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In a new endeavour for The Right Dishonourable, we will be chatting to politicos from the fringes about their views and ideas. These longer conversations will hopefully shed light on current affairs and help broaden your understanding of philosophy, economics and much else besides.
Joining us for our first episode is The Academic Agent, a YouTuber and classical liberal.
At about 32 minutes in you assert the NHS is responsible for the additional life expectancy we’ve seen over the past 70 years. Where is the evidence of a causal link there? There are plenty of countries without a NHS or socialized medicine that have also see the increase in life expectancy, not the least of which is America. I would think advancements, inventions and innovations in healthcare, food, pollution, etc. have had much more of an effect on life expectancy than the existence of the NHS.
A few points:
1) There is no proof that the increased life expectancy of people in the U.K. is because of the NHS. This can easily be debunked by simply looking at the increased life expectancy of people living in countries without “free healthcare.”
2) Earning capital is synonymous with life experience and thus the general shift to the right as people age is not “down to many different things” because gaining life experience is practically synonymous with earning capital.
3) The idea that when things like Margaret Thatcher effigies being burned when she died happen it is just “the fringe left” misses the point. Whenever extreme things happen in any context it’s usually down to a small fringe element, but what is most important is whether those fringe elements are condemned, supported or enabled by the rest of the people in their tribe, so to speak. Do Labour voters laugh when people say “hang the Tories” and burn Margaret Thatcher effigies or do they condemn it? Therein lies the point. Sorry but that was just lazy whataboutism.
4) There seems to be a strange cut at 58:30 just as Academic Agent is about to tell us why he laments the left more than the fringe-right. Was that a a product of faulty technology or a sloppy (or deceptive) edit? Just curious, it seemed strange.
Great discussion. Academic Agent held his positions very well, good job.