The New Clarion

Amy Mossoff at The Little Things has a post titled “These children are not my future” in which she links to a post at Scribbit. The ladies are fed up with teenagers going door to door selling stuff, mostly magazines, by appealing to the customer’s altruism. They pitch their need instead of their product which annoys a lot of people including me.

“I’m working my way through college, could you help me by purchasing…” is one I’ve heard a couple of times. I wanted to tell him that he can make more money at Burger King than soliciting D2D but I was so sure it was a scam that I just said “NO thanks” and closed the door. Others like “My class is trying to raise money for such and such so would you buy some of this (candy or whatever)? are getting more common. I want to step outside and say “Listen, if you want to make money then sell your product not your needs. You have to present your product as a value to the customer that will improve his life in some way. Never ever try to sell your product on the grounds that it will make the customer feel noble and virtuous.” Then again, I don’t think some of these kids would understand my words.

Who is telling these youngsters to sell like this? Their parents? School teachers? Does the promotional material for the product advocate this? Or are they just given a product and told ‘Here, go sell this’ without any guidance? Have they been so badly indoctrinated with altruism that they cannot comprehend the idea of appealing to some one’s self interest but must appeal to their guilt feelings? I’m not talking about elementary school kids on charitable fund raisers who really don’t understand the concepts of selling. I’m referring to teenagers who should know something about offering a value.

Anyway I recommend reading both posts at both sites.

Edward Kennedy’s life was not entirely bad. I was surprised to read this:

During the 1970s, Kennedy was instrumental in deregulating the interstate trucking industry and airline ticket prices, two innovations that have vastly improved the quality of life in America even as—or more precisely, because—they pushed power out of D.C. and into the pocketbooks of everyday Americans. We are incalculably richer and better off because something like actual prices replaced regulatory fiat in trucking and flying.

Kennedy even said at the time,

The problems of our economy have occurred not as an outgrowth of laissez-faire, unbridled competition.  They have occurred under the guidance of federal agencies, and under the umbrella of federal regulations.

If anything, the fact that even Senator Kennedy was for deregulation is evidence of how America was swinging to the right in the late 1970′s. In the Bush-Obama era, we’ve been headed in the opposite direction.

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“The babies born in hospital corridors: Bed shortage forces 4,000 mothers to give birth in lifts, offices and hospital toilets”:

Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley, who obtained the figures, said Labour had cut maternity beds by 2,340, or 22 per cent, since 1997. At the same time birth rates have been rising sharply – up 20 per cent in some areas.

“Man collapses with ruptured appendix… three weeks after NHS doctors ‘took it out’”:

“However, we would like to apologise if Mr Wattson felt dissatisfied with the care he received at Great Western Hospital.”

Paul Krugman, hack and Nobel Prize (debased) winner, recently said:

In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false. (emphasis mine)

The thing that I fear most about our turn to fascist medicine is not that these horror stories will come hear (though I do fear that plenty), but that the individual mandate will leave me and my family nowhere to turn to avoid this living hell.

The “public option” is bad and will tend to crowd out private insurance, especially if Wal-Mart puts millions on the rolls in one fell swoop. It’s terrible and a wanton violation of individual rights both in the service side and the expropriation end. But our health care system has “survived” Medicare, Medicaid, and the countless regulations that they have imposed.

I have great insurance presently. If I am forced to participate in the government health care system, my family’s quality of life will demonstrably suffer. And should bad things happen, my safety net of trusted doctors, advanced hospitals, and reasonable out-of-pocket expenses will evaporate. This is a life-or-death issue for me.

We Arizonans had a chance last election to create a state’s rights trial balloon that could have potentially nullified the whole endeavor. It was narrowly defeated and thankfully the state legislature has put it up for another statewide referendum in 2010.

A far better challenge to these infringements on our freedoms would be the Ninth Amendment but I’ll take what I can get. I just hope that 2010 is not too late.

Yes, he is in the twilight of life, but he is my father.  More importantly, for 61 years he has been my mother’s lifelong love.  They went through WW2, they immigrated to a Canadian farm from S. England.  Dad pursued several means of employment to provide a comfortable living while raising three boys.

On Monday, Aug 17th, he stumbled, fell, and broke his elbow.  An ambulance took him to the local hospital.  There the emergency doctor told Dad they could NOT set his arm.  He would have to be taken to a larger hospital (a half-hour’s drive), when there was an opening in the Orthopaedic Surgeon’s schedule.

Dad was to wait, in the local hospital’s bed, numb with morphine.  Imagine —uncertain days of pain, medicated fog and dysfunction, imposed upon you because Universal Health Care could not ‘fit you in’?  My mother lay awake, alone, for two nights, sharing his discomfort, and fearing his death, until that opening appeared on Wed Aug 19th.

An ambulance van drove Dad to the scheduled appointment with the Orthopod.   “We’re sorry, an emergency came up”.  The window of opportunity had closed.  At least Dad was now at the hospital where the Orthopod worked.

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Obama has unwisely outraged old people by trying to fund socialized medicine on their backs. The Republicans sense an opportunity for political gain, as well they should. But what do they conclude?

WASHINGTON — Republicans are targeting older Americans worried about President Barack Obama’s health overhaul plans with a “seniors’ health care bill of rights.”

The six principles outlined Monday by the Republican National Committee include protecting Medicare, prohibiting rationing of health care based on age and making sure government doesn’t get between seniors and their doctors.

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Peter Schiff makes a great deal of sense in the following video interview. He is contemplating a run for Chris Dodd’s Senate seat in Connecticut. It would be the most dramatic Senate race in memory, with a wide difference between the two candidates. One candidate would stand for freedom and rolling back government; the other candidate would be… well, Chris Dodd. A difference does not get starker than that. I think Schiff would stand an excellent chance of riding an anti-big-government wave to victory — unless Dodd stole the election with a little help from his friends.

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Here are two new scares the environmentalists are throwing at the wall to see if they stick: Water footprints and oxygen depletion.

That’s right, producing consumer goods uses too much water. If that’s not bad enough, man is depleting the oxygen in our atmosphere. If we don’t assign some noble bureaucrats to regulate these horrors caused by capitalist greed, then we will all end up dehydrated and suffocating.

UPDATE: (HT: William Teach)

The Democrat Party is the Looter Party. The Looters want to take over 15% of the economy in their quest for total control. Yes, as altruists, they believe dictating the lives of the collective is moral. Looters who loot for good of the collective are still Looters.

Frederic Bastiat called it “legalized plunder.” Plunder is plunder, legal or not.

50% of medical spending in America is done by the government. And guess what? The system is FUBAR. So the Looter Party’s solution is to make medical spending 100% government funded — and government controlled. This is like a man going to the doctor because he has cancer, and the doctor pulls out a gun and shoots the man. Hey, might as well go 100% and just finish him off.

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I just finished listening to The Fountainhead on audiobook and a lot of the opinions expressed by the execrable characters rang hollow to my ears. Maybe it’s the people I deal with or the blogs I read, but I just don’t hear people saying things so explicitly—the altruism and collectivism I encounter is subtle.

Then I read this article about the reaction to the Whole Foods CEO’s recent editorial in The Wall Street Journal about establishing a free(r) market in health care. The following quotes could have come from straight from the Council of American Grocers:

Christine Taylor, a 34-year-old New Jersey shopper, vowed never to step foot in another Whole Foods again.

“I will no longer be shopping at Whole Foods,” Taylor told ABCNews.com. “I think a CEO should take care that if he speaks about politics, that his beliefs reflect at least the majority of his clients.”

And:

A commenter on the Whole Foods forum, identified only by his handle, “PracticePreach,” wrote, “It is an absolute slap in the face to the millions of progressive-minded consumers that have made [Whole Foods] what it is today.”

“You should know who butters your hearth-baked bread, John,” wrote the commenter. “Last time I checked it wasn’t the insurance industry conservatives who made you a millionaire a hundred times over.”

In these parasites’ view, Whole Foods was running a sale: buy organic produce and get John Mackey’s soul free. While sympathetic to his position and plight, I am not entirely sure what Mackey was expecting the reaction to be since his business caters primarily to leftist, environmentalist types with a predilection for government action and a general hostility to business. His customers gave him the means to a prominent pulpit but only inasmuch as he will spout their beliefs. They simply will not tolerate heterodoxy and he will lose business over this.

(If we start seeing buttons reading “We Don’t Buy Whole Foods” or discover that his CFO has stealthily been hiring socialists for key positions within the company, I’ll know that Mackey’s capitulation is near.)

Sandy Szwarc at JunkfoodScience has an in-depth look at a health science topic. Although it’s titled “The Myth About Unhealthy Belly Fat” the article’s theme is, ‘the importance of null findings’, and properly laments the fact that the media seldom reports them. This is very true and also very important. That’s because:

“Null findings enable true scientists to know they’re looking in the wrong direction and that it’s time to go back to the drawing board and develop a different hypothesis. They also enable us to stop needlessly worrying about something that doesn’t matter.”

Also, many if not most studies that purport to show a health problem actually turn out to be false and these revelations are often not published as well. (more…)

There are, I believe, two factors that explain the Democrat ad hominem strategy against their opponents in the health care debate (not that there’s much argumentation of ideas going on). One factor is general, and the other more specific.

The general cause is the decline of reason in modern philosophy, and its effect on the left. The postmodern left does not believe that there is reason, but only subjective narratives determined mainly by ethnicity and sex. Language to the left is not used by reason to persuade, but is a weapon used to gain power. Language is a form of force.

This is why the left hates advertising so much; they think it is the way corporations manipulate the minds of the masses and make them act in ways against their own self-interest (in other words, corporate propaganda turns the innocent into right-wingers). One of Obama’s first acts when he took over GM was to cut their advertising budget.

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We here in America can always look at the UK, which is slightly farther down the road to serfdom than us, for a look at what the future might hold for us. Britain has something called a “Chief Surveillance Commissioner.”

Two people have been successfully prosecuted for refusing to provide authorities with their encryption keys, resulting in landmark convictions that may have carried jail sentences of up to five years.

The government said today it does not know their fate.

The power to force people to unscramble their data was granted to authorities in October 2007. Between 1 April, 2008 and 31 March this year the first two convictions were obtained.

The disclosure was made by Sir Christopher Rose, the government’s Chief Surveillance Commissioner, in his recent annual report.

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Rahm Emanuel explains his plan for mandatory “civil defense training.” This interview is a fascinating glimpse into the soul of a collectivist.

Emanuel thinks the state forcing all Americans to endure a common experience “will give people a sense of what it means to be an American.” Personally, I think that choosing to read and contemplate the Declaration of Independence — which I did of my own volition, without being forced to live in a barracks with other people to do it — has given me a better sense of what it means to be an American than any “civil defense training” could.

Here are the Obamas:

Before the election Obama said, “We are… days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” If he succeeds, he will destroy much of our remaining liberty and take us far down the road to serfdom.

This is just a little reminder that Obama is not your father’s Democrat. He’s a new model.

(HT: Hot Air)

The Democrats have decided to continue demonizing the opposition to their health care bill, even though a majority of voters are against them. Harry Reid called town hall protesters evil-mongers, whatever that means. (They are stirring up evil? Calling forth demons?) James Clyburn, the third most powerful Democrat in the House of Representatives, recalls the civil rights era:

“I have seen this kind of hate before. I have seen this discussion before,” he said. “I have seen snarling dogs going after people who were trying to peacefully assemble. I have seen the eyes of people who were being spat upon.”

“This is all about activity trying to deny the establishment of a civil right. And I do believe that health care for all is — a civil right,” the House Majority Whip argued. “And I think that is why you see this kind of activity. This is an attempt on the part of some to deny the establishment of a civil right.”

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Often in debates regarding government programs, the advocates thereof usually fail to account for what is unseen — i.e. for what might have been in the absence of this or that government destruction.

Recently, Stephen Hawking made this error when he said that “he would not be alive if it weren’t for NHS”; he does not account for what would have existed in its place: the superior medical facilities that would have existed in the unseen free market.

The irony of all this is that despite Mr. Hawking’s protestations, the fact remains that one of the things that was very nearly “unseen” by the NHS was in fact Dr. Hawking himself.

(Via Billy Beck)

Here is one point of view:

But the outpouring of anger continued from those who see healthcare reform as misguided, even destructive to the country’s fabric.

“I think it is very hard because [Democrats] don’t have the message machine the Republicans do,” said George Lakoff, a UC Berkeley linguistics professor who has advised some Democrats on how to sharpen their message. “The Democrats still believe in Enlightenment reason: If you just tell people the truth, they will come to the right conclusion.”

Here is the opposite point of view:

George Orwell is alive and writing new fiction about Congress legislating expanded government control of health care. Or at least it seems that way.

A growing and ominous trend lately is the inversion of language to couch further government intervention in the name of liberating “reform.”

For instance, if you want to eliminate the secret ballot in union-organized elections and force workers to vote in clear sight of their employer and a union enforcer, call it “The Employee Freedom of Choice Act.”

There are many more flagrant examples of doublethink in the debate on health care. And it becomes increasingly difficult to have a sane discussion when too many words are used as the opposite of their proper meaning. It can even confuse journalists.

When the government has made a mess of medical care by increasing its control from 10 percent to 50 percent over the last forty years, driving up costs by shifting them to private insurers, and when state regulators have driven up the cost of the other half of care, mandating coverage that makes private insurance unnecessarily expensive, we are told that “reform” means giving government complete control of whatever is left.
Their “reform,” then, amounts to more of the same poison that has been killing us.

We report, you decide.

I suspect the health care debate will not end well.

Right now the big sticking point is the idea of a “single payer.” Opponents say ObamaCare is a trojan horse that will destroy private insurers and lead to single payer. Defenders of socialized medicine took a big hit with this video showing that their plan is a calculated lie to ease America into a single payer system (socialized medicine).

I fear that they will work out a system in which private insurance companies are guaranteed to survive — under government control. In other words, it will be a fascist arrangement: nominal private ownership dictated by the state. This is the direction America has been moving for decades.

The Democrats erred politically when they tried to create an outright system of universal health care on the Canadian and European model. With the White House and large majorities in the House and Senate, the Democrats got a bit too arrogant. They forgot that in America you have to set up a Rube Goldberg system in which private companies are regulated by the government.

Once they find the fascist cover, many Republicans will jump on board. We’ll end up with more government involvement in health care, when we desperately need less government and more freedom.

Principles in Practice, the blog of The Objective Standard, has an excellent analysis of some key elements in the health care bill now before the House, by Dr. John David Lewis. One case in point is the question ‘Will the Plan increase the government’s ability to scutinize our private affairs?’ His evaluation is:

“1.This section amends the Internal Revenue Code 2.The bill opens up income tax return information to federal officials.
3.Any stated “limits” to such information are circumvented by item (v), which allows federal officials to decide what information is needed.
4.Employers are required to report whatever information the government says it needs to enforce the plan.”

Basically, your right to privacy is gone.

Stella at Reason Pharm has another tidbit of info on this health care bill HR 3200. Evidently this bill won’t go into effect untill 2013, after the next election. Obviously, the plan is to get re-elected then bring the hammer down on the American public’s head.

Dan Neil has written It’s time to fight dirty on the health care debate, a classic bit of leftist thinking. He begins by admitting that the other side is winning.

There are times when I want to quit being a progressive liberal, tear up my ACLU membership card and surrender my implanted mind-control chip through which I receive marching orders from Hugo Chavez. No matter the righteousness of the cause, liberal progressives cannot seem to get on top of any public policy debate, cannot seem to win any war of words — which is just weird because you have to assume there are many more English majors among liberals.

While opinions on health-care reform break sharply along partisan lines, with most Democrats in favor and most Republicans opposed, independent voters strongly oppose the health-care reform measures pending in Congress by a whopping 70 percent to 27 percent, according to a recent Pew Research poll. How could the left possibly be losing the debate on health-care reform when its opponent is the roundly loathed health insurance industry — an ongoing criminal syndicate, in my view, that demands protection money from sick people?

Could part of the problem be that the left considers insurance — an industry with a long tradition in free societies as something people buy because they value it with their rational judgment — to be a criminal syndicate?

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In his weekly radio address today, President Obama assailed the critics of the current efforts at health care reform:

And let me start by dispelling the outlandish rumors that reform will promote euthanasia, cut Medicaid or bring about a government takeover of health care. That’s simply not true.

Ok, the reader of the transcript or listener to the speech thinks to himself.  He’s going to show how the proposed legislation will not lead to all the evil things that the critics are claiming it will.  Unfortunately, they will read on or listen in vain.  No evidence is given.  President Obama evidently believes it is enough to have said: “That simply isn’t true.”  Because he said so. 

The next five minutes of the six minute address are mostly given over to demonizing the insurance companies, and explaining all the unfunded mandates he hopes to foist upon them, and all the things he will force them to do, or not do:

We’ll require insurance companies to cover routine checkups and preventive care . . .

We’ll stop insurance companies from denying coverage because of a person’s medical history . . .

With reform, insurance companies will also have to limit how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses.  And we will stop insurance companies from placing arbitrary caps on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year, or a lifetime . . .

But government isn’t taking over health care.  The President ended with statements about those who are trying to politicize the health care debate:

There are those who are focused on the so-called politics of health care; who are trying to exploit differences or concerns for political gain.  And that’s to be expected.  That’s Washington.  But let’s never forget that this isn’t about politics.  This is about people’s lives.  This is about people’s businesses.  This is about America’s future.  That’s what’s at stake.

Indeed!  America’s future is at stake.  And the President wants that future to be socialist, with individual rights tossed overboard.  This isn’t about politics, Mr. President?  Think again.  As long as health care is left to individuals in a free market, it is not about politics.  But it is you, Mr. President, who are politicizing health care, by forcing the health care industry to become an arm of the government, in all but name.  Who do you think you’re kidding?