tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-168405412023-11-16T00:37:40.377-07:00Take Me To Your Lizard"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see ...the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people........ if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?""
Douglas Adams, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, 1986Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.comBlogger667125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-33951687944422815132015-02-21T17:31:00.001-07:002015-02-21T17:31:15.700-07:00Thailand: An Update, 9 Months Post Coup<div class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's been a while since I posted on the situation in Thailand (heck, it's been a long time since I've posted anything. I'm slacking). <a href="https://www.facebook.com/MichaelYonFanPage?fref=nf">Michael Yon</a> just linked to an article at Magic Kingdom Dispatch that gives a great summary of <a href="http://www.magickingdomdispatch.com/2015/02/stand-fast-thailand-stand-fast.html">what is going on over there post coup</a>. In short, the coup is actually popular with the Thai people. The violence that saw 43 Whistleblower protesters killed by the Red Shirts and the Men In Black has stopped. The Royal Thai Army has been rooting out corrupt officials, rolling up the Red terror networks and their weapons. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You should read the whole thing but here is an excerpt:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And so what? The Thai military fist is indeed wrapped in a velvet glove. While Thailand remains under martial law, it is applied gently. The streets are not running with blood. Reds are not vanishing from the streets in a campaign of disappearances. There are no tanks on the street corners. There are no military massacres here. Ms. Mairs again quotes her CFR expert, who states that “Thai-style democracy … would not fit the definition of electoral democracy at all.”</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Again, I ask: and so what? It may come as a stunning revelation for these alleged experts, none of whom live here, and fewer who are actually Thai, but Thai elections have repeatedly failed to seat governments that could rule with the consent of the governed. We make a fetish of elections in the West, and we wage an insufferable and hypocritical imperialism that insists that elections are the lone mechanism that can legitimize governments. Thailand is evidence that this is not true. Indeed, Thailand is proof that </span><i style="line-height: 16px;">coups d'etat</i><span style="line-height: 16px;"> can be popular and legitimate in the only way that truly matters. In this case, the <i>coup d'etat</i> of May 2014 expressed the will of the people.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 16px;"></span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; text-align: justify;">It is demagoguery to insist that legitimate governments can only hatch as the result of elections. The Red machine in Thailand demonstrated that money, in this case, Thaksin’s money, could usurp elections, and handily impose an elected dictatorship time and again. Everybody agrees that elections are preferable mechanisms for the orderly transition of power, but the fact is that they are just one means. There are many paths to "democracy," however you define it. When elections are systematically suborned and their results are manifestly undemocratic, only lunatics would insist upon them. The Thai people are not lunatics, and the military regime under General Prayuth enjoys more legitimacy and popular support than all of the divisive and doomed kleptocracies perpetrated by Thaksin Shinawatra and his cronies</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 16px; text-align: justify;">.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;"> </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The U.S. Government needs to keep its nose out of Thai affairs and let the Thais work things out in their own way. </span><br />
Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-30287007805820770622014-09-17T20:57:00.001-07:002014-09-17T20:57:45.145-07:00Arguing with the Left: We Are Doing It Wrong!<p>This strikes me as the right answer. </p> <blockquote> <p align="justify">If you have ever tried arguing with a liberal, leftist or progressive, at some point you have inevitably come away frustrated by your apparent inability to “win” an argument, despite proving conclusively the other side is objectively wrong. The subject doesn’t matter, it could be the failure of Obama’s foreign policy, the IRS targeting scandal, tax policy, (lack of) Global Warming, or “helping” the poor. There in fact is a literal parade of liberal/leftist social policies and issues that have been unequivocal, abject failures, yet no matter how many facts and figures you can marshal, your argument falls flat, and your opponent remains completely un-swayed. Have you ever wondered why this is?<br><br><a href="http://www.westernfreepress.com/2014/09/14/arguing-with-the-left-we-are-doing-it-wrong/?fb_action_ids=10152340421073059&fb_action_types=og.likes" target="_blank">“It’s not that we on the right don’t have a plan, it’s that we don’t have a narrative.”</a></p></blockquote> <p>Read the whole thing.</p> Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-51264385375510303962014-08-26T19:42:00.001-07:002014-08-26T19:48:41.806-07:00Invert This.<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Corporate "inversions" have been in the news a lot lately. An inversion takes place when a US corporation merges with a foreign corporation and re-incorporates outside the US in a jurisdiction with lower effective tax rates than in the US. The latest inversion making waves is the pending merger of Miami-based Burger King with Canadian donut purveyor Tim Horton's which will have the effect of re-domiciling Burger King to Canada and dropping its effective tax rate by at least 15%.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At 40%*, the United States has the <a href="http://www.kpmg.com/global/en/services/tax/tax-tools-and-resources/pages/corporate-tax-rates-table.aspx">second highest corporate tax rate</a> in the world (UAE is #1 at 55%). it is also one of only two nations that I’m aware of (the other is Eritrea) that applies that rate extra-territorially. In other words, the US government applies that tax rate to all of a company's (or individual's) income no matter where it is earned, not just to that which is earned within the borders of the United States. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first duty of a company's management is the fiduciary duty to maximize the return to its owners. It has no duty, patriotic or otherwise to pay more taxes than it is required to. The case law says so. In an opinion written by Second Circuit judge Learned Hand in the case <a href="http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote/learned_hand_quote_6bf7">Helvering v. Gregory</a> in 1934 he wrote: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If the US government wants to stop the wave of inversions that has been taking place it needs to make the US tax system more competitive with the rest of the world. Lowering the corporate tax rate would be a good start. Ending universal taxation as well would be even better. Trying to prevent companies from leaving will be futile.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: xx-small;"><strong>*</strong>The corporate income tax rate is approximately 40%. The marginal federal corporate income tax rate on the highest income bracket of corporations (currently above USD 18,333,333) is 35%. State and local governments may also impose income taxes ranging from 0% to 12%, the top marginal rates averaging approximately 7.5%. A corporation may deduct its state and local income tax expense when computing its federal taxable income, generally resulting in a net effective rate of approximately 40%. The effective rate may vary significantly depending on the locality in which a corporation conducts business. The United States also has a parallel alternative minimum tax (AMT) system, which is generally characterized by a lower tax rate (20%) but a broader tax base.</span><br />
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<br />Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-79504400889903744892014-07-04T17:42:00.001-07:002014-07-04T17:42:43.584-07:00Reason Magazine: A Slippery Slope In the Right Direction?<p><font size="3" face="Arial">Reason has an <a href="http://reason.com/archives/2014/07/04/hobby-lobby-could-be-a-slippery-slope-in" target="_blank">excellent article</a> up about not only why the Hobby Lobby ruling was correct, but also why it didn’t go far enough. This part perfectly encapsulates the Libertarian argument:</font></p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">A group of politicians cannot legitimately have the power to compel one group of people—employers, taxpayers, or insurers—to pay for things that another group wants. That's immoral, and it violates inalienable rights. Moreover, when government has the power to issue such commands—always backed by force, let us never forget—it sets off a mad interest-group scramble for control of the government machinery—because control is a license to steal. Is it any wonder that people are willing to spend billions of dollars to influence who makes government policy? If people face the alternative of controlling the government or being controlled by it, those who have resources will buy power and influence, even if only in self-defense.</font> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">Supporters of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) say the court decision permits the favored employers to make health-care decisions for women. No it doesn't. It only prohibits women, unfortunately in only a narrow set of cases, from being able to use government to force their employers to pay for those decisions. When did we start equating the right to buy contraceptives—which hardly anyone disputes—with the power to compel others to pay? It is demagogic to insist that prohibiting the latter violates the former.</font></p></blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">Read the whole thing.</font></p> Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-15269212078216643532014-06-02T21:15:00.001-07:002014-07-09T19:25:54.867-07:00Turmoil In Thailand–Corruption As Catalyst<h6 align="justify">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">In February I put up a post about what was happening in Thailand </span><a href="http://takemetoyourlizard.blogspot.com/2014/02/turmoil-in-thailandmy-view-of-situation.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: small;">from my perspective</span></a><span style="font-size: small;"> back at the beginning of February. I left it off with a sort of “here’s how we are, now how did things get here? To be continued” ending. Well, I’ve found someone who can lay it out far better than I could hope to. So, here is what you need to know about the history of the Thaksin regime: </span></span></span><a href="http://nautilus.org/apsnet/0634a-rowley-html/#axzz33V0w0lHr" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Thaksin regime in perspective</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">.<span style="font-family: arial;"> <span style="font-weight: normal;">A sample:</span></span></span></span></h6>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Thaksin was a divisive figure. To his opponents, he was a devil who greedily exploited his office and the trust of the people for personal gain, abused human rights mercilessly, and was rapidly becoming a dictator. To his admirers, he was an angel, a champion of the poor laid low by the forces of darkness and backwardness from which he had been trying to save his country. A more balanced perspective is needed.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Thaksin was a Thai variant of a type recognisable in the history of other countries – the tycoon capitalist emerging during the transformation of a pre-industrial world of small business into today’s world of large corporations and conglomerates. He took the obsessive, aggressive and ruthless attitudes of the business tycoon into politics. His outlook differed from that of the old robber barons principally in that it found expression through his ideas of “new management.” This ideology was centralist and authoritarian, and fundamentally incompatible with democratic governance. Hence the damage Thaksin did to the limits on executive power created by the 1997 reforms, and hence his aggressive attitude towards people who did not fit his vision. It was this attitude, which more than anything else, underpinned his mishandling of the crisis in the deep south.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Thaksin learned how to push the buttons of the Thai people, how to manipulate popular sentiment by telling people what they wanted to hear and making them believe it. All he needed for the stamp of legitimacy, or so he thought, was to win an election. He “won” his first election with only about 40% of the vote and bought off some of the lesser parties to form a government. He has never been able to honestly command a true majority of the Thai People. <br />Read the whole thing.</span> Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-62844362782943468002014-05-18T12:11:00.001-07:002014-05-18T12:11:29.134-07:00You Aren't Going Crazy. You Are Being Gas-Lighted<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bill Whittle explains in his latest Firewall video.</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/3aw3df-LpbY" width="640"></iframe>Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-35863041017032354222014-04-15T20:42:00.000-07:002014-04-15T20:42:20.832-07:00Disarming the Warriors - Bill Whittle<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another great Afterburner video from a very pissed-off ( and rightfully so) Bill Whittle. Watch.</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/wdLDDoxE8to" width="640"></iframe>Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-7437263481878722302014-03-20T17:56:00.000-07:002014-03-20T18:02:22.323-07:00Thai Turmoil: Some Observations and Thoughts from Michael Yon<p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">Michael Yon has been on the ground and talking to the protesters, including the leadership, and doing research since December. He’s been posting brief thoughts and updates to Facebook all along. He has just completed his first of what will probably be 10 major dispatches <a href="http://www.michaelyon-online.com/thai-turmoil-some-observations-and-thoughts.htm" target="_blank">at his website</a>. It’s worth the time to read the whole thing. Nobody else from the Western media (if they’re even paying attention still) is doing this. </font></p> Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-21339056019340103242014-02-09T21:29:00.001-07:002014-03-20T18:04:09.657-07:00Turmoil in Thailand–My View of the Situation.I have been following the political crisis in Thailand very closely. My interest in the situation is due to the fact that I am married to a Thai and have both family and friends in the country. They are on both sides of the issue, some support the government, others the protesters. I can speak a little of the language. Let's call my fluency level; enough to make the in-laws careful about what they say around me because they aren't entirely sure what I do or don't understand, and I tend to surprise them once in a while. <br><br>I have been alarmed (but not really surprised) to see the Western press and punditocracy trotting out the very simple and simplistic narrative that what is happening is that a bunch of anti-government mobs (a very loaded word) are trying to overthrow a democratically elected government and that it's the Bangkok "elites" versus the rural poor. It's an easy narrative and also a very lazy one. Reality is, as usual, a lot more complicated than that. Very few of the people, if any, in the Western media opining on the situation are actually on the ground in Thailand and talking to the parties and that being the case they are getting the story entirely wrong. <br><br>One person who is on the ground and talking to the protesters and their leadership is writer and war correspondent Michael Yon. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/MichaelYonFanPage?hc_location=timeline">He is posting throughout the day at his Facebook page</a> and if you want to know what is really happening, in near real-time, that is the place to go. <br><br>The main body of the protesters are represented by the People's Democratic Reform Council or PDRC. The Western press has been portraying the protesters as "violent mobs," most likely because they are being fed that line by the government and are too lazy to question that narrative. In reality the protest sites have <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151944242270665&set=a.229275785664.134574.207730000664&type=1&stream_ref=10">more of the atmosphere of a series of block parties</a>, complete with food stalls, live music and speeches, than a bunch of unruly mobs. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151946114355665&set=a.229275785664.134574.207730000664&type=1&stream_ref=10">These are the kind of people the Thai government claims are terrorists</a>. Quite a bit different than the press accounts would lead us to believe, no? <br><br>There has been some violence. So far 9 protesters have died and a little more than another 600 have been wounded, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151955498975665&set=a.229275785664.134574.207730000664&type=1&stream_ref=10">3 just this evening in an M79 grendade atttack</a> ( as I write this on my Satrurday morning, 14 hours behind the events) at the Chaeng Watthana protest venue. All of these attacks have been by "Red Shirts" who are on the side of the government, or "Black Shirts," also on the side of the government (and widely thought to be former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatara's private enforcers), on the protesters who are armed with nothing more than whistles. So violence all goes almost all one way. The Red/Black Shirts have been employing hit-and-run tactics, firing guns and grenades into crowds of unarmed people, exactly like tonight's grenade attack. PDRC is allied with another group, Kor Por Tor or KPT (People and Student Network for the Reform of Thailand) who have been serving as guards at the protest sites. They will fight, but only if provoked, and <a href="http://youtu.be/lNE52iOzSz4">they have taken casualties</a>. The PDRC protesters have done nothing violent to bring violence upon themselves.<br><br>One Red Shirt leader, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/thailand/10606562/Thai-red-shirts-leader-says-Its-time-to-get-rid-of-the-elite.html?fb">quoted in this Daily Telegraph article</a>, is Ko Tee: <br>"If anyone doubted the abyss into which Thailand could be heading, Ko Tee - who has been accused of orchestrating grenade attacks on anti-government marches in the Thai capital - is the living proof. <br>"I want there to be lots of violence to put an end to all this," he said. "I'm bored by speeches. It's time to clean the country, to get rid of the elite, all of them." <br><br>To me Ko Tee sounds like he wants to be the second coming of Pol Pot (and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he has more than one Che Guevara T-shirt in his drawer). He is a very dangerous man. <br>So, how did things come to this pass in Thailand? In a word, corruption. There will have to be a part two to this post but I wanted to paint the scene as I see it now. Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-25732723573446372082014-02-09T11:59:00.003-07:002014-02-09T11:59:46.092-07:00In the Interests of Public Safety, Ban Everything! <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Do it for The Children <sup>TM</sup></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><sup>Truly weapons-grade satire here.</sup></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ixhsuB6xMR8" width="640"></iframe></span>Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-55443039485739924032014-02-01T10:50:00.001-07:002014-02-01T10:50:23.701-07:00Bill Whittle - Boiling Frogs<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have been so busy with other things I didn't realize I haven't posted anything in nearly two months. I'll try to do better. Here's a new Bill Whittle Afterburner video to start with.</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/mtEA4xpIjls" width="640"></iframe>Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-62106041712987090732013-12-05T09:04:00.001-07:002013-12-05T09:04:17.934-07:00Shards. Bill Whittle Returns to the Long-Form Essay<p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">Before Bill Whittle started producing the Afterburner and Firewall videos he wrote a number of long-form essays that were eventually published as a book, “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0976405903/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0976405903&linkCode=as2&tag=takemetoyourl-20" target="_blank">Silent America</a>.” You can still find those essays at his old website, </font><a href="http://www.ejectejecteject.com/" target="_blank"><font size="3" face="Arial">Eject! Eject! Eject!.</font></a><font size="3" face="Arial"> They are all well worth your time to read but today Bill just posted a new essay, “<a href="https://www.billwhittle.com/commentary/shards" target="_blank">Shards</a>,” that is as good as any of the essays that precede it. A sample:</font><font size="3" face="Arial"> </font></p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="3">There’s not a person reading these words who, raised with an understanding that Freedom is not the default state of man but rather a force field against tyranny that must be maintained every day through effort and hard work – there’s not one among you that does not look out into the free land that was handed to us by our ancestors with dismay, and the same sense of unfocused dread that a thousand generations felt as the sun dipped ever lower, day by day – because this time, perhaps, it will not climb again.</font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3">The history of mankind has been <strong>to rule </strong>and<strong> to be ruled.</strong> For reasons that you and I will never understand, there exists in some people an insatiable desire to tell other people what to do; to bend others to their will. I suspect that every single one of those hearts is filled with a dread, a genuine horror, at the wasteland of their own emptiness, and so the bombast and the narcissism and the arrogance; the legions of fainting faithful and the roar of the applause; the reflections, the logos, the insertion of themselves into every event in history; the mind-numbing obsession with power – all of these, I think, are just shovels full of coal being pitched into the bottomless furnace of their own self-hatred.</font></p></blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">Read the whole thing.</font></p> Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-30969229541798425432013-11-24T11:40:00.001-07:002013-11-24T11:43:32.022-07:00When Politics Collides With Reality…..<p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">….The results are rarely pretty. </font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">They have a saying in the world of Engineering; Sure you can have it better, faster, cheaper. Pick any two.</font></p> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">This was the undoing of Obamacare, why it blew up on the launch pad so to speak. Politicians (the Democrat variety, that is) tried to will into existence a whole new way of delivering heath care without having any understanding of the complexity of what they were asking for. Clay Shirky has a great article about this phenomenon <a href="http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2013/11/healthcare-gov-and-the-gulf-between-planning-and-reality/" target="_blank">over at his blog</a>. It’s a read-the-whole-thing kind of post but this part is worth highlighting:</font></p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">If I had to design a litmus test for whether our political class grasps the internet, I would look for just one signal: Can anyone with authority over a new project articulate the tradeoff between features, quality, and time?</font> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">When a project cannot meet all three goals—a situation Healthcare.gov was clearly in by March—something will give. If you want certain features at a certain level of quality, you’d better be able to move the deadline. If you want overall quality by a certain deadline, you’d better be able to simplify, delay, or drop features. And if you have a fixed feature list and deadline, quality will suffer.</font> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">Intoning “Failure is not an option” will be at best useless, and at worst harmful. There is no “Suddenly Go Faster” button, no way you can throw in money or additional developers as a late-stage accelerant; money is not directly tradable for either quality or speed, and </font><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month"><font size="3" face="Arial">adding more programmers to a late project makes it later</font></a><font size="3" face="Arial">. You can slip deadlines, reduce features, or, as a last resort, just launch and see what breaks.</font> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">Denying this tradeoff doesn’t prevent it from happening. If no one with authority over the project understands that, the tradeoff is likely to mean sacrificing quality by default. That just happened to this administration’s signature policy goal. It will happen again, as long politicians can be allowed to imagine that if you just plan hard enough, you can ignore reality. It will happen again, as long as department heads imagine that complex technology can be procured like pencils. It will happen again as long as management regards listening to the people who understand the technology as a distasteful act.</font></p></blockquote> Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-60423064801948754392013-11-09T17:36:00.001-07:002013-11-09T17:36:29.195-07:00Thanksgiving Is Almost Here and That Means It’s Chestnut Soup Time<p><font size="3" face="Arial">I have made <a href="http://takemetoyourlizard.blogspot.com/2005/11/holiday-recipe-blogging.html" target="_blank">this soup recipe</a> every Thanksgiving (and usually Christmas too) for as long as I can remember. It is really, really good.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">If you don’t want to go through the work of roasting and shelling chestnuts (an it can be pretty tedious) Williams-Sonoma (for one place) sells them in jars pre-peeled. I just bought two today for $15 each on sale.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">Did I mention how good this soup is?</font></p> Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-14908731287370243812013-11-03T12:18:00.001-07:002013-11-03T12:23:02.037-07:00And the Winner Is (and always will be): Arithmetic<p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">Charlie Martin over at PJ Media has <a href="http://pjmedia.com/blog/obamacare-vs-arithmetic/?singlepage=true" target="_blank">a great post on Obamacare vs. Arithmetic</a> that explains why the promises of Obamacare can’t be kept and never could have been. You should go and read the whole thing of course but this part on Gammon’s Theory of Bureaucratic Displacement is worth excerpting:</font></p> <blockquote> <p><font size="3">What <em>does</em> change the relationship is that we start to run into something </font><a href="http://hadm.sph.sc.edu/Courses/econ/classes/Friedman.html"><font size="3">Milton Friedman called “Gammon’s Law,” </font></a><font size="3">which originated with a study of Britain’s National Health Service done by Dr. Max Gammon. Friedman called it the <em>Theory of Bureaucratic Displacement</em>:</font> <blockquote> <p><font size="3">In a bureaucratic system, increases in expenditure are paralleled by a corresponding decrease in production.</font></p></blockquote> <p><font size="3">Translated from the economist-ese, that means in a bureaucratic system, the more you spend on something, the less you get of it.</font> <p><font size="3">Gammon’s original work in which he identified this found the correlation was very nearly perfect: as the number of pounds spent on the National Health System increased, the number of hospital beds declined. The correlation was </font><font size="3">-0.99.</font> <blockquote> <p><font size="3">Aside: for those of you who don’t eat and breathe statistics. Imagine you have a loaf of sliced bread. You weigh the bread, then take out a slice, then weigh it again; keep taking out slices of bread and re-weighing.</font> <p><font size="3">The correlation between the number of slices taken out, and the weight of the remaining bread, will be around -0.99.</font></p></blockquote> <p><font size="3">Why does this happen? There are at least a couple of reasons. As more money goes into the bureaucracy, there’s more pressure to make sure it’s being spent well, which means more forms, more auditors, more independent review boards. All of that takes time and money, and that time and money are being taken away from what used to be the goal.</font> <p><font size="3">The second reason is that as administration develops, it becomes its own constituency. Administrators are more important that the people doing the work — they must be, right? I mean, they’re the <em>managers</em>. Administrators get paid more, and in a bureaucracy, administration is the route to higher pay, better offices, and more perks. What’s more, the people doing the work have to do more work to support the administrators. Doctors are seeing that now — new record-keeping requirements, from HIPAA to electronic record systems.</font> <p><font size="3">The upshot, though, is that once a system becomes bureaucratic, adding money makes it worse.</font> <p><font size="3">And that’s the arithmetic of Obamacare. You start off with something that makes some sense — it’s perfectly reasonable to want insurance against the chance you’ll be hurt in a car accident or develop cancer. Then, because of weird tax incentives, you start doing something that makes less sense: asking insurance companies to pay for things instead of giving you the money to pay for them yourself. Then we start mandating coverage too — so I have to pay for maternity and OB/GYN coverage, even though I’m a 58-year-old single man with no obvious prospect of impending pregnancy.</font></p></blockquote> Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-82741412093144171872013-10-23T19:17:00.001-07:002013-10-23T19:17:38.274-07:00Maybe This Is Appropriate for a Website That Was DOA<p><font size="3" face="Arial">Is it just me or does lower part of the circular graphic on the left of the Healthcare.gov busy screen below look like a pair of toe tags?</font></p> <p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZsJd7g3aOTcm_QpMuBRJ6bSI1mI1McxCm7Veqz5EzawgZcRuvPZqGPm5wZ3Vxo8GckUXHZICo46Gt4T92YZ90bR5Ar94J27jEY52WRxL57EjSZuAPbE4DOI5m86HT5QdDBY6_/s1600-h/Healthcare-gov-notice-e1382458666117%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img title="Healthcare-gov-notice-e1382458666117" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Healthcare-gov-notice-e1382458666117" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5xiAsG4yWv2iihuWT9iDL98Gvcb0n-wRZ19vpaWmXMPxxx2GFe0MQNaDGgCW7lViJ_Zzh4z99dP4qdvxhj5x8itXdr89QDZf8YrAxKLRJD-RY6Oa-j4eCFVZGTDAUu6kO4NNa//?imgmax=800" width="647" height="377"></a></p> Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-70015499369636766532013-10-21T19:54:00.001-07:002013-10-21T19:54:22.373-07:00Dear Liberal, Here’s Why I’m So Hostile<p><font size="3" face="Arial">I just discovered a blog I’ve never run across before; <a href="http://sufficient-reason.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Sufficient Reason</a>. Proprietor Jeremy Choate has <a href="http://sufficient-reason.tumblr.com/post/26781491317/dear-liberal-heres-why-im-so-hostile" target="_blank">an awe-inspiring rant</a> against the “Liberal” creed. A sample:</font></p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">The fact is, you can rail against my conservatism all you wish. You can make fun of my Tea Party gatherings, and you can ridicule patriots in tri-corner hats until you wet yourself from mirth, but one thing is for certain: my political philosophy will NEVER be a threat to your freedom. If you feel a burning responsibility to the poor, conservatism will never prevent you from working 80 hours per week and donating all of your income to charity. If you feel a strong sense of pity for a family who cannot afford health insurance, my political philosophy will never prevent you from purchasing health insurance for this family or raising money to do so, if you cannot afford it, personally. If you are moved with compassion for a family who is homeless, a conservative will never use the police power of government to prevent you from taking that family in to your own home or mobilizing your community to build one for them.</font> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">However, you cannot say the same for liberalism. If I choose not to give to the poor for whatever reason, you won’t simply try to persuade me on the merits of the idea — you will seek to use the government as an instrument of plunder to force me to give to the poor. If we are walking down the street together and we spot a homeless person, using this logic, you would not simply be content with giving him $20 from your own pocket — you would hold a gun to my head and force me to give him $20, as well.</font></p></blockquote> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">Read it all</font>.</p> Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-40838965658987930622013-10-17T15:52:00.001-07:002013-10-17T15:53:22.198-07:00Don’t Allow the Shutdown to Hurt. Make It Hurt – Bill Whittle<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Bill Whittle’s latest Afterburner video, “Essential,” is up. He has a few things to say about the now ended government shutdown. No further comment is needed from me.</span><br />
<object height="480" width="640"><param name="movie" value="//www.youtube.com/v/CjrnmBKwuf8?version=3&hl=en_US"></param>
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<embed src="//www.youtube.com/v/CjrnmBKwuf8?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="640" height="480" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object> Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-7242811397624560522013-10-17T14:51:00.001-07:002013-10-17T14:51:45.110-07:00Conrad Black on the Disaster That Is Obamacare<p><font size="3" face="Arial">Over at National Review Online <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/361351/obamacare-disaster-conrad-black" target="_blank">Conrad Black is positively scathing</a> (and dead right) about the state of our legal and political systems and how it lead to the utter disaster that is Obamacare being foisted on us. </font></p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">The Affordable Care Act was passed in a dubious manner. The 60-vote level in the Senate was obtained by the subornation of Arlen Specter in that tainted window between his rejection by his own party and his defeat by the Pennsylvania voters, and by Al Franken’s questionable win in the Senate election in Minnesota, where partisan, county-by-county recounts overturned the people’s choice. Also, most egregiously, Republican senator Ted Stevens of Alaska had been narrowly defeated in 2008 after being convicted of taking a bribe — a conviction that was subsequently thrown out because of the prosecutor’s completely improper suppression of exculpatory evidence. (At least this was not a partisan act, as this was one of the more flamboyant initiatives of the George W. Bush Justice Department.)</font> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">The Affordable Care Act, then, owes its existence to political treachery, electoral hijinks, and extreme prosecutorial misconduct, and it ill behooves the Democrats and their incessant hallelujah chorus among both the hacks and the incurably gullible in the media to incant with woeful faces and in mournful inflection any misuse of due legislative process. The fact that the chief justice had to transform himself into an acrobat and claim that Obamacare was constitutional, under the federal government’s right to tax, does not excuse everybody else from seeing this ill-conceived monstrosity of a law for what it is and what its provenance is.</font></p></blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">That isn’t all he has to say by any means. You should absolutely click through and read the whole thing.</font> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">One observation that I would add is that everything he has described correlates with the increasing concentration of power at the top, with the federal government. This is what the Founding Fathers feared might happen and, alas, it appears that these fears may be coming true.</font></p> Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-4055096232068707132013-10-15T20:50:00.001-07:002013-10-15T20:50:46.505-07:00The GOP House of Representatives Has Offered Eleven Separate Bills to Try and End the Budget Stalemate…….<p>…… <a href="http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/10/15/the-house-gop-voted-11-times-to-reopen-the-government/" target="_blank">And eleven times</a>, the Democrat Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, has refused to even allow these bills to be voted on in the Senate. President Stompy Foot Obama has promised to veto them anyway. So this is the fault of the Republican House? No. The Republicans are the reasonable adults here. The Democrats typical form of “negotiation” is reaching an extreme. “Give us everything we demand (i.e., give up all your bargaining leverage and we’ll call it “compromise”) and then we will “negotiate.”“ This is not negotiation. It is dictation of terms. Meanwhile the maladministration seeks to inflict maximum pain on the American people by cutting off access to open plazas <a href="http://reason.com/archives/2013/10/15/the-government-shutdown-and-our-permissi" target="_blank">grinding hiring to a halt, needlessly preventing businesses from operating</a>, and just generally making it very well known how unhappy the Man Who Would Be King is. From the first link:</p> <blockquote> <h6 align="justify"><b><font size="2" face="Arial">1. Roll Call 478 on H.J. Res. 59 (September 20, 2013)</font></b></h6> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Arial">Earlier in September, House Republicans </font><a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll478.xml"><font size="2" face="Arial">voted to fund the government</font></a><font size="2" face="Arial"> at current spending levels while strengthening our economy and protecting millions of American families by defunding ObamaCare.</font> <p align="justify"><strong><font size="2" face="Arial">Senate Democrats killed the bill, and President Obama threatened to veto it.</font></strong> <p align="justify"><b><font size="2" face="Arial">2. Roll Call 497/498 on H.J. Res 59 (September 28, 2013)</font></b> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Arial">With hours left until the government ran out of funding, House Republicans voted to keep the government open at current spending levels while protecting our economy by </font><a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll498.xml"><font size="2" face="Arial">delaying</font></a><font size="2" face="Arial">the glitch-filled ObamaCare for one year and </font><a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll497.xml"><font size="2" face="Arial">repealing </font></a><font size="2" face="Arial">the tax on medical devices like pacemakers and children’s hearing aides.</font> <p align="justify"><strong><font size="2" face="Arial">Senate Democrats killed the bill, and President Obama threatened to veto it, causing the government shutdown.</font></strong> <p align="justify"><font face="Arial"><font size="2"><b>3. Roll Call 504 on H.J. Res 59 (September 30, 2013)</b>On September 30, the House GOP again </font></font><a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll504.xml"><font size="2" face="Arial">voted to fund the government</font></a><font size="2" face="Arial"> at current spending levels, while ensuring that Congress doesn’t receive special treatment under ObamaCare, and delaying ObamaCare’s individual mandate.</font> <p align="justify"><strong><font size="2" face="Arial">Again, Senate Democrats killed the measure in the Senate, and President Obama threatened to veto.</font></strong> <p align="justify"><b><font size="2" face="Arial">4. Roll Call 505 on H.J. Res 59 (September 30, 2013) </font></b> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Arial">That same night, Republicans in the House </font><a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll505.xml"><font size="2" face="Arial">voted to request a formal House-Senate conference</font></a><font size="2" face="Arial">, so Democrats and Republicans could sit down at the table and negotiate to resolve their differences.</font> <p align="justify"><strong><font size="2" face="Arial">Senate Democrats defeated that resolution, and President Obama threatened to veto it.</font></strong> <p align="justify"><font face="Arial"><font size="2"><b>5. Voice Vote on Provide Local Funding for the District of Columbia Act (October 2, 2013)</b>To help reopen parts of the government while Democrats refused to negotiate, House Republicans passed H.J. Res. 71 by voice vote, which would have restored funding for the government of the District of Columbia.</font></font> <p align="justify"><strong><font size="2" face="Arial">Senate Democrats blocked the bill, and President Obama threatened to veto it.</font></strong> <p align="justify"><b><font size="2" face="Arial">6. Roll Call 513 on Open Our Nation’s Parks and Museums Act (October 2, 2013)</font></b> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Arial">To help reopen parts of the government while Democrats refused to come to the table and work out differences, the House GOP </font><a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll513.xml"><font size="2" face="Arial">voted to restore funding</font></a><font size="2" face="Arial"> for the nation’s parks and museums – including the World War Two Memorial in Washington that has been closed to visiting veterans.</font> <p align="justify"><strong><font size="2" face="Arial">Senate Democrats killed the bill, and President Obama threatened to veto it.</font></strong> <p align="justify"><font face="Arial"><font size="2"><b>7. Roll Call 514 on Research for Lifesaving Cures Act (October 2, 2013)</b>To help restore funding for vital cancer research and other lifesaving innovations, the House GOP </font></font><a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll514.xml"><font size="2" face="Arial">voted to reopen</font></a><font size="2" face="Arial"> the National Institute of Health.</font> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Arial">Senate Democrats blocked the bill (see Harry Reid </font><a href="http://www.nrcc.org/2013/10/02/harry-reid-funding-nih-cancer-screenings-want/"><font size="2" face="Arial">ask a reporter</font></a><font size="2" face="Arial"> “why would we want to do that?” when asked if he would vote to resume funding for children’s cancer treatment), and President Obama threatened to veto it.</font> <p align="justify"><b><font size="2" face="Arial">8. Roll Call 516 on Pay Our Guard and Reserve Act (October 3, 2013)</font></b> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Arial">In order to make sure that the government shutdown doesn’t get in the way of paying our National Guard and Reserve, the House GOP </font><a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll516.xml"><font size="2" face="Arial">voted for the Pay Our Guard and Reserve Act.</font></a> <p align="justify"><strong><font size="2" face="Arial">Senate Democrats blocked the bill, and President Obama threatened to veto it.</font></strong> <p align="justify"><font face="Arial"><font size="2"><b>ise to America’s Veterans Act (October 3, 2013)</b>The House GOP </font></font><a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll518.xml"><font size="2" face="Arial">voted to provide immediate funding</font></a><font size="2" face="Arial"> for vital veterans benefits and services during the government shutdown.</font> <p align="justify"><strong><font size="2" face="Arial">Senate Democrats blocked the bill, and President Obama threatened to veto it.</font></strong> <p align="justify"><font face="Arial"><font size="2"><b>10. Roll Call 522 on National Emergency and Disaster Recovery Act (October 4, 2013)</b>The House GOP </font></font><a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll522.xml"><font size="2" face="Arial">voted to provide immediate funding</font></a><font size="2" face="Arial"> for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to ensure Americans have access to emergency responders in the case of a disaster.</font> <p align="justify"><strong><font size="2" face="Arial">Senate Democrats blocked the bill, and President Obama threatened to veto it.</font></strong> <p align="justify"><font face="Arial"><font size="2"><b>11. Roll Call 524 on Nutrition Assistance for Low-Income Women and Children Act (October 4, 2013) </b>The House GOP </font></font><a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll524.xml"><font size="2" face="Arial">voted to provide immediate funding</font></a><font size="2" face="Arial"> for nutritional assistance for nearly 9 low-income million mothers and children.</font> <p align="justify"><strong><font size="2" face="Arial">Senate Democrats blocked the bill, and President Obama threatened to veto it.</font></strong></p></blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Arial"><font size="3">So who are the obstructionist here, the people who make very reasonable requests, or those who say it’s my way or no other?</font><strong> </strong></font></p> Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-20718995147629301922013-09-25T21:38:00.001-07:002013-10-07T08:57:25.855-07:00John McCain Should Do the Honorable Thing…..<div align="justify">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">….and resign, then run for his seat again in a special election if he wants to keep it. He has been one of my senators for almost 10 years and I have voted for him, reluctantly, and not usually as my first choice. He only represents Arizona’s interests for one year out of every six, the year leading up to his next reelection. For the other five years he seems to relish his role as “the Maverick,” and does what he damned well pleases, despite what the people of the State of Arizona tell him they want. He always knows better and seems to be more concerned wth Senate “comity” than doing what is right. He’s exhibit number one as to why the 17th amendment was a bad idea. </span></div>
<div align="justify">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Today, after Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who is acutely aware that he answers to the people of Texas, not the Senate Majority Leader ( who happens to be with the other party, BTW) spoke for 21 hours against funding Obamacare (actually 21 hours starting yesterday), Senator McCain delivered what might as well have been the Democrat response. Mike Walsh <a href="http://pjmedia.com/michaelwalsh/2013/09/25/the-turning-point/?singlepage=true" target="_blank">at PJ Media has the basics. Here is the main point</a>:</span></div>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li> <div align="justify">
his disgraceful attacks on Cruz, including his reach-across-the-aisle, dog-in-the-manger response today, this should be the end of Senator John McCain as a voice of influence in the Republican party. Ditto his mini-me, Senator Lindsey Graham. Indeed, the entire Old Guard of business-as-usual “comity” fans passeth. When you care more about what the other side thinks, it’s probably time either to switch teams or step down. </div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
There is new leadership in the GOP, whether the party wants to admit it or not: Cruz, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Jeff Sessions, and the others who stepped into the breach to spell the senator from Texas. </div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
The Cruz faction in the Senate, and its allies in the House (whose leadership is now up for grabs) must now press their advantage. The louder the Democrats squawk, the more they are wounded; the one thing they’ve long feared is a direct assault on their core beliefs as translated into actions, and the deleterious effects of Obamacare, just now being felt by the population, are the most vivid proof of the failure of Progressivism that conservatives could wish for. </div>
</li>
<li> <div align="justify">
Win or lose, the battle is now joined: First the struggle for the GOP and then the battle for control of Congress and the presidency. Cruz just struck at the kings he could reach — the Republican “leadership” — and has most likely dealt them a fatal blow. Now the Tea Party hordes must back him up by eliminating his opponents (who tend to be geriatrics, and thus “leaders” by longevity rather than talent or commitment) through the primary process wherever possible. If he can carry off this coup, he and Senator Paul will very quickly find themselves elevated from back-benchers to commanders.</div>
</li>
</ul>
<div align="justify">
Finally, this: </div>
<ul>
<li> <div align="justify">
Any party that cannot successfully sell freedom and personal liberty doesn’t deserve power. The trick will be to explain — by word and deed — that the Democrats’ Manichean choice (Big Brother or the orphanage) is a false one, that less can be more, and that the restoration of a Republic of self-reliant citizens will benefit all Americans — not simply the government class and its clients.</div>
</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<div align="justify">
The last bullet point is absolutely correct. If the Republican party can’t recognize that, sell it, articulate it and convince us all that they BELIEVE in it, it’s all over. </div>
Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-61388584848929593092013-09-14T14:50:00.001-07:002013-09-14T14:50:54.565-07:00Jonah Goldberg on the Myth of Live-and-Let Live Liberalism<p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">First, the term Liberalism, as used in the US, is anything but in the sense of classical liberalism. It is statism/progressivism. Jonah does make this point in the <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/358147/myth-live-and-let-live-liberalism-jonah-goldberg" target="_blank">National Review Online article here</a>. That said he uses the news that the DC City government is about to issue 66 pages of rules regulating the tattoo and piercing industries to illustrate the point that when it comes to intrusive and largely unnecessary regulation, you are going to find a liberal-run big city, state or national government entity behind it. From the article:</font></p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">There is a notion out there that being “socially liberal” means you’re a libertarian at heart, a live-and-let-live sort of person who says “whatever floats your boat” a lot.</font> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">Alleged proof for this amusing myth (or pernicious lie; take your pick) comes in the form of liberal support for gay marriage and abortion rights, and opposition to a few things that smack of what some people call “traditional values.”</font> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">The evidence disproving this adorable story of live-and-let-live liberalism comes in the form of pretty much everything else liberals say, do, and believe.</font> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">Social liberalism is the foremost, predominant, and in many instances sole impulse for zealous regulation in this country, particularly in big cities. I love it when liberals complain about a ridiculous bit of PC nanny-statism coming out of New York, L.A., Chicago, D.C., Seattle, etc. — “What will they do next?”</font> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">Uh, sorry to tell you, but you are “they.” Outside of a <em>Law and Order</em> script — or an equally implausible MSNBC diatribe about who ruined Detroit — conservatives have as much influence on big-city liberalism as the Knights of Malta do.</font></p></blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">Read the whole thing.</font> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial"></font></p> Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-61316356795603322122013-09-04T19:44:00.001-07:002013-09-25T21:41:39.599-07:00Is There a “Right” to Healthcare?<p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Arial">According to the late professor of Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Duke University, John David Lewis there is not, at least as </font><a href="http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2013/09/new-essay-by-john-david-lewis-there-is-no-right-to-healthcare/" target="_blank"><font size="2" face="Arial">interpreted by Jared Rhoads</font></a><font size="2" face="Arial"> at The Objective Standard where he reviews a newly published essay that appears in a Medical Ethics text; </font><a href="http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-111849475X,descCd-description.html" target="_blank"><font size="2" face="Arial">Medical Ethics, 2nd Edition</font></a><font size="2" face="Arial">, edited by Michael Boylan. The key part from Rhoads’ review:</font></p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Arial">Lewis describes two basic and conflicting views of rights in America today. One is the idea of rights as entitlements to goods and services. The other is the idea of rights as moral prerogatives to freedom of action.</font> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Arial">The first view holds that if a person has an unmet human need—a need that could be satisfied by some good or service—then it is incumbent upon others who are able to satisfy that need to do so. In other words, needs impose duties.</font> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Arial">Lewis explains that this view fails in two important ways. First, because human needs are boundless, the consistent application of the notion that needs impose duties would lead to </font><font size="2" face="Arial">an endless creation of duties, and to ever-increasing government control over the lives of citizens, precisely because there is no end to the needs that one person may demand that others satisfy.</font> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Arial">The other main problem, Lewis explains, is that imposing duties upon one person in the name of satisfying the unmet needs of another inescapably violates the rights of the first person. Applying this to health care, Lewis writes, “There is no right to medical care because there is no right to coerce medical professionals to provide it.”</font> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Arial">The correct conception of rights, Lewis explains, is that rights define the scope of an individual’s freedom of action against which others may not infringe. Health care cannot be a right because health care consists of goods and services that are provided by medical professionals—people who have a right to think and act in pursuit of their own happiness and values just as anyone does. “To claim a right to medical care,” explains Lewis, “is to claim nothing less than a right to run the lives of those who must provide the care.”</font></p></blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Arial">I agree with this view. We often use the terms “rights” and “entitlements” interchangeably but they are not any more interchangeable than apples and oranges are. The Lewis essay being reviewed is not linkable but Rhoads’ interpretation is consistent with another (or the same? I don’t know.) Lewis essay, found </font><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-david-lewis/why-say-there-is-a-right_b_258188.html" target="_blank"><font size="2" face="Arial">here</font></a><font size="2" face="Arial">. Again, the key part:</font></p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Arial">These two concepts of rights -- rights as the right to liberty, versus rights as the rights to things -- cannot coexist in the same respect at the same time. If I claim that my right to life means my right to medicine, then I am demanding the right to force others to produce the values that I need. This ends up being a negation of personal sovereignty, and of individual rights.</font> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Arial">To reform our health care industry we should challenge the premises that invited government intervention in the first place. The moral premise is that medical care is a right. It is not. There was no "right" to such care before doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies produced it. There is no "right" to anything that others must produce, because no one may claim a "right" to force others to provide it. Health care is a service, and we all depend upon thinking professionals for it. To place doctors under hamstringing bureaucratic control is to invite poor results.</font> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Arial">The economic premise is that the government can create prosperity by redistributing the wealth of its citizens. This is the road to bankruptcy, not universal prosperity. The truth of this is playing out before our eyes, as medical prices balloon with every new intervention, and we face the largest deficits in human history. </font> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Arial">If Congress wants to address health care issues, it can begin with three things: (1) tort reform, to free medical specialists from annual insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars; (2) Medicare reform, to face squarely the program's insolvency; and (3) regulatory reform, to roll-back the onerous rules that force doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies (who produce the care that others then demand as a "right") into satisfying bureaucratic dictates rather than bringing value to their patients.</font></p></blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Arial">Carried to its logical conclusion, the idea of unmet human needs being “rights” necessarily says that if I need food, another person is obligated to provide it if I can’t (or won’t). If I need shelter, another is obligated to provide me with it, etc. I would also argue that if this view of rights prevails then for actual Constitutionally enumerated rights such as oh, say, if I can’t afford to pay for a gun when the Constitution says (and it does) I have the right to keep and bear arms then I should be able to coerce the government into (read; the taxpayer, otherwise known as you, if you’re in the ~53% of the population that actually pays any) providing me with said gun. Do we really want to go there?</font> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Arial"></font> <p align="justify"><font size="2" face="Arial">Read the whole thing(s).</font></p> Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-74065547923158510442013-09-03T11:43:00.000-07:002013-09-03T11:53:18.922-07:00Just Say ‘No’ to Syria Intervention<p><font size="3" face="Arial">I just sent the following to my Congressman and Senators:</font></p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">I'd like to go on record as being against a military intervention, however limited it may be. I base this on the following reasons:</font> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">1. There is no vital US interest at stake, unless you count salvaging President Barack Obama's credibility as a vital national interest, in which case it's already too late.</font> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">2. The human toll has already surpassed 100,000 dead from being shot, blown up or hacked to death. Why is it that ~1,400 people being killed by gas suddenly too much? They are not any more dead than the people who were killed by other means.</font> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">3. It is far from clear that the anti-Assad forces are all good guys. In fact it seems like the opposition has been thoroughly infiltrated by Al Quaeda and other jihadis who are not our friends and never will be. If we intervene we will, in effect, be providing air support for our sworn enemies.</font> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">4. Nobody can help but feel for the innocents caught in the middle of all this but the unintended consequences possible with an intervention will not necessarily lead to fewer civilian deaths and could make the situation even worse.</font> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">Please vote 'no' on any resolution giving President Obama any sort of authority to intervene militarily in what is a Syrian civil war. It is hard to stand by and do nothing in the face of the horrors we are seeing, but that is what we must do.</font> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">Regards,</font></p></blockquote> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">Obama made an unforced error when he made his unscripted, off-the-cuff red line comment but that bell can’t be un-rung. The mistake has already been made. To intervene militarily in this internecine conflict would just compound the error and gain absolutely nothing in return while providing yet one more grievance for our enemies to nurse. </font> Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16840541.post-88436505622759921832013-08-16T08:20:00.000-07:002013-08-16T09:32:41.517-07:00Economics–It Isn’t Called the Dismal Science for No Reason<p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">Forbes has <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiswoodhill/2013/08/14/america-doesnt-need-monetary-policy-and-it-doesnt-need-economists/" target="_blank">a good article</a> on why America doesn’t need monetary policy, or economists. More damage has probably been done to our economy and our markets by attempts to centrally plan our economy than could ever be done by leaving markets to their own devices. From the article:</font></p> <blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">Let’s be blunt. Whatever economics is, it is not a science. Unlike physicists, who can predict an asteroid’s closest approach to earth within a few miles when it is still 100 million miles out in space, economists can’t accurately predict this quarter’s GDP. Indeed, they are still arguing among themselves about what “really” happened 83 years ago.</font> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">In light of the economics profession’s track record, it is hilarious to hear pundits and politicians say things like, “Most economists agree…” as if this mattered.</font></p></blockquote> <p align="justify"><font size="3" face="Arial">Read the whole thing.</font></p> Brother Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16008743207359149366noreply@blogger.com0