When Everybody's a Potential Criminal

I have to agree with Glenn on the issues of too many laws and the misuse of prosecutorial power. He mentions three books about these issues.

I think society works best when there are fewer laws, more equitably enforced. Maybe we could start honoring politicians and bureaucrats for replacing existing laws with simpler, clearer and better laws, rather than for adding yet more laws to (just as one example) the Code of Federal Regulations.

At some point, the prospect of legal hazards starts to have too great an effect on people's willingness to take any kind of risk. Progress and innovation are greatly slowed. We have already passed that point in some areas. I imagine that finding out what laws they are expected to follow is especially daunting for someone contemplating starting a new business.

When I worked in Regulatory Affairs in the pharmaceutical industry, one of my duties was to review industry newsletters and printouts of proposed laws in the Federal Register (we got regular printouts of changed in the Federal Register and CFR from Information Services - they paid a fee for these summaries), We also reviewed news about foreign laws pertaining to our industry and worked with our subsidiaries to make sure we remained in compliance. The analysts held weekly meetings to discuss changes in laws and regulations. We were responsible for alerting other departments when we learned of laws or potential laws which could affect them - OSHA, EPA and other laws included. Occasionally, our company commented on proposed laws during the public comment period, or even dispatched a lobbyist to speak with a lawmaker concerning a proposed new law. What kind of small business person has the time or means to do something like this?

On the other hand, some State agencies get away with ignoring even well-known laws and regulations of which they are fully cognizant - OSHA, EPA, building codes - the types of laws ignored are varied. Even when they are caught in violations, it does not generally lead to many adverse consequences for those involved. After all, you often need permission from a government in order to sue it. And employees of State agencies who push for compliance with the law may become the targets of harassment and may even be forced out of their jobs. David has seen this more than once. One reason to decrease the scope of government responsibilities. When government focuses on its core responsibilities, it is more likely to do a better job with them.

Earlier post on the expansion of U.S. federal criminal laws here.

The New Left's Appeal to Authority II

As Wretchard pointed out, liberals act differently when they're in power. They're not very effective right now when they are challenged. Which doesn't necessarily mean that they will pay an immediate price for their ineffectiveness. They have friends, after all. See also Jane's Law.

Case in Point: A Democratic congresswoman had a former policeman (who challenged the presence of union "enforcers" during a townhall meeting) removed by the police. Captain Ed:

"Shea-Porter heaped disparagement on “tea-baggers” who showed up to dissent on ObamaCare, which is rich with irony, considering Shea-Porter’s history:

“The irony is, of course, that Shea-Porter used to be a ‘tea-bagger’ on the left,” writes Nashua Telegraph columnist Kevin Landrigan. “She stalked then-congressman Jeb Bradley at town hall-style meetings the 1st District Republican incumbent held throughout his district.”

Four years ago Carol Shea-Porter protested at the State House alongside people dressed as Nazis while accusing the federal government of trying “to brand us like sheep.” On Saturday, she disparagingly referred to people who do not trust the same federal government to run our health care system as “these people.”

“We remember when, Carol, do you,” asks Landrigan. (emphasis mine).

But that was when she was one of the hoi polloi. Now, she’s in power, and Shea-Porter doesn’t deign to take questions without preselecting who can speak in her presence."

As Glenn Reynolds says, "They can dish it out, but they can’t take it. And until now, they haven’t had to . . . ."

UPDATE: "It's like they think they're royalty: Carol Shea-Porter, Harry Reid, Charlie Rangel, etc.

Why isn't Charlie Rangel getting jail time? "The swamp of corruption in DC is clearly a swimming pool for Democrats these days."

The New Left's Appeal to Authority

Wretchard posts another fascinating piece, this time on the theory that the Left is having trouble in the health care debate partly "because they’ve got all the flagship institutions. And that’s a liability."

The Right is responding as an essentially leaderless networked opposition, something along the lines of the networked organization of Al Queda. It is fascinating to me to see the revolutionary lefties who went from the streets in the 60s to positions of power in academia and elsewhere reverse their previous battle cry, "Question Authority". Now that they're in power, it's "Appeal to Authority". This is not the only way that "liberalism" has been turned on its head in the last 40 years or so.

"The Republican leadership was in fact the first victim of the revolt from below. Only after the “5th generation” war had ripped through the comfortable assumptions of business as usual did it break out to face the left. To think that the current unrest is the creation of Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck would be to make a fundamental mistake. Those figures are simply its beneficiaries — and its beneficiaries by accident. If Haque really wants to fight 5G, I would like to propose a different set of rules.

1. Listen to the people;

2. Believe that truth is something to be discovered in dialogue with the public; that the debate is never “over” simply because the great and good say so;

3. Consider it possible that all men, including small businessmen, plumbers, rubes from Alaska, cleaning women who say their prayers at mealtimes — are in some fundamental way the equal of graduates of Harvard Law School and know as much about life and death as Dr. Zeke Emmanuel;

4. Accept that facts do matter because reality is authored by something larger than government, greater than the Congress and more lasting than any administration;

5. That all efforts to “attack the base” will ultimately fail because a government by the people, of the people and for the people will never perish from the earth; and

6. Realize that these precepts are obvious on the face of it though there are none so blind as they who will not see.

The comment thread also includes some interesting thoughts. This post and its comment thread is an example of classic philosophical blogging. You might like to spend some time thinking about the points various commenters, like "WWS" or "Marsh Arab", are making. Wretchard often posts in the comment thread also.

One interesting comment: 12. Peter Boston

Here’s a cut from Kennedy’s speech at the 1980 Convention. It is considered to be his finest speech even some 29 years later because it encapsulates the scope of modern liberalism.

A fair prosperity and a just society are within our vision and our grasp, and we do not have every answer. There are questions not yet asked, waiting for us in the recesses of the future. But of this much we can be certain because it is the lesson of all of our history: Together a President and the people can make a difference. I have found that faith still alive wherever I have traveled across this land. So let us reject the counsel of retreat and the call to reaction. Let us go forward in the knowledge that history only helps those who help themselves.

There will be setbacks and sacrifices in the years ahead; but I am convinced that we as a people are ready to give something back to our country in return for all it has given to us.

Let this — Let this be our commitment: Whatever sacrifices must be made will be shared and shared fairly. And let this be our confidence: At the end of our journey and always before us shines that ideal of liberty and justice for all.

The speech has all the deep appeal of the “fair and just society” that drives Obama and the Progressives today, as it has for more than 100 years.

I may be beginning to understand why Progressivism (modern liberlism if you would) which starts from lofty ideals always ends up making a greater number of people . . . miserable, and why Joe Sixpack is rejecting the message.

I think there are two reasons. One is that Progressivism equates good intentions, even truly noble intentions at times, with Wisdom but without explanation. The other is that Progressivism uses politics to instruct human nature. . . .

Fairness and justice are human concepts. We can attempt to discern a meaning for them from reason, from experience, or from revelation but so far as I know nobody has ever come up with one definition that applies to all men for all time. Why are fairness and justice within the grasp and vision of only the Progressives?

The Declaration of Independence intended that the discovery of the meaning of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” would be a private journey unhindered by a government that demanded fidelity to any one particular religious, theological or philosophical doctrine. This is the true meaning of American Exceptionalism. Nothing like this had ever happened before.

By its very nature, because of the confidence that it has already secured Wisdom, Progressivism blocks individuals from pursuing their own pathway and puts them on the state built road to Good. There is no need to waste time and resources wandering around looking for the Light when it has already been found. That is the beginning of tyranny, and Americans are getting the message. (Emphasis mine.)

Related.

Some clear thinking in the a speech by a congressman.

Quote of the Day: Freedom vs. Fairness

Andrew Klavan:

Free people can treat each other justly, but they can't make life fair. To get rid of the unfairness among individuals, you have to exercise power over them. The more fairness you want, the more power you need. Thus, all dreams of fairness become dreams of tyranny in the end.

Related information here and here.

Getting Grandma plugged in to Government Health Care

Mark Steyn:

The problem with government health systems is not that they pull the plug on Grandma. It's that Grandma has a hell of a time getting plugged in in the first place. The only way to "control costs" is to restrict access to treatment, and the easiest people to deny treatment to are the oldsters. Don't worry, it's all very scientific. In Britain, they use a "Quality-Adjusted Life Year" formula to decide that you don't really need that new knee because you're gonna die in a year or two, maybe a decade-and-a-half tops. So it's in the national interest for you to go around hobbling in pain rather than divert "finite resources" away from productive members of society to a useless old geezer like you. And you'd be surprised how quickly geezerdom kicks in: A couple of years back, some Quebec facilities were attributing death from hospital-contracted infection of anyone over 55 to "old age." Well, he had a good innings. He was 57.

Read the whole thing.

Why does college cost so much?

Say, if college costs are rising faster than medical costs, isn’t that a crisis?

Video interview of an economic historian. Related information here and here.

MSNBC jumps the shark

Ace (language alert - link at your own risk):
Oh, My: MSNBC Carefully Crops Shot of Black Man Carrying AR-15 at Health Care Rally to Avoid Skin Color, So They Can Then Rant and Rave About "White People" Showing Up With Guns When a "Person of Color" is President

Oh no they di'n't.

Oh yes they did.

Here's the video before the careful cropping. Which, you know, would have taken less care and effort to run. Cropping and repeating that one almost-still image took more time and effort than just running the real news.

So why did they take extra time? Well, falsifying news ia harder than reporting it, so I guess they must have their reasons.

Listen to the words of the MSNBC "hard news" reporters. Compare with this photo. Anger in the country over a black man becoming president? ? ? Well, I guess it may seem that way to people whose bigotry leads them to believe that opposition to the President's programs has to be because of his race.

No doubt these reporters learned in journalism school that "making a difference" is more important than telling the truth. Must protect the racial narrative. They didn't have to sound quite so eager for an assassination attempt, though. Creepy. Are these supposed to be newspeople or commentators, by the way?

CNN did a better job. Via Hot Air.

Via Treacher: Previous fake news.

Funny how up until yesterday, putting a white face on a black guy was considered racist.

"White guy with a gun" = Black guy. "White conservative racist photoshopping Obama as the Joker" = Arab-American liberal. What next?

Update: Moe Lane

I usually don’t say this sort of thing all that often, but this is one of those times: this is inexcusable. THIS. WAS. DELIBERATE. They had the clip. They knew that the guy was a peaceful protester making a point about the Second Amendment. They knew that - by definition - he was not a crazy white right-winger itching to take a shot at the President. But they altered his appearance so that it matched their argument that there is an active risk of crazy right-wingers itching to take a shot at the President.

This was an insanely stupid move on MSNBC’s part - and one that was dangerous to the safety of the President of the United States of America, not to mention his security staff. I am appalled that a supposedly reputable news agency would do this.

Illegal to buy insurance, illegal not to buy insurance

From Sippican Cottage, in Massachusetts, where the health care reforms were a model for the Obamacare proposals. Insurance coverage there dropped among the non-affluent middle class who were supposed to be helped by the "mandatory insurance" reforms.

America still has some pretty independent people in it. Our essayist is one of those "artisans" about whom progressives sometimes get romantic, when envisioning a utopian future less dominated by corporate greed:

It's against the law to have health insurance in Massachusetts, and it's against the law not to have it, too. I'll explain. You better listen, because you might end up like me sooner than you think.

The word "insurance" used to have a definition. It meant you paid a small amount to safeguard against an unlikely but catastrophic event. It's illegal to purchase that in Massachusetts. Has been for a long while, or I'd already have it. . . .

But as I said, I'm like a criminal in Massachusetts. It's mandatory to have "health insurance," and I don't. I just pay my family's doctor bills with my money, like I always have. The state fined me $600+ last year because I couldn't afford the bizarre set of circumstances they call health insurance. Last time I checked, it cost over $1100 a month, and I'd still pay if I went for routine care. And if one of us gets real sick, it would bankrupt us because paying a 20% copay on a six figure bill is science fiction anyway.

, , , The stripmall doctor didn't look at the wrong end of me or anything. I paid seventy bucks, didn't have to wait but ten minutes even though I didn't have an appointment, and got two prescriptions that will cure me. The doctor helpfully told me that if I went to the Stop & Shop, for some reason or other one of the prescriptions would be free. It was. Funny how with all the talk about all the help I'm going to get, I got robbed of $600 on one hand by everyone that's trying to "help" me, and a supermarket gave me something for free. Not funny haha. Funny.

When I was waiting in the lobby for the doctor to see me, the "Town Hall" meeting with President Obama was on the television. It occurred to me that I'd never listened to the guy give a speech, same as his predecessor. It was surreal for my wife and I to sit there and listen to us being discussed like we were a kind of furniture that needed rearranging. It's supposedly a time for questions, but I only have one question, . . Why would you let someone who knows precisely nothing of value about you talk to you like that?

Iconography

Not long ago, I wrote:

As an aside, Obama's health care website provides fodder for conspiracy theorists. Check the first few comments. Why the Obama camp continues to use icongraphy reminiscent of the most brutal totalitarian regimes of the 20th century is a puzzle to me. Though it often makes his detractors seem like nut cases when they point out the similarities. There is a sort of "new age" feeling to the new Obama Healthcare logo as well, however. Sort of dreamy.

But screenwriter Bill Whittle greatly admires some of the Obama camp's use of beautiful and moving imagery and iconography. His analysis of the power of various familiar images is fascinating. He suggests that "the resistance" (never mind the stodgy Republican Party) borrow some of the Obama Camp's ideas.

Via Instapundit, an unknown artist has produced some examples of what Bill was talking about. Quoting then-Candidate Obama:

"When I'm president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely..."

"What I've done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut... I want to go through the federal budget line by line..."

Check out the images at the link. I like the last image the best. It's a variation on the graphic here. Notice how the deficit is projected to decrease as the 2012 election approaches, and then to increase again. And they say that liberal politicians don't think ahead.

The White House Press Secretary Clears Things Up

I often wonder where the golden-tongued Barak Obama found his press secretary, Robert Gibbs. He's not always a model of diplomacy. He is almost never golden-tongued like his boss.

A few days ago, I wrote,

The United States Post Office was a good idea. The Post Office was not always known for unreliable service, union members who treat fellow employees as their personal serfs, workplace violence, high prices, etc. In fact, mail carriers once had quite a heroic reputation. But when things start to go wrong in government-run organizations, they're hard to fix.

President Obama has reassured us at a Town Hall that the Public Option in proposed Democratic health care legislation is no Trojan Horse to eliminate private insurance, using the example of vigorously competitive Fedex and UPS, which compete directly with the Post Office (outside of First Class Mail, etc., over which the Postal Service has a monopoly).

I mean, it's, it's the Post Office that's always havin' problems."

Robert Gibbs reassures us in his inimitable style that President Obama meant what he said. Angering many of President Obama's constituents even further. And worrying the rest of us.

In spite of President Obama's brilliance in prepared speeches, this administration is not the smoothest ever at extemporaneous speech. Nevertheless, they often choose their words more carefully than they might seem on the surface to have been chosen. Though maybe not in this case. And President Obama can say just about anything about "his" healthcare proposals and later claim that his statements were true. Because none of the plans characterized as "Obamacare" were actually fashioned by President Obama.

Old Reporter Finally Scared of an Administration

Former reporter for the Village Voice, lefty libertarian Nat Henthoff, expresses his fears about health care legislation now under discussion. . . . .

I am finally scared of a White House administration. President Obama's desired health care reform intends that a federal board (similar to the British model) — as in the Center for Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation in a current Democratic bill — decides whether your quality of life, regardless of your political party, merits government-controlled funds to keep you alive. Watch for that life-decider in the final bill. It's already in the stimulus bill signed into law.

. . . there is a July 29 Washington Times editorial citing a line from a report written by a key adviser to Obama on cost-efficient health care, prominent bioethicist Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel).

Emanuel writes about rationing health care for older Americans that "allocation (of medical care) by age is not invidious discrimination." (The Lancet, January 2009) He calls this form of rationing — which is fundamental to Obamacare goals — "the complete lives system." You see, at 65 or older, you've had more life years than a 25-year-old. As such, the latter can be more deserving of cost-efficient health care than older folks.

I have read that Edward Kennedy would not have qualified for treatment of his brain cancer under the guidelines of the British public system because of his age.

As the Washington Post's Charles Lane penetratingly explains. . . : the government would pay doctors to discuss with Medicare patients explanations of "living wills and durable powers of attorney … and (provide) a list of national and state-specific resources to assist consumers and their families" on making advance-care planning (read end-of-life) decisions.

Significantly, Lane adds that, "The doctor 'shall' (that's an order) explain that Medicare pays for hospice care (hint, hint)."

But the Obama administration claims these fateful consultations are "purely voluntary." In response, Lane — who learned a lot about reading between the lines while the Washington Post's Supreme Court reporter — advises us:

"To me, 'purely voluntary' means 'not unless the patient requests one.'"

But Obamas' doctors will initiate these chats. "Patients," notes Lane, "may refuse without penalty, but many will bow to white-coated authority."

My mother had a friend who set up an end-of-life plan with her attorney. Three friends were empowered to make decisions in her behalf if she were to become incapacitated. My mother has set up end-of-life plans involving family members. But the proposals in legislative bills will, over the years, lead to rules by unaccountable "experts" and bureaucrats.

I was alerted to Lanes' crucial cautionary advice — for those of us who may be influenced to attend the Obamacare twilight consultations — by Wesley J. Smith, a continually invaluable reporter and analyst of, as he calls his most recent book, the "Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America" (Published in 2002).

. . .Smith adds this vital advice, no matter what legislation Obama finally signs into law:

"Remember that legislation itself is only half the problem with Obamacare. Whatever bill passes, hundreds of bureaucrats in the federal agencies will have years to promulgate scores of regulations to govern the details of the law."

"This is where the real mischief could be done because most regulatory actions are effectuated beneath the public radar. It is thus essential, as just one example, that any end-of-life counseling provision in the final bill be specified to be purely voluntary … and that the counseling be required by law to be neutral as to outcome. Otherwise, even if the legislation doesn't push in a specific direction — for instance, THE GOVERNMENT REFUSING TREATMENT — the regulations could." (Emphasis added.)

Who'll let us know what's really being decided about our lives — and what is set into law? . . . .

Condemning the furor at town-hall meetings around the country as "un-American," Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are blind to truly participatory democracy — as many individual Americans believe they are fighting, quite literally, for their lives.

Mr. Henthoff has spoken out about actual and potential abuses of power by government many times in the past. If this is the one issue which has really scared him, he might be worth listening to.

Benjamin Franklin on the dangers of a salaried bureaucracy.

Liberal Disappointment in President Obama

President Obama has a difficult task in front of him now concerning the proposed healthcare reforms. Not only is he dealing with a major rebellion from the Right, but he now has to deal with discontent from the Left as he tries to maintain some popular support for his programs (and keep the Blue Dogs in office in 2010). Some on the Left want President Obama to pull out all the coercive tactics used by LBJ. I don't think that President Obama is exactly an LBJ type of guy.

Even Bill Clinton reportedly urged Democrats not to "lose their nerve" on the proposed federal controls over health care (like he did). This cheerleading from the Left makes President Obama's recent decision to moderate his position on the Public Option more unpopular with the Left. Many are also disappointed that he has not dropped his campaign positions on other liberal issues. I think it was in "The Audacity of Hope" that he recognized that many people projected their own hopes onto him. He predicted that many people would be disappointed in the future when they found that he did not fully agree with them.

President Obama is an extremely interesting man. A complex man. I don't know that a lot of people understand him well. I would characterize him more as "pragmatic" than "bipartisan". He is not the first president to want to "bring America together". But during the early months of his presidency it seemed to a lot of people on the right that he wanted to "bring America together" around his own ideas, rather than around true compromises. VDH on what might have happened under a bipartisan President Obama.

He ran as a post-partisan and campaigned to the right of John McCain on some issues, including taxes and fiscal responsibility. Many conservatives and libertarians were hoping for a modification of same old approach toward them from liberals. President Obama made some relatively moderate cabinet appointments, which calmed a lot of nerves and his inaugural address hit a lot of conservative points. And to some extent, he has been more moderate than the Democratic Congress. But conservatives and libertarians soon started to feel disappointed concerning Obama's reputation for listening to all sides. There was the refusal to take Republican ideas about the economy seriously, with the explanation that "I won". And his latest "shut up" -type statement.

President Obama's current call for discussion on health care is preferable to the popular liberal approach of "agree with us or we'll crush you". But trust levels in the center and on the right are pretty low. Ann Althouse (who voted for Obama) is skeptical of his language. Many people think President Obama's is engaging in a feigned retreat rather than a real retreat. Libertarian law professor Richard Epstein, who taught in Chicago with Obama, talked about his competitive nature back in April (click the full screen icon for best video quality). President Obama may still come through for the liberals on the healthcare issue.

Seriously, what do liberals expect him to do at this moment, when the majority of Americans think that doing nothing would be preferable to passing the bill(s) now under consideration? Do they really think that people would forget their proposed totalitarian tactics by 2010, if the President actually went forward with them? President Obama is backing off for a reason.

UPDATE: Looks like the proposal to drop the public option was a feint or a trial balloon.

Administration officials insisted that they have not shied away from their support for a public option to compete with private insurance companies, an idea they said Obama still prefers to see in a final bill.

But at a time when the president had hoped to be selling middle-class voters on how insurance reforms would benefit them, the White House instead finds itself mired in a Democratic Party feud over an issue it never intended to spotlight.

"I don't understand why the left of the left has decided that this is their Waterloo," said a senior White House adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. . .

What's with all the Waterloo references lately?

And besides, the whole "public option" debate is all the fault of the press. This week. Heh.

And if the Democrats can't agree on a Public Option, maybe they can just regulate insurance until it's so unattractive that people will beg for the Publit Option.

When the Politically Correct Turn Bad

Wretchard:

Two stories illustrate what happens when people who are expected to do “liberal” things suddenly turn around and succeed using politically incorrect means. The first concerns Ben Chavis [1],”the highly unorthodox principal of Oakland, California’s American Indian Public Charter School, which was hailed as an ‘education miracle’ by governor Arnold Schwarzenegger after it was transformed from a failing ‘nuisance’ into one of the best public middle schools in the nation.” . . . .

The second involves the hapless CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey, who had the temerity to point out that his company’s approach [2] promised to work better than the proposed Obamacare. . . .

A special kind of venom is reserved for “race traitors” or renegades who have the insolence to think for themselves. Whether you are a black man being beaten by union goons for daring to oppose Obamacare or an organic food CEO who objects to a health care plan that will bankrupt the country when it doesn’t have to, the penalties for not getting with the program are severe. What they should have done is succeeded secretly using the politically incorrect means and then announced they had used the correct methods. For to be forthright in these matters is often lethal. . . . .

The "lethal" designation may seem a little extreme. It is followed by a little quote from Solzhenitsyn about where political correctness can lead when taken to its natural conclusion. Read the whole thing.

Then read the link to the Whole Foods alternative to the current congressional health care bills.

Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.

Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor's Business Daily. In England, the waiting list is 1.8 million.

At Whole Foods we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund. Our Canadian and British employees express their benefit preferences very clearly—they want supplemental health-care dollars that they can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments. Why would they want such additional health-care benefit dollars if they already have an "intrinsic right to health care"? The answer is clear—no such right truly exists in either Canada or the U.K.—or in any other country.

Too much truth. Must be crushed.

Do Democrats think people will believe, "Reality Check: If you like your healthcare insurance you can keep it. Period." when they see liberals boycotting a business which provides health benefits many of its employees seem to like? There is a lot more heat than light out there concerning the proposed health care reforms. A Modest Proposal for members of congress who want to retain their seats: Stop with the unbelievable talking ponts, re-work the bills, start honest discussions:

Right now, the public is faced with an administration and a Congress insulting its intelligence. The president seeks to frame the debate as one between those who “want to do nothing” and those who will back his supposedly deficit-neutral, cost-saving, quality-preserving, long-overdue panacea that will cover everyone lacking insurance while changing nothing for those satisfied with what they have. He urges us to support whatever it is that will emerge from the backroom deals still in the process of being cut but that needs to pass right now, preferably a couple of weeks ago.

The debate is better described as one between those who want a wholesale revision of one-seventh of the economy, to be managed from Washington by those currently in charge of the post office, and those who want to enact reforms that will empower millions more individuals to purchase insurance from private companies through legal and tort reform, tax credits, and similar changes. But if the debate remains in its current caricatured form of a choice between (a) pie-in-the-sky and (b) doing nothing, the public will choose the Hippocratic pledge of first doing no harm.

And those who doubt that real harm is possible should read Tevi Troy’s compelling analysis in “The End of Medical Miracles?” in the June issue of COMMENTARY.

It's true. Voters ARE chosing "do no harm". Fifty four percent think that passing no bill this year would be preferable to the "bill" now under consideration.

UPDATE: "The Moderate Voice" supports the Whole Foods boycott:

On a lighter note, take a few minutes and read the Whole Foods website forums on this topic. The forums have been invaded by freepers and redstaters, with predictably resultant hilarity. If one was to believe the freepers, Whole Foods is going to have an entirely new demographic shopping in their stores. The only problem is: last I checked, Whole Foods doesn’t stock Coke, Cheetos, Armor hotdogs, or 365-brand Instant Grits.

There are a lot of good ideas out there for reforming healthcare which would not require so much control out of Washington D.C. Decide for yourself, no matter what insults are hurled at you.

Bringing Congress Back from the Abyss of Corruption

Bill Whittle is fired up. WOW! Many members of Congress have a rather elitist attitude which leads them to think of much of the taxpayer's money as a big slush fund for their discretionary use. They are more fond of Washington than their home districts. Bill Whittle urges people who aren't very attracted to politics to serve for two, four or six years. Rather persuasively. Can you tell he's a screenwriter? Reminds me of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

Lawmakers passing laws they haven't read are "perilously close to treason". "Get the lawyers and aides to come to the townhalls so that people can meet their TRUE representatives".

If you can't run for office, how do you get your representative to take his or her responsibiities more seriously?

There's a disagreement between Charles Krauthammer and Andy McCarthy about whether or not is is counter-productive for conservatives to be loud and angry at townhalls. Ace comes down on the Krauthammer side, but not fully. If jeering and hooting is the only way to keep representatives from steamrolling you with platitudes instead of answering tough questions, jeer and hoot. But make sure that you have a good question. And let them speak.

Please consider all the options available at this important turning point and let your representatives know what changes you want to see and what changes you don't like. Be polite. Or be loud, if absolutely necessary. Peter Kirsanow says:

Frankly, it would be disconcerting if town-hall attendees were quiet and dispassionate. Politicians are proposing to dramatically alter the relationship between citizen and state, remake nearly 1/6 of the American economy, expand the federal deficit and debt to science-fiction levels and assume control of some of the most important and personal aspects of our lives — all without even reading the bill. And all the while we're supposed to behave as if this were no different than some sleepy Board of Zoning Appeals meeting?

If Americans can't get energized by something of this magnitude then our national character has changed radically — and not for the better.

But don't act crazy. No shout-downs. That just doesn't work for conservatives. Like Ace says,

Incidentally, I really don't think people got what I was saying yesterday and read all the nuance out of it to reduce it to "we have to be nicer," which I never said at all.

I do worry that some angry lunkheads will camera-hog and take the spotlight off of more persuasive, better-informed questioners. But I'm a fan of the jeering and hooting of evasive answers and lies.

Angry blowhards filled with hate and with shaky grasp of the facts shouldn't be on television.

They should start blogs, like I did.

Use short, bold phrases to draw attention, but then add some detail. Talking points and slogans are good to get attention, but they are not enough. President Obama's campaign team is bussing people to Townhalls. They plan to keep activists at congressional offices all during the August break. Most conservatives aren't that organized and can't spare that kind of time, but do what you can do to influence how healthcare will be regulated in the future. Nothing wrong with using the president's tactics to stand up for your own views. But choose your tactics wisely. And have in mind what kind of regulation you DO want for our medical system. No need to read five drafts of thousand-page bills. But we do need to do some homework.

Talking Points versus the Messy Truth

Twitter / whitehouse
whitehouse: RT @katesantiago: Reality Check: If you like your #healthcare insurance you can keep it. Period. VIDEO: http://bit.ly/GpL3I #hcr #hir-rc

Do they think we're idiots? According the the guy who designed the public option plan, it will destroy small insurers before the big ones. This is typical of detailed bureaucratic programs. Only large companies have the resources to lobby and to process the regulatory information needed to survive. All those "no-bid contracts" to which people used to object were often justified in one sense, because there was only one company big enough to deal with the necessary regulations. In this case, smaller insurance companies will be less likely to be able to lobby for positions as quasi "public utilities". What happens to their capital funds when they can no longer offer insurance? GE is on the government's side. Why would that be? They have insurance holdings. I thought big, bad insurance companies were the villains which were against these changes. An example of the "crony capitalism" which typifies governments moving toward statism. Much of the corruption inherent in big government comes directly from the scope of the responsibilities it takes on. But back to our main subject . . .

All the mandates planned for insurance policies will make them different from the policies available now. And most policies will be much more expensive. They will not be able to compete with the public option which can borrow money from future generations (or from the Chinese).

The public option can only lead to a single-payer system, like in Canada. Or single-payer with a totally separate private option for the elite, like in Britain. This seems to be the way the Democrats are currently heading. There's also the more successful (in a smaller country than ours) French system of single payer with private supplements which most people buy. Though their system is running into serious financial problems now. But the Democrats are trying to cut out options for Medicare Advantage, so that doesn't seem to be where they're going. Captain Ed (whose wife is blind and has had a kidney transplant) comments:

In fact, Medicare Advantage is a Godsend for those trapped within the Medicare system. Recipients pay substantial monthly premiums, but the plan allows for better provider payments, which keep providers from locking patients out of their clinics. The extended insurance provides coverage for services which Medicare ignores, and some create a co-payment system rather than the 60/40 system Medicare gives seniors and the disabled in practice.

How do I know this? The First Mate has Medicare Advantage, and we saw what Medicare did before we got the supplemental coverage. It’s a disaster for anyone needing anything more than just maintenance care.

Folding Medicare into a single-payer system and rationing care is the only way the Democrats can keep their promise to cut 500 billion dollars (less now, in at least one proposed bill) from Medicare spending to help pay for universal coverage. Decisions about which medical treatments will be covered are made by an unaccountable "panel of experts".

Profit vs. Non-profit organizations: Which are more ethical?

Ezekiel Emanuel, the head bioethicist at the NIH and brother of the president’s chief of staff:

. . . services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.

Read the whole thing.

Fatalism isn’t helpful; humility before the inevitable and pride in our ability to create - these can go hand in hand. As Helen points out, historians don’t learn from history when they deny it. One would think we’d remember where the roads diverged in the sixties, and which was the path to nowhere and which the path to life: Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb, which began “the battle to feed all of humanity is over. . . . hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.” But, then, instead of the ‘Great Die-Off”, Borlaug (and people like him) combined sympathy and ingenuity to pull off the Green Revolution.

I am grateful to the kind of medicine that Obama repeatedly describes as a failure and the people - doctors, pharmacists, even insurers - as morally inferior to those who don’t make profits. , , ,

Every time someone goes to M.D. Anderson, down the road from us, they come back with stories of new treatments, new procedures, new medicines. And we are all heartened. America, despite the tragedy of the youth of those who suffered, did not have a disproportionate number of AIDS victims; we did invent a disproportionate number of AIDS medicines, which we gave with an open hand. I am sure the system needs some overhauling; I doubt that we need to spend as much on medicine as we do. But I suspect the medical Nobel Prize Winners are more worthy than Paul Krugman - and that group, heavily weighted to Americans, has benefited our economy - and the world’s. On the other hand, Rachel Carson, non-profit oriented altruist that she may have been, has done more to destroy happiness and productivity in Africa than can be easily repaired by the Borlaugs and Salks of the world.

Emphasis mine. Future progress and medical choices are important considerations. Why does the Left feel the need to demonize the productive for-profit sector? Not to suggest that things can't go wrong in a for-profit system or that non-profit organizations cannot be productive - they have a significant, positive role to play. And in fact, there is nothing stopping private non-profit organizations (like the Mayo Clinic) from providing health care or even health insurance.

Some of the people mentioned in the quoted section above as agents of positive change received taxpayer money. But the private sector is generally more efficient at disseminating advanced products and treatments to people. The parts of medical care in America which are not routinely covered under insurance (i.e., vision correction) have often seen dramatic advances which rapidly become less costly (i.e., Lasik). This is where arguments for Medical Savings Accounts come in. Perversely, enlightened self-interest often leads to more people-friendly results than altruistic motivations.

Why the rush to control everything about healthcare out of Washington right now? It has to put a damper on medical advances.

Why the Democrats MUST aim for a single-payer system through a Public Option

It takes a more words that a poll-generated talking point to get to the nitty gritty of what the Democrats are trying to do. Remember that the massive changes in health care (now "health insurance") which they proposed were originally pushed as the only way to SAVE THE ECONOMY. (Until the CBO's reports came out).

At the end of the day there is STILL no way to have all three simultaneously of: (1) universal guaranteed coverage; (2) comprehensive quality and choice; (3) cost control....cannot be done...you get two out of three at most. Clearly the Obamacrats intend on sacrificing (2) since they are massively constrained by deficits "....so the only choice is limiting choice and quality....and that in turn requires a de facto single payer accomplished through the subterfuge of dictating the terms of "private" insurance, turning them into all but public utilities, engineering the transfer to the "public option" over a relatively short period of time, and then dictating payment terms to providers through rate setting, service bundling and, most important in this context, the MedPAC council which will determine "quality-adjusted effective" treatment protocols. The net effect is that an elderly person won't get a hip replacement or a coronary bypass....and will have nowhere --- in the US --- to turn.

The disingenuousness of the left on this point is breathtaking. ....but the issue is NOT euthanasia, living wills etc....that's a pure straw man however insidious the proposal is and however dishonest they have been in covering it up or describing it. The real issue is the MedPAC council....there won't be any actual "death panel" adjudicating case-by-case....there won';t need to be!....the MedPac council will set up criteria and rules, more or less in secrecy....rules determined by "experts" and by design removed from Congress to prevent pressure to approve expensive protocols at the end of life....or for "life unworthy of life"....a faceless bureaucracy with a maze of rules will simply be built into the system....diffused responsibility, nobody accountable, just the way it will be, no one can do anything about it.

That's why they MUST control all provision through a de facto single payer...and effectively outlaw private provision....otherwise it will be seen that treatments are available and that some are "unfairly" grabbing medical "resources"...and they will not be able to control cost with a global budget.

Note: They can't have it both ways. Quoting Dorothy Rabinowitz: "The president shouldn’t worry about the protesters disrupting town hall meetings. He should worry about the Americans who have been sitting at home listening to him."

This issue is a turning point. Read as much as you can. Follow the links. Read reasoned information from the liberal side, too. Not just from politicians. See what makes sense to you. Try to determine how the Democrat's bills are evolving. Think about which of their proposals would be irreversible as a practical matter, and about whether it would not be better to try out these proposals on a state level first. There's lots of detailed information out there to help you make a decision about which parts of the Democrat's (or Republican's) plans for changing the American health care system you want to support.

A couple of years ago, I read a very good argument for income-adjusted medical savings accounts along with a choice of (private) catastrophic insurance policies as a way to reduce costs and improve quality of care EVEN FOR MEDICAID PATIENTS IN CASH-STRAPPED CALIFORNIA. It was written by a surgeon, Dr. Linda Halderman, who treated low-income breast cancer patients and included financial break-downs. She had to close her business near here, in rural Central California, because of the bureaucratic rules for Medicaid in California. She gave Botox injections to affluent patients to subsidize her regular practice for a while, but it wasn't enough. And I lean toward Mark Steyn's thinking that if lawmakers can't read their own bills, control should be turned over to less over-reaching authorities. If California bureaucrats can be as counter-productive as they were in Dr. Halderman's case, federal bureaucrats with responsibility for a whole nation can make even bigger mistakes.

There are no perfect answers. And sometimes answers which seem good in the short run don't work out real well in the long run. The United States Post Office was a good idea. The Post Office was not always known for unreliable service, union members who treat fellow employees as their personal serfs, workplace violence, high prices, etc. In fact, mail carriers once had quite a heroic reputation. But when things start to go wrong in government-run organizations, they're hard to fix.

Goodbye to the Delta Queen

No more riverboat romance, I guess. Not secure enough, or not unionized enough?

I am often reminded, these days, of a passage from Walter Miller’s great novel A Canticle for Leibowitz:

To minimize suffering and to maximize security were natural and proper ends of society and Caesar. But then they became the only ends, somehow, and the only basis of law—a perversion. Inevitably, then, in seeking only them, we found only their opposites: maximum suffering and minimum security.

Americans crossed the ocean in sailing vessels and primitive steamships, without GPS or depth-sounders and even–throughout most of the great era of immigration–without radios. When their decendents are forbidden from traveling on the Delta Queen, the worship of safety has reached to point of idolatry, and the spirit of human freedom is being contemptuously disregarded.

Balancing freedom and safety is not easy. But it's worth remembering that they are in tension. As C.S. Lewis has reminded us, any noble principle can be turned to evil if misapplied or over-applied.

Despicable AARP ad countered

Think opponents of Obamacare are trying to block ambulances from getting to the hospital? Think again.

The Left seems to need to make their neighbors seem like enemies a lot lately.

Dissent is no longer the highest form of patriotism

Tigerhawk comments on Glenn Reynold's article concerning the noble history of political dissent and the changing attitude of the media toward dissent in the Age of Obama:

Remember: When lefties do it, it's called "community organizing." When conservatives and libertarians do it, it's "astroturf."

He also links the "funnier" Mark Steyn piece I discussed in an earlier post. Tigerhawk has some interesting comments and questions about why many on the right have suddenly turned to "outdoor political activities", something with which they're not entirely comfortable. His observations reflect his experience in the business world:

So what has changed? , , , , , I suppose that most righties did not know there was such a thing as a "community organizer" until the Democrats nominated one as their presidential candidate. Now that we know what it is and how effective it can be, we're learning to do it.

Too bad the left hasn't learn to create jobs. Then we'd be getting somewhere.

Horribly unfair political humor.

Every law, regulation, or program should be examined to see whether it encourages people to be self-reliant, competent, producers, or dependant, incompetent, consumers. Of course, the big and tragic question is whether Washington Republicans are too much the tools of really big business to think that way any longer.

Emphasis mine. The recent bailouts are a stunning reminder that corporate welfare dispensed by both Republicans and Democrats tends to favor the largest business interests, including those which are considered "too big to fail". Democrats, in addition, confer benefits on Big Labor and Big Law, among other interest groups. The mad frenzy by the Democratic Congress to dispense money to their constituents in the form of a "stimulus package" was highly disturbing. People trying to make it on their own in business or people who don't want much involvement with government or politics are left with increasingly less "wiggle room" (as Tigerhawk calls it in a different post, with reference to business capital).

Many of those who are now hitting the streets as protesters for the first time in their lives feel that their freedoms are being boxed into smaller and smaller spaces by government.

Note to Paul Krugman: Relax. These protests are not all that new.

Democrats vs. well-dressed protesters

Mark Steyn on a roll - downhill, fast. The Community is Restless. He had a lot of material to work with. “The right-wing extremist Republican base is back!” “I think they’re AstroTurf,” “They’re carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care.”

When the community starts organizing against the organizer, the whole rigmarole goes to hell. Not that these extremists showing up at town-hall meetings are real members of the “community.” . . . . Sen. Barbara Boxer has denounced dissenters from Obama’s health-care proposals as too “well-dressed” to be genuine. . . .

Fortunately, this president . . . won’t give in to the attire pressure. So, on Monday, the official White House website drew attention to the alarming amount of “disinformation about health insurance reform.” “These rumors often travel just below the surface,” . . .

“Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help,” continued Commissar Phillips. “If you get an email or see something on the web about health-insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.”

Reporting dissent is the highest form of patriotism! . . .

If only we’d stuck to the president’s August timetable and passed a gazillion-page health-care reform entirely unread by the House of Representatives or the Senate (the world’s greatest deliberative body) in nothing flat, we’d now have all the time in the world to sit around having a “serious discussion” and “real debate” on whatever it was we just did to one-sixth of the economy.

But a sick, deranged, un-American mob has put an end to all that moderate and reasonable steamrollering by showing up and yelling insane, out-of-control questions like, “Awfully sorry to bother you, your Most Excellent Senatorial Eminence, but I was wondering if you could tell me why you don’t read any of the laws you make before you make them into law?”

The community is restless. . . .

Remember when Bush was Hitler? Apparently his secret extremist right-wing Republican organization survives! Quinnipiac’s poll, released Aug. 5, found that 52 percent of respondents disapproved of Obama’s handling of the healthcare issue, while 39 percent approved. That's a lot of people who agree with the terrorist extremists.

Reprise: Iowahawk provides photographic proof of the well-organized, top-down discipline of the Extremist Republican Base. Tigerhawk admits to owning a pair of Sperry Topsiders and to have recently ordered Sperry's Santa Cruz Thong Sandals. He links ZZ Top's Sharp Dressed Man. And he admits to a personal distaste for the shout-down protest technique used recently by fiscal conservatives at some townhall meetings, and so familiar on college campuses against conservative speakers. I don't like it either. The first video out, of an Arlen Specter townhall, showed that the line which set off the protesters concerned the need for Congress to "act fast". That is, before carefully considering the bill.

Update: Violence at Townhall Meetings? Look for the Union label.

Time and again, liberals accuse those who don't agree with them of doing precisely what they have done, and and what they intend to do in the near future.

American Sociology

Two unusual articles in the mostly-liberal website Slate:

Militant atheist Christopher Hitchens reflects on what the celebration of a Japanese holiday in California tells us about the American gift for reconciliation.

Josh Levin wonders if Mormons will play a major role in preserving American civilization when America is gone. Part of a series. Here's "Five steps to totalitarian rule". A different view concerning totalitarian tendencies in America here. (The first edition came out well before the presidential election).

Celebrity Paycut for Global Warming

Class warfare comes to Hollywood. Heh.

Tired of celebrities telling us how much toilet paper to use or how often to turn off the lights in our 1 bedroom apartments? Yeah, so are we.

Hollywood is packed with triple-home owning, SUV driving, jet-setting college and high school dropouts who think they’re smarter than us. So we came up with an idea . . . .

The White House "fishy information" database

Barak Obama's recent tweet linked to a page with in interesting request:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

In addition to being sort of creepy, there is some possibility that this type of data gathering by the administration is illegal.

I'd say there are glaring Privacy Act violations here. And the penalties, per §552a(i) include fines of up to $5,000, not only for gathering forbidden data, but for disclosing it or maintaining an undisclosed system.

But it may be that the White House data base would not be covered by the Privacy Act like other government agencies. Records collected by the White House are apparently not covered under Freedom of Information, and may fall under a requirement that they be kept permanently. Unintended (probably) Consequences:

A secret and more or less permanent dissident database--in America! That's quite an accomplishment for an administration still in its seventh month. It seems longer, somehow.

Thought: On of Roger L. Simon's commenters (linked above) suggested flooding flag@whitehouse.gov with respectful, thoughtful suggestions. If these go into a permanent database, they could be instructive for future historians.

6 days later: Administration not backing away. But where's the transparency? Where's the ACLU?

Update: The White House finally took down flag@whithouse.gov after questions like those above, and publicity like this video.

Single-payer health care in Canada, the U.K. and the U.S.

You have to empathize with doctors who would like to see a single-payer system in the U.S., to cut down on paperwork and multiple treatment authorizations. But interestingly, respected non-profits like the Mayo Clinic, singled out as models by President Obama, and many medical specialty groups, oppose a Single Payer system. Why would this be?

Our current system is more complex and expensive than it needs to be. And single-payer health care plans often work well for a while. But eventually the problems now seen in the UK and Canada become serious. Acute care still seems to be good in these countries in most cases. Though there have been cases of ambulances lined up, waiting to take patients into Emergency in the U.K. Routine preventative care is good in the city. Dental care in the UK is abysmal (it's an exception to single payer in Canada). Those with chronic conditions often wait for months for an appointment in both Canada and the UK. Cancer survival rates are higher in the U.S. This is one indication of more timely care and more treatment options in the U.S.

Cost-Cutting in Canada (sometimes at the expense of the U.S.)

In Canada, those "with connections" get seen by doctors much sooner than ordinary people, just like in Marxist countries. Urban dwellers get much better care than rural folks. In some smaller towns in Canada, there is a lottery system for doctor visits. I believe that there is no private care option in Canada (though it is now under consideration) and many Canadians come to the U.S. for treatment of serious conditions.

I once attended a meeting in which Canadian regulators explained their extortion program for getting American companies to do some of their research in Canada in exchange for reasonable drug prices. Canada is one of the few countries in the world with "mandatory licensing", which means that they will force innovative companies to disclose information necessary for another company to produce their new drug if the government doesn't like the price the innovator company wants to charge for the drug.

No wonder Canadian companies do not develop new pharmaceutical products. The reason new drugs are so much cheaper in Canada than in the US is mostly that Canadians do not consider it in their national interest to help companies recoup the hundreds of millions of dollars it takes to get a new product registered because they do not have a pharmaceutical research industry themselves. Canada is no less advanced than Sweden, but Swedish companies develop pharmaceuticals (though American consumers still pay for most of their research costs). Since the U.S. now supports most medical innovation in the world, new therapies which are more expensive when first introduced will be squelched if single-payer health care becomes the default system in the U.S.

The company I worked for opened a Canadian subsidiary and had Canadian sites for clinical trials so that they would be allowed to make a little money in Canada rather than turning their product information over to a generic manufacturer. Canadian doctors were notorious for not providing all the data required by the protocol of the study in which they were involved. They knew that they were in demand by American companies for political reasons - not because of the quality of their participation in studies.

Freedom and Fairness in the UK

The UK has a private health care system for the elite in addition to national health care, but no crossover between private and national health care is allowed. In the UK, a woman who had the audacity to pay for a cancer treatment not covered by national health care was punished for getting "unfair" treatment by cancellation of all her other national health care benefits. People are not allowed to spend their own money for better care if they are in the public system.

Some people think dogs get better medical care than people in the U.K. Don't know about that, but they probably get more timely care.

However, some Brits now go on "medical holidays" for health care in other countries. That way, they can get the care they want without getting their health care coverage cancelled back home. A few Americans are also starting to go on medical holidays abroad in countries moving toward capitalism, like India (still taking advantage of technologies developed in the U.S., usually) because of lower cost. But usually not because care is unavailable to them here. And not because they will be denied future medical care for going outside "the system" in the U.S.

Single-payer in the U.S.

The federal and state governments already pay for a big percentage of American health care. To get a feel for how things might change with a uniform single-payer system, it might be good to review results for Medicare, Medicaid, the VA and military medicine. Medicare is vastly more expensive than it was intended to be. Not Surprising. Other government-sponsored medical systems are characterized by inefficient and inconsistent care.

Single-payer proposals in the U.S. would change things in a drastic manner. The two things which scared me the most about single-payer HillaryCare when the Democrats tried to ram it through years ago were (1) the proposals that health care professional who treated both private and public patients would be criminals and (2) Hillary Clinton's remark to a nurse that if she had wanted a good-paying job, she should have gone into another line of work. (Law, maybe). Wage controls for all medical professionals seemed, how do you say it, unconstitutional to me. I do not want the vast majority of doctors and nurses in the U.S. dependent upon the government. And we don't need doctor strikes.

During her later presidential campaign, Hillary made a point of shadowing a nurse for a day during her "listening tour" as a gesture of humility after her earlier statement which suggested that nurses did not deserve a good salary. She also became more supportive of nurse's unions.

If a huge country like the United States adopts a single-payer system, all sorts of unintended consequences will occur. They will occur much faster than in smaller, less diverse countries.

The bill now being rushed through Congress is a messy first step toward a single payer system. The bill under consideration empowers dozens of federal bureaucracies to regulate the provision of health care. A federal bureaucracy is the closest thing to "forever" in American government. Why not let the states experiment with plans to work toward universal coverage and insurance reform? Why not consider Medical Savings Accounts which would lead to more true competition and less bureaucratic hassling of physicians by insurance companies?

Plans for rationing health care in the U.S. are already under consideration. If a single-payer system is adopted in our country, which provides a kind of foreign aid by paying for research for the whole world, medical progress will be also be slowed down tremendously. There is a place for federal funding for basic research in government institutions, universities, etc. Private companies are more effective at the boring, tedious work it takes to bring an innovation to market.

Dangerous Right-Wing Mobs

Barak Obama's Twitter post, August 4: "BarackObama: Lots of disinformation on health insurance reform out there. Learn/share the facts: http://bit.ly/191Bzz #hc09 (Via @WhiteHouse)." Not everyone is impressed by the "facts" presented at the link. They seem to consist only of repeats of promises by the President.

The Obama Administration is worried about inaccurate information about the healthcare proposals. Maybe if they gave us more than short policy statements about what is in the health care proposals, alternative viewpoints would not be such a big concern.

As an aside, Obama's health care website provides fodder for conspiracy theorists. Check the first few comments. Why the Obama camp continues to use icongraphy reminiscent of the most brutal totalitarian regimes of the 20th century is a puzzle to me. Though it often makes his detractors seem like nut cases when they point out the similarities. There is a sort of "new age" feeling to the new Obama Healthcare logo as well, however. Sort of dreamy.

The DNC and unions also go on the offensive, labeling protesters as "mobs" coordinated by evil insurance companies. They have started selectively stacking town halls with friendly faces. Michelle Malkin on what real angry mobs look like. Is condemnation of conservative activism PROJECTION? Or a reflection of liberal righteousness? Some in the media seem to have short memories.

Conservative and libertarian bloggers are having fun with the liberal smear campaign. The king of libertarian parody Iowahawk carries the President's message forward.

Bottom line: Reforms in the American health insurance system, and better enforcement of current regulations, are in order. But a federal "Public Option" insurance scheme will lead to the end of private health care coverage, except for the elite. The bill under consideration ends "Medicare Advantage" and calls for a 500 billion dollar cut in Medicare coverage, just as enrollment is expected to increase dramatically, to help pay for a Public Option. Why won't the Democrats answer questions about HOW they intend to cut 500 billion dollars from Medicare?

This means less health care for seniors. Why the rush to pass a bill, any bill, before Americans really have a chance to understand and debate what is in it? If it's not a power grab which would be rejected by the majority of Americans if they understood it, what's the rush? Barak Obama was elected in large measure because of his remarkable talent for oratory. He has the power to coerce networks into giving him lots of airtime. Certainly, he could explain this bill in a way which would make sense to the majority of Americans. COULDN'T HE?

Why revert to Alinsky tactics now? He's the President of the United States.

Why we need more taxpayer funding for Higher Ed.

Utopia at Stanford. The Synergy Program may be unsustainable, but it makes people feel good about themselves. Hooray. Hippies used to fund these kinds of programs on their own, in an informal, unstructured manner, with some help from Mom and Dad. But putting such programs on campus naturally leads to costs which students and their families cannot manage without taxpayer help.

More higher education, particularly at elite liberal universities, is clearly the key to America's future ability to compete in the world. No doubt the ground-breaking Synergy program at Stanford helps the participants get good jobs and fulfill key roles in society. It deserves our generous support through Pell grants, etc. In fact, we should think about making similar programs mandatory for young people.

And when the graduates are making big bucks as Insect Negotiators, they can fund more programs through their tax contributions. You know their parents will be proud.

But seriously, I think part of our educational program should focus on letting kids be kids. How many of these post-adolescents were pushed by Mom and Dad to get into an elite school at all costs? How many were told at 6 that they were responsible for saving the planet? Or the whales? Or Darfur? Things they had no possibility of controlling. How many were given adult privileges long before they were adults? Maybe they should have experienced talking to ants when they were eight, instead of worrying about world events.

Maybe we should refrain from putting the weight of the world's problems on children's shoulders at a young age. Let them learn about self-mastery, interpersonal relationships, nature, God, work and play. And some educational basics. Maybe then they won't revert to the ant-negotiating stage of human development when they get to the university. How many of the Synergy graduates will be past their self-congratulatory post-adolescent dependency 5 years after graduation?

Utopia vs. Freedom

Thomas Sowell:

"Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom." We have heard that many times. What is also the price of freedom is the toleration of imperfections. If everything that is wrong with the world becomes a reason to turn more power over to some political savior, then freedom is going to erode away. . .

The universe was not made to our specifications. Nor were human beings. So there is nothing surprising in the fact that we are dissatisfied with many things at many times. The big question is whether we are prepared to follow any politician who claims to be able to "solve" our "problem."

If we are, then there will be a never ending series of "solutions," each causing new problems calling for still more "solutions." That way lies a never-ending quest, costing ever increasing amounts of the taxpayers' money and-- more important-- ever greater losses of your freedom to live your own life as you see fit, rather than as presumptuous elites dictate.

Mark Steyn:

. . . government health care "redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in a way that hands all the advantages to statists — to those who believe government has a legitimate right to regulate human affairs in every particular."

But don't worry, you'd be surprised how you get used to it. . . .

[In the UK] The national government is installing 24-hour cameras in your home to ensure that you eat properly and go to bed on time. And social decay in Britain (which is at least partly due to the nanny state's assumption of all adult responsibilities) is so advanced that almost everyone now thinks this perfectly normal.

Bottom line: Reforms in the American health insurance system are in order. But a federal "Public Option" insurance scheme will lead to the end of private health care coverage, except for the elite. No matter what the White House now says.

Footprints - Solar, Wind and Nuclear

A visual comparison of the relative amounts of land needed to generate the same amounts of electricity based on current nuclear, solar and wind technologies. The last image is superimposed over a map of Rhode Island.

Concerning solar power:

Try to imagine the entire solar (yellow) footprint covered with solar panels. Next, try to imagine washing these things every three to four days.

Concerning wind power:

No wonder T. Boone Pickens jockeyed Congress for help with eminent domain issues while executing his plan for using 1,200 sq miles for 4,000 MW of wind power production. Hopefully, this will be an eye opener to the amount of forests, plains, and desert needed to enable wind and solar energies to compete with nuclear energy in power production. Until the technology is developed to store the energy produced by wind and solar energies, this is the footprint of land that we will be dealing with.

What makes various "clean energy" technologies "earth friendly"? No easy answers. As for sustainability:

Today's USA Today has a piece on students who are studying for "sustainability" careers, such as being a wind turbine technician.

I doubt that anyone tells the students that much of the "sustainability" industry, such as wind farms, is sustainable only with constant government subsidies.

All Politics is Loco

A relatively recent theory concerning American politics is Jane's Law: The devotees of the party in power are smug and arrogant. The devotees of the party out of power are insane.

Of course, you have to take Jane's Law with a grain of salt. But sometimes, it seems very apt. There has been a lot of renewed attention recently concerning "Birthers" - people who believe that Barak Obama was not born in the United States. This idea first got started during the primary presidential campaign, when Hillary's people were looking into Obama's background. Continued suspicion is teased along by Obama's shifting narratives about his own past and the rather romanticized fictions in his autobiographies. These, along with points of style and the unusual history of how Obama's first book was written, have led to yet another conspiracy theory - that Bill Ayers was the ghost-writer for Dreams from My Father. UPDATE: This conspiracy is starting to look a little more believable.

"Birthers" are also motivated by the decision of the Obama camp not to release his "long form" birth certificate. But the "certification of live birth" which has been released is considered to be legal verification of his birth in Hawaii. Other than for historical reasons or to put controversies to rest, there is no legal requirement for Obama to release the more detailed birth certificate. Some people would like to make it a requirement for presidential candidates. because they are convinced that there is something terribly wrong behind the non-disclosure of this document. And as Andrew McCarthy says,

. . . The point has little to do with whether Obama was born in Hawaii. I’m quite confident that he was. The issue is: What is the true personal history of the man who has been sold to us based on nothing but his personal history? On that issue, Obama has demonstrated himself to be an unreliable source and, sadly, we can’t trust the media to get to the bottom of it. What’s wrong with saying, to a president who promised unprecedented “transparency”: Give us all the raw data and we’ll figure it out for ourselves?

But the theory that Barak Obama was born in Kenya, smuggled into the U.S. and provided with a false "certification of live birth" is pretty screwy. There's even a new "Kenyan Birth Certificate" floating around now, reminescent of the famous forged National Guard documents which were the downfall of Dan Rather.

There are other "Birthers" this political season, too - those who believe that Sarah Palin did not give birth to her son, Trig. The most prominent of these is blogger Andrew Sullivan, who now seems to have finally accepted that Sarah's daughter Bristol could not have been the mother, but still seems to think that Sarah was covering for another mysterious mother. The "Trig conspiracy" theory was reportedly first pushed by the same CNN stringer who recently "revealed" along with a few other anti-Palin bloggers that Sarah and Todd Palin are getting a divorce. The revelation was later modified to indicate that the divorce would be secret. Sarah Palin's statement seems to have taken the air out of the latest rumor, though the far less believable Trig conspiracy theory still slithers around among the Left.

And then there are the "Truthers" on both the right and the left who believe that President Bush had advance knowledge of 9/11. Rosie O'Donnell famously said that fire doesn't melt steel in explaining her theory that the Twin Towers did not collapse from the impact of the planes on 9/11 and the resultant fires. Polls indicate that the "Truthers" had more advocates when Bush was president than the "Birthers" have now. Still, the number of people who aren't confident that Barak Obama was born in the U.S. is pretty high. But maybe all conspiracy theories are not created equal.

There is evidence that Americans are becoming more polarized politically. More choices in media outlets, emotional television news coverage and dumbed-down "headline-type" coverage, along with a failure to emphasize critical thinking in education, all contribute to this polarization. And this polarization often leads to fanaticism. It's hard to reason with those who have fanatical political beliefs.

A few years ago, an Emory psychologist scanned the brains of self-described partisans. Partisans were able to notice the hypocritical statements of the opposing candidate but not the inconsistencies of their preferred candidate. Ideology, it was determined, showed effects similar to drug addiction.

The press seems to portray the "Birthers" as more kooky than the "Truthers". Mark Steyn thinks the "Birthers" could be even kookier than they are:

As for the alleged "kookiness" of birthers, a true conspiracy theorist would surely believe that Obama deliberately started the birth-certificate business in order to make it easier to dismiss his opponents as deranged.

The "Birther" controversy diverts attention from more important issues in national politics which face us today.