) are actually indicative of a weak position.

It seems to me that really dangerous notes in the opposition comes down to two factors. The first is the fear (just) that people might end up with something that feels worse than they have now. And there is very little way around that, honestly. And it isn't an unreasonable fear. The second note is a kind of weird Calvinism: the people who get chronically ill have somehow brought it on themselves-- through bad lifestyle choices, whatever. If you put those two things together, you get really basic and dangerous opposition. ("Me and my family could be in danger because of people who get Diabetes because they can't stop eating at Burger King.")

The trick is, I think, not to focus as much on the uninsured (illegals! the conservatives will shriek.) and focus more on the underinsured. The Joe-the-Plumbers who suddenly have their coverage cut off because they had a life-threatening illness. The graduate students who discover that 80% of hospitalization paid leaves them with huge debt if they end up with a major illness. People who become prisoners of preexisting conditions.

Also, I think that we should hit harder on the fact that we're already paying a huge tax bill for the current policy. This will *reduce* the amount of taxes-- or, at least, allow more of the tax money collected to be diverted to paying down the debt or making the quality of life better for the everyday person. Talk the costs-- point to the money trail.

But, you know, the people afraid of this bill aren't stupid and they aren't all radicals. Talking to them as though they are stupid won't win the point. We need to keep talking to the center and address their real concerns.

(sorry for the length)

Abi, thanks for this. I've been living in the Netherlands for 12 years now. I have Crohn's Disease, so have experienced more than I care to of both the US and the Dutch systems. The misinformation that is flying around the US about European systems is mind-boggling. There can be longer wait times for a specialist if you are not an emergency and need a scarce specialty, but every time I've needed care here it has been there amazingly quickly. Sometimes I get the feeling that a lot of the resistance in the US comes from folks who have never had a major or chronic illness-- the idea that they don't want to pay for someone else's mistakes.

well, yes, sort of-- I kind of have the same response to this as I did to the Shorto piece. Interesting, but missing something. (Aside from your needed correction about his 52% taxes-- thanks for that.)

I'm partnered with a Dutch man, have been living in the Netherlands for 12 years, work for a Swedish company (how's that for an overdose of socialism?)

I still live here, but I guess that I don't have the same rosy view of the polder model as I did when I first arrived. I think that aspects of it (doe maar normaal) are potentially outdated, and can really do damage. Cooperation leads to social coercion really rapidly, if people aren't careful. Look at the rate of women in the working world/management in the Netherlands (one of the absolute lowest in Europe), the difficulty that people have in returning to school or changing career at a later age-- zesjes culture in general.

In that sense, people like Verdonk and Wilders are not so much anomalies as they are an extreme expression of the desire to keep the illusion of normalcy intact.

Don't get me wrong, I still choose to live here-- not return to the US. I guess that it's just that the polder system, the pillars-- they definitely have v. important weaknesses as well as strengths.

Great post, and great analysis of the commentator tactics. Thanks.

Terry Karney:On the flip side, I am not at all sympathetic to the present position. Putting aside the way in which the complaints which led to the current situation arose, the response to the people who felt LJ had treated them unfairly was poor, from both a business standpoint, and from one of fairness.

Yes, agreed. What I find interesting about this discussion is that the response from people supporting the current livejournal position seems to assume a greater need for reasonableness from the consumers of a service than from the providers of the same service.

For instance, DoNotSpamMe writes:An intelligent response to this widely-advertised and overt trolling by the communities involved, once the suspension notices started arriving, and once they realised what was going on (which happened pretty quickly, as I understand it, as I read about hardvice's role over a weeks ago), would have been to have removed the icons in dispute, told members of the comms not to walk into hardvice's trap, and then open up a dialogue directly with LJ or Six Apart about this question.

To my mind, you need to reverse this. Six Apart is the business. Once the representatives of Six Apart realized that someone who was clearly trying to cause trouble was the source of the complaints about the default icons, it was their responsibility to change course and respond more appropriately and (most importantly) constructively. To my mind, they should have (once the pattern was detected) immediately escalated this issue before they started sending suspension notices. This would have given Six Apart time to approach the challenge with some degree of care before everyone got themselves into positions from which they were unwilling to back down.

What baffles me now is that Six Apart still seems unwilling to do this-- surely they can recognize that a situation which has resulted in users with mermaid cartoon icons receiving suspension threats cannot be correct?

I am sympathetic, in general, with the lj position. I am utterly unsympathetic with the way that it has been handled, and the unwillingness to admit that it is symptomatic of a larger problem with the way that abuse complaints are handled.

p.s. This discussion has spread well out of the parenting communities, for those who thought that it was confined to a small group of users. I am child-free, have no connection at all to anti lj-abuse communities, and no personal acquaintenceship with the people whose accounts have been suspended. This is making the rounds in the groups of the older folks (where many of the paying users come from, I suspect) because of the silliness of forbidding Klimt paintings as default icons.

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