As a retired officer, I can state from personal experience that the idea that one should not become entangled in partisan politics was pretty widespread.

As an enlisted veteran and a Democrat, I can state from personal experience that the idea that an officer should not become entangled in partisan politics is pretty widespread ... unless the officer in question is a Republican, in which case it's just peachy.

I don't question Sestak's honesty on this matter, but I do have to question either his judgement or his courage. The officer corps is becoming a rabid right-wing preserve, and officers who follow this ideology are not shy about making it public while those who disagree keep silent. We desperately need officers with different opinions to be willing to speak. If Sestak's personal beliefs are and have always been liberal, moderate, or even sane and rational moderate conservative, he could have done a lot of good by not hiding them when he was in the service.

Not that this has much to do with Specter vs. Sestak, of course, since Specter's pretty clearly an amoral opportunist; whatever Sestak is like, he's probably got more integrity and moral courage than Specter does. But it needed to be pointed out.

If you claim that "any country where there is socialized medicine" provides evidence for your position that patients will overconsume care, then go ahead and provide that evidence. Facts and figures, with citations to peer-reviewed publications. Otherwise you're just blowing hot air. FWIW, my experience working with "socialized medicine" systems abroad (the NHS) and in the US (military medicine, county safety-net hospitals) suggests that there's little merit to the claim, but I'm willing to consider the evidence ... if you have any.

Also, be very careful with statements like "ANY economist would agree." Truth is, you can take just about any position you can think of, and you'll be able to find an economist to take the contrary position. Economists are funny that way.

You're still not making any sense. "Your MRI" is an event involving a machine and the radiology personnel who run it, not the machine itself; just as "your 911 call" is an event involving a police officer and a vehicle (or more than one of each, depending on the severity of the situation) not the car in which the cop responds. In both cases, the people and equipment are not available for other people while they're being used for your benefit, but they are available afterwards. There is no "tragedy of the commons" in either case; neither MRI machines and radiology staff, nor police cars and police officers, are generally "used up" by a single event.

The comparison of costs is a red herring, since a single MRI machine can cover a far larger population than a single police car.

As for motivations -- no, most waitresses, plumbers, hookers, pavers, roofers, and drug dealers do what they do solely for money. And if that's all you're after, then pretty much all of the jobs listed are an easier way to make a living than being a doctor or a cop. I'm not saying, of course, that all (or even most) people who choose medicine or law enforcement as a career are motivated entirely by altruism, but having worked in one and worked closely with the other, I can say that there is definitely something in both these professions which is very different from most jobs; those who follow either path have far more in common with each other than they do with workers whose sole motivation is a paycheck.

There's an enormous difference in motivations between law enforcement and health care.

Ideally, both doctors and cops do their jobs because they want to help people. How much people working at either job tend to live up to this ideal is open to debate, of course, but I don't really see how they differ that much.

Last I checked police officers didn't have to take out $100k/year in insurance to protect against liability.

Um ... yeah, because they're government employees. In fact, both individual police officers and police departments get sued all the time. The only reason individual officers don't have to carry liability insurance policies is because their departments and/or unions (usually) cover it for them. Ditto for physicians working for the military, the VA, the PHS, and other "socialized" medical services.

Also, last I checked we don't have a tragedy-of-the-commons problem with law enforcement. The police office covering your neighbor is also covering you. The same can not be said for the MRI you need for your knee.

Huh? Do you really think one cop is an infinite resource? If an officer is responding to a 911 call, he can't simultaneously respond to another call, any more than two patients can go through the same MRI machine at the same time. When you use the word "covering," you seem to be talking about potential rather than actual response -- in which case the radiology department at your local hospital is indeed "covering" you and all your neighbors at once.

Remember that the follow-up to "live fast, die young" is "leave a good-looking corpse." Teenagers may expect to die, but they tend to have a rather glamorous idea of what they means. Adults understand how ugly death really is.