Last week, in need of some reading material to pass the relative tedium of riding a stationary bike in my local gym, I spied a back issue of The Atlantic, a magazine I never read. Plastered across the cover was the headline, "What Washington Doesn't Get About Health Care," above a photo of a pensive (or even confused-looking) Barack Obama. On a whim, I picked it up.
And never has a chance encounter with a piece of nonfiction writing paid greater dividends than did columnist David Goldhill's comprehensive, illustrative discourse on everything that is fundamentally wrong with our country's health care system, and how the so-called "reforms" being pushed by Democrats in Washington would effectively double-down on a bad bet by expanding the current system.
Goldhill asks the basic questions that never got answered when Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and other liberals in Congress started writing their thousand-page bills to revamp health insurance. "How often have you heard a politician say that millions of Americans 'have no health care,' when he or she meant they have no health insurance?" Goldhill inquires.
From that simple observation, he proceeds to demonstrate why modern health insurance is the problem, not the solution, to the hyper-expensive, often shoddy treatment Americans pay for every day. Liberals harp endlessly on the 40-million Americans without health insurance, and they constantly blame "the insurance industry" for the high costs and poor service experienced by the hundreds of millions who do have insurance.
But they never bother asking why no one likes their insurance. Goldhill does, and more importantly, he provides answers that go beyond facile charges of corporate greed. That someone can so coherently apply some basic Economics 101 to the multi-trillion dollar boondoggle that is American medicine, and explain the problems in plain language, is incredibly encouraging to someone such as myself, who's been arguing all along that paying for health care with health insurance makes utterly no sense.
And in case you're wondering, David Goldhill isn't some weird, right-wing fringe anarchist who blames government for every social problem. In fact, he is a self-declared Democrat with an obvious concern for our country's poorest citizens. But unlike Democrats in Congress, he brings a businessman's eye for rational, conceptual analysis, backed up with the data to make his case.
So, if you have 45 minutes and want a real explanation of the single largest problem facing this country, I implore you to give him a try. You won't regret it.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
ObamaCare: An Offer You Can't Refuse
I happened to catch the president today on CNN, telling a townhall meeting of New Hampshire voters that the health care plan everybody loves to hate really isn't that controversial. New "exchanges" will allow the uninsured to buy health insurance, and new rules will bar insurance companies from denying coverage to those new customers, even if they have preexisting medical problems.
Sounds reasonable enough. And in return, the president assures us the government is simply going to "ask that everybody get health insurance." What a nice guy! How could we angry voters say no to a deal like that?
Except apparently, Obama's definition of "asking" differs from mine, because both health reform bills currently stuck in Congress require virtually everyone to buy health insurance, or face steadily escalating fines in coming years.
If this little nugget of coercion sounds familiar, you might be remembering it from the 2008 presidential campaign, when a candidate named Barack Obama criticized his chief Democratic rivals for supporting an "individual mandate" that would force all Americans to buy health insurance. According to candidate Obama, "A mandate means that in some fashion, everybody will be forced to buy health insurance. ... But I believe the problem is not that folks are trying to avoid getting health care. The problem is they can't afford it. And that's why my plan emphasizes lowering costs."
Flash forward a year, and President Obama has apparently had a change of heart, telling CBS news that "during the campaign I was opposed to this idea ... [but] I am now in favor of some sort of individual mandate as long as there's a hardship exemption."
I think it's fair to say that the term "flip-flop" will die with John Kerry, but still, that's quite a turnaround on an important issue. But hardly a surprise, since anyone remotely acquainted with basic economics can tell you that "universal" health insurance breaks down if you don't force healthy people to buy it and pay the insurance premiums that underwrite the medical costs of insuring the sick. Nobody right, left or center argues that simple fact.
Of course, quite a few conservatives and libertarians on the right argue that government has no business, or constitutional authority, to tell citizens to buy a stick of gum, let alone health insurance. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi neatly summed up the left's response to this objection recently when a reporter asked her if she believed the Constitution gives Congress the power to mandate health insurance, responding: "Are you serious? Are you serious?" Good comeback, Nance.
Since I'm already on record as opposing the mandate to buy insurance on constitutional grounds, and since Nancy Pelosi doesn't care what I think, I won't belabor the point further. However, the Obama-Pelosi mandate does entail one rather bizarre consequence that gets too little attention.
Health care, the president and his backers declare, should be a right for every American, and universal health insurance is the mechanism for upholding that right. But universal health insurance doesn't work without a universal mandate, so our participation in this plan will not be optional.
Ponder that for a moment. Because the rights enumerated in the Constitution -- the right to speak and worship freely, assemble peacefully, vote, etc. -- share an important similarity: in each case, the Constitution protects these rights by prohibiting the government from interfering with them. The Constitution says you can speak as you please, own a gun, and go to whatever church you want; but it makes no provision forcing you to do any of those things.
The newfound right to health insurance, if enacted, would become a first in our history: a right that cannot be refused. What you choose to do with every human right enshrined in the Constitution is your business; when it comes to Democratic health reform, you have the right to do what you're told.
Sounds reasonable enough. And in return, the president assures us the government is simply going to "ask that everybody get health insurance." What a nice guy! How could we angry voters say no to a deal like that?
Except apparently, Obama's definition of "asking" differs from mine, because both health reform bills currently stuck in Congress require virtually everyone to buy health insurance, or face steadily escalating fines in coming years.
If this little nugget of coercion sounds familiar, you might be remembering it from the 2008 presidential campaign, when a candidate named Barack Obama criticized his chief Democratic rivals for supporting an "individual mandate" that would force all Americans to buy health insurance. According to candidate Obama, "A mandate means that in some fashion, everybody will be forced to buy health insurance. ... But I believe the problem is not that folks are trying to avoid getting health care. The problem is they can't afford it. And that's why my plan emphasizes lowering costs."
Flash forward a year, and President Obama has apparently had a change of heart, telling CBS news that "during the campaign I was opposed to this idea ... [but] I am now in favor of some sort of individual mandate as long as there's a hardship exemption."
I think it's fair to say that the term "flip-flop" will die with John Kerry, but still, that's quite a turnaround on an important issue. But hardly a surprise, since anyone remotely acquainted with basic economics can tell you that "universal" health insurance breaks down if you don't force healthy people to buy it and pay the insurance premiums that underwrite the medical costs of insuring the sick. Nobody right, left or center argues that simple fact.
Of course, quite a few conservatives and libertarians on the right argue that government has no business, or constitutional authority, to tell citizens to buy a stick of gum, let alone health insurance. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi neatly summed up the left's response to this objection recently when a reporter asked her if she believed the Constitution gives Congress the power to mandate health insurance, responding: "Are you serious? Are you serious?" Good comeback, Nance.
Since I'm already on record as opposing the mandate to buy insurance on constitutional grounds, and since Nancy Pelosi doesn't care what I think, I won't belabor the point further. However, the Obama-Pelosi mandate does entail one rather bizarre consequence that gets too little attention.
Health care, the president and his backers declare, should be a right for every American, and universal health insurance is the mechanism for upholding that right. But universal health insurance doesn't work without a universal mandate, so our participation in this plan will not be optional.
Ponder that for a moment. Because the rights enumerated in the Constitution -- the right to speak and worship freely, assemble peacefully, vote, etc. -- share an important similarity: in each case, the Constitution protects these rights by prohibiting the government from interfering with them. The Constitution says you can speak as you please, own a gun, and go to whatever church you want; but it makes no provision forcing you to do any of those things.
The newfound right to health insurance, if enacted, would become a first in our history: a right that cannot be refused. What you choose to do with every human right enshrined in the Constitution is your business; when it comes to Democratic health reform, you have the right to do what you're told.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Quick Hits
I'm sure I'll have more to say about the recent upset election in Massachusetts, but for now, I offer you a quick rundown of my favorite left-wing reactions to - and explanations for - the sudden threat to their plan for "reforming" health care.
From The New York Times' editorial writers: "To our minds, it is not remotely a verdict on Mr. Obama’s presidency, nor does it amount to a national referendum on health care reform..."
No argument here. I fail to see how a Senate election in which 49 states' voters were ineligible to take part could possibly constitute a "national referendum." Note to Times editors: It doesn't count if you win an argument that nobody's having.
From Times op-ed writer Timothy Egan: "In famously well-educated Massachusetts, it cannot be said that the voters were stupid."
You know, as opposed to all those stupid states whose votes shouldn't count.
From University of Maryland Political Communications Professor Trevor Parry-Giles: "Other things intrude, like the Christmas Day terror attack, Haiti, anxieties about the economy."
Yeah, sometimes when a natural disaster strikes in some foreign country and inflicts terrible loss of life, I suddenly change party affiliations right before a crucial Senate election. It's the darnedest thing.
From Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, D-R.I.: "The problem isn't our message. It's the messaging of the message that's the problem."
Translation: I don't want to be in Congress either!
From The New York Times' editorial writers: "To our minds, it is not remotely a verdict on Mr. Obama’s presidency, nor does it amount to a national referendum on health care reform..."
No argument here. I fail to see how a Senate election in which 49 states' voters were ineligible to take part could possibly constitute a "national referendum." Note to Times editors: It doesn't count if you win an argument that nobody's having.
From Times op-ed writer Timothy Egan: "In famously well-educated Massachusetts, it cannot be said that the voters were stupid."
You know, as opposed to all those stupid states whose votes shouldn't count.
From University of Maryland Political Communications Professor Trevor Parry-Giles: "Other things intrude, like the Christmas Day terror attack, Haiti, anxieties about the economy."
Yeah, sometimes when a natural disaster strikes in some foreign country and inflicts terrible loss of life, I suddenly change party affiliations right before a crucial Senate election. It's the darnedest thing.
From Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, D-R.I.: "The problem isn't our message. It's the messaging of the message that's the problem."
Translation: I don't want to be in Congress either!
Monday, December 28, 2009
Wrong on Rights
If, like me, you weren't quite able to drown your health care socialization sorrows in food and drink this holiday season, enjoy this small palate cleanser, courtesy of Reason.com's Jacob Sullum.
Amid the feckless rhetoric that has marked this fall's long, dispiriting slog toward some form of government health care "reform" ("Death panels!" "Evil insurance companies!"), it was rather refreshing to find a cogent, compact, philosophical challenge to the notion that health care is suddenly a "right" that "everyone" is entitled to. That assertion, as espoused by Barack Obama, Harry Reid, et al., represents the starting point for every left-wing argument in favor of government-run health insurance, and the key to understanding why mainstream liberals take genuine offense at the notion that the provision of medical care might have some connection with paying for said.
Without poaching on his argument too much, Sullum raises the basic objection that any opponent of government-provided health insurance ought to start with: That for much of human history, "health care" was non-existent. Only the technological advances and material prosperity achieved in the last few hundred years have made meaningful health care a possibility for some, let alone for all, of humanity. "Health care" would have meant nothing to a Stone Age mammoth hunter or a 15th Century Russian serf, because they lived in worlds incapable of providing it, at any price.
So how exactly, Sullum asks, can we assert a right to something that until relatively recently, did not exist? And if we can do that, what does this imply about our right to future goods that do not exist yet? Do I have a right to eternal life if scientists ever discover a way to achieve it? If so, do I have the right to force you to pay for it? Did I have these rights all along, without knowing it?
Anyway, read for yourself. It's a wonderful, if concise, commentary on the nature of "rights," and what constitutes a right. Two thousand years ago, men like Aristotle took great pains to weigh these questions and define their terms. Sadly, the men who rule us today do not burden themselves with such circumspection.
Amid the feckless rhetoric that has marked this fall's long, dispiriting slog toward some form of government health care "reform" ("Death panels!" "Evil insurance companies!"), it was rather refreshing to find a cogent, compact, philosophical challenge to the notion that health care is suddenly a "right" that "everyone" is entitled to. That assertion, as espoused by Barack Obama, Harry Reid, et al., represents the starting point for every left-wing argument in favor of government-run health insurance, and the key to understanding why mainstream liberals take genuine offense at the notion that the provision of medical care might have some connection with paying for said.
Without poaching on his argument too much, Sullum raises the basic objection that any opponent of government-provided health insurance ought to start with: That for much of human history, "health care" was non-existent. Only the technological advances and material prosperity achieved in the last few hundred years have made meaningful health care a possibility for some, let alone for all, of humanity. "Health care" would have meant nothing to a Stone Age mammoth hunter or a 15th Century Russian serf, because they lived in worlds incapable of providing it, at any price.
So how exactly, Sullum asks, can we assert a right to something that until relatively recently, did not exist? And if we can do that, what does this imply about our right to future goods that do not exist yet? Do I have a right to eternal life if scientists ever discover a way to achieve it? If so, do I have the right to force you to pay for it? Did I have these rights all along, without knowing it?
Anyway, read for yourself. It's a wonderful, if concise, commentary on the nature of "rights," and what constitutes a right. Two thousand years ago, men like Aristotle took great pains to weigh these questions and define their terms. Sadly, the men who rule us today do not burden themselves with such circumspection.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Roman Polanski, Empathy, and the Road to Moral Relativism
As a small-time journalist who forever struggles to write gripping, effective lead sentences that grab my readers' attention, I have to express my admiration for Kate Harding of Salon.com for what might be the plainest, most direct lead I've ever read: "Roman Polanski raped a child."
Strong stuff, that.
In a week filled with far too many tortuous defenses of the 76-year-old French-Polish director who was recently taken into Swiss custody on a 32-year-old conviction of unlawful sex with a minor, and far too many histrionic diatribes stating the obvious -- that raping a 13-year-old girl is wrong -- Harding managed to cut right to the chase with almost Spartan clarity. But if I may, I'd like to back up a few steps, and look at the Polanski case in a slightly broader context that I've yet to encounter anywhere else.
But first, as a brief refresher for anyone who hasn't already been bombarded by this story, a timeline of events.
In 1977, acclaimed director Roman Polanski reportedly drugged and raped a 13-year-old female model during a photo shoot for Vogue magazine in Los Angeles. Polanski was brought up on six very serious felony charges, but eventually plead guilty to one lesser offense (sex with a minor) in return for a brief stint in a California psychiatric ward, which effectively served as his prison sentence. When Polanski got wind that the judge in the case, possibly at the behest of an uninvolved prosecutor, was planning to vacate the plea bargain and sentence Polanski to hard prison time on the strength of the written confession he had already signed, the director fled the country and took refuge in France. As a man of considerable wealth, Polanski has lived quite comfortably in his French and other European homes ever since, and has continued his directing career.
California prosecutors have made on-and-off attempts to persuade other countries to apprehend Polanski and extradite him to the U.S., but until last week in Zurich, those attempts failed.
Since his arrest last week, a bevy of Hollywood and European filmmakers, actors and artists have rallied to Polanski's defense, even signing a petition demanding his immediate release. Meanwhile, the nature of his past crime has united public opinion elsewhere in a way few controversies could. Liberals and conservatives alike have been near-universal in their condemnation, and their approval that a wealthy man who committed a despicable act three decades ago is finally going to face the consequences that his political and professional allies have shielded him from for so long. Kate Harding is merely the most succinct of his many, many critics.
The outrage is not shocking, but it is the defenses Polanski's allies have proffered that I believe deserve some examination. Most -- such as his advanced age, the artistic quality of his movies, and the fact that he was never accused of a repeat offense after the 1977 incident -- are completely insipid and may be dismissed as such. I hope we do not live in such a debased age that elderly rapists who only victimized one person and made a bunch of cool movies receive a get-out-of-jail free card.
Another defense -- that Polanski's case was so badly mishandled by the justice system that it would be unfair to prosecute him -- holds some merit. The cornerstone of the American legal system is supposed to be that all defendants receive a fair and impartial trial, which Polanski manifestly did not. However, the fact that he unlawfully skipped the country when he believed himself the target of a looming mistrial, instead of fighting the sentence through the established appeals process, considerably undermines this argument.
The defense I find most significant, if not most convincing, was articulated by the French Minister of Culture, Frédéric Mitterrand, in his protest of the Polanski arrest, when he said he "strongly regrets that a new ordeal is being inflicted on someone who has already experienced so many of them." (Side question: Could any country other than France be pompous enough to have a "minister of culture?")
By "ordeals," Mitterand is referring to the undeniable personal tragedies Roman Polanski has suffered. Born in France between the world wars to a partially Jewish family, he lost his mother to a Nazi concentration camp, and only barely escaped from occupied France himself. Two decades later, Polanski's beloved wife, Susan Tate, was brutally murdered by the Manson crime family. She was eight and a half months pregnant at the time.
Mitterand and his fellow Polanski defenders are asking the world, in effect, to empathize with Roman Polanski. He has suffered enough, they say; let go of this 32-year-old crime, which even the victim wishes to move on from, already.
But liberal pundits, many of whom I've disagreed with on prior issues, are having none of this empathy argument. The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson put it thusly:
"In general, I agree with the European view that Americans tend to be prudish and hypocritical about sex. But a grown man drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl? That's not remotely a close call. It's wrong in any moral universe -- and deserves harsher punishment than three decades of gilded exile."
After cataloging the protests of various European artists, whose shrill tone and hyperbole almost defy belief, the liberal New York Times editorialized:
"But hold on a moment. After being indicted in 1977, didn’t Mr. Polanski, now 76, confess to having sex with a 13-year-old girl after plying her with Quaaludes and Champagne? Didn’t he flee the United States when the plea bargaining seemed to fall apart, raising the prospect of prison time? Isn’t there a warrant for his arrest?"
Good for the Post and the Times and other bastions of liberal opinion for such unequivocal insistence on black-and-white justice. I would venture to say few defendants can boast as much personal tragedy and suffering as Mr. Polanski, but many of the usual champions of moral relativism are saying: "Tough. Justice is blind."
And yet, only a few short months ago, many of those same liberal voices -- including the Times and the Post -- were staunchly defending the school of judicial thought that does take account of defendants' and plaintiffs' life experiences, and does incline judges to side with those whose life experiences arouse empathy. Among the qualities President Obama listed as his criteria for nominating justices to the Supreme Court, consider the following:
"We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be ... poor, or African American, or gay, or disabled, or old."
While we're at it, why not add "or a Holocaust survivor, or the widow of a murdered spouse" to the list? Surely those experiences rank among the most difficult and painful of human conditions.
So I merely hope that all the liberal editorial writers and pundits who embraced "empathy" as a judicial philosophy only a few months ago will take a moment to reflect on the inconsistency of refusing to apply it to Roman Polanski. Perhaps a few of them will concede that their ardent desire to see justice done in this particular case without regard for murky notions of mitigating circumstances ought to be the mindset that every judge brings to every case, every day.
Strong stuff, that.
In a week filled with far too many tortuous defenses of the 76-year-old French-Polish director who was recently taken into Swiss custody on a 32-year-old conviction of unlawful sex with a minor, and far too many histrionic diatribes stating the obvious -- that raping a 13-year-old girl is wrong -- Harding managed to cut right to the chase with almost Spartan clarity. But if I may, I'd like to back up a few steps, and look at the Polanski case in a slightly broader context that I've yet to encounter anywhere else.
But first, as a brief refresher for anyone who hasn't already been bombarded by this story, a timeline of events.
In 1977, acclaimed director Roman Polanski reportedly drugged and raped a 13-year-old female model during a photo shoot for Vogue magazine in Los Angeles. Polanski was brought up on six very serious felony charges, but eventually plead guilty to one lesser offense (sex with a minor) in return for a brief stint in a California psychiatric ward, which effectively served as his prison sentence. When Polanski got wind that the judge in the case, possibly at the behest of an uninvolved prosecutor, was planning to vacate the plea bargain and sentence Polanski to hard prison time on the strength of the written confession he had already signed, the director fled the country and took refuge in France. As a man of considerable wealth, Polanski has lived quite comfortably in his French and other European homes ever since, and has continued his directing career.
California prosecutors have made on-and-off attempts to persuade other countries to apprehend Polanski and extradite him to the U.S., but until last week in Zurich, those attempts failed.
Since his arrest last week, a bevy of Hollywood and European filmmakers, actors and artists have rallied to Polanski's defense, even signing a petition demanding his immediate release. Meanwhile, the nature of his past crime has united public opinion elsewhere in a way few controversies could. Liberals and conservatives alike have been near-universal in their condemnation, and their approval that a wealthy man who committed a despicable act three decades ago is finally going to face the consequences that his political and professional allies have shielded him from for so long. Kate Harding is merely the most succinct of his many, many critics.
The outrage is not shocking, but it is the defenses Polanski's allies have proffered that I believe deserve some examination. Most -- such as his advanced age, the artistic quality of his movies, and the fact that he was never accused of a repeat offense after the 1977 incident -- are completely insipid and may be dismissed as such. I hope we do not live in such a debased age that elderly rapists who only victimized one person and made a bunch of cool movies receive a get-out-of-jail free card.
Another defense -- that Polanski's case was so badly mishandled by the justice system that it would be unfair to prosecute him -- holds some merit. The cornerstone of the American legal system is supposed to be that all defendants receive a fair and impartial trial, which Polanski manifestly did not. However, the fact that he unlawfully skipped the country when he believed himself the target of a looming mistrial, instead of fighting the sentence through the established appeals process, considerably undermines this argument.
The defense I find most significant, if not most convincing, was articulated by the French Minister of Culture, Frédéric Mitterrand, in his protest of the Polanski arrest, when he said he "strongly regrets that a new ordeal is being inflicted on someone who has already experienced so many of them." (Side question: Could any country other than France be pompous enough to have a "minister of culture?")
By "ordeals," Mitterand is referring to the undeniable personal tragedies Roman Polanski has suffered. Born in France between the world wars to a partially Jewish family, he lost his mother to a Nazi concentration camp, and only barely escaped from occupied France himself. Two decades later, Polanski's beloved wife, Susan Tate, was brutally murdered by the Manson crime family. She was eight and a half months pregnant at the time.
Mitterand and his fellow Polanski defenders are asking the world, in effect, to empathize with Roman Polanski. He has suffered enough, they say; let go of this 32-year-old crime, which even the victim wishes to move on from, already.
But liberal pundits, many of whom I've disagreed with on prior issues, are having none of this empathy argument. The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson put it thusly:
"In general, I agree with the European view that Americans tend to be prudish and hypocritical about sex. But a grown man drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl? That's not remotely a close call. It's wrong in any moral universe -- and deserves harsher punishment than three decades of gilded exile."
After cataloging the protests of various European artists, whose shrill tone and hyperbole almost defy belief, the liberal New York Times editorialized:
"But hold on a moment. After being indicted in 1977, didn’t Mr. Polanski, now 76, confess to having sex with a 13-year-old girl after plying her with Quaaludes and Champagne? Didn’t he flee the United States when the plea bargaining seemed to fall apart, raising the prospect of prison time? Isn’t there a warrant for his arrest?"
Good for the Post and the Times and other bastions of liberal opinion for such unequivocal insistence on black-and-white justice. I would venture to say few defendants can boast as much personal tragedy and suffering as Mr. Polanski, but many of the usual champions of moral relativism are saying: "Tough. Justice is blind."
And yet, only a few short months ago, many of those same liberal voices -- including the Times and the Post -- were staunchly defending the school of judicial thought that does take account of defendants' and plaintiffs' life experiences, and does incline judges to side with those whose life experiences arouse empathy. Among the qualities President Obama listed as his criteria for nominating justices to the Supreme Court, consider the following:
"We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be ... poor, or African American, or gay, or disabled, or old."
While we're at it, why not add "or a Holocaust survivor, or the widow of a murdered spouse" to the list? Surely those experiences rank among the most difficult and painful of human conditions.
So I merely hope that all the liberal editorial writers and pundits who embraced "empathy" as a judicial philosophy only a few months ago will take a moment to reflect on the inconsistency of refusing to apply it to Roman Polanski. Perhaps a few of them will concede that their ardent desire to see justice done in this particular case without regard for murky notions of mitigating circumstances ought to be the mindset that every judge brings to every case, every day.
Friday, September 18, 2009
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Tea Party Protest
In a week packed with grim and depressing news concerning a horrific murder at Yale and a string of ill-behaved celebrities making regrettable comments on national television, it is entirely possible that you didn't hear very much about the large, anti-Obama "tea party" rally that took place last Saturday in our nation's capital. Most major media outlets didn't exactly strain their personnel budgets to send extra reporters to the National Mall to chronicle something as boring as a demonstration against deficit spending and nationalized health care. (For the record, I was not in attendance myself; even I have better things to do on a Saturday.)
And so, unless you live in the Washington area, it's even less likely that you heard much about an interesting little aftershock to the tea party that surfaced a few days later. Republican Congressman Kevin Brady of Texas, a prominent organizer of the event, had the temerity to criticize the Washington Metrorail system for not providing more train service to accommodate demonstrators protesting excessive government spending. If you noticed a strange, sputtering noise late Wednesday afternoon, it was probably half a million Washington liberals collectively choking on fury mingled with glee when the story broke.
In a letter to Metro, Brady had this to say:
“These individuals came all the way from Southeast Texas to protest the excessive spending and growing government intrusion by the 111th Congress and the new Obama administration,” These participants, whose tax dollars were used to create and maintain this public transit system, were frustrated and disappointed that our nation’s capital did not make a great effort to simply provide a basic level of transit for them.”
Washington liberals (perhaps it would be simpler and equally accurate to say "Washingtonians") promptly had a field day with this apparent hypocrisy concerning their subway system. Here's a tiny sample of the 690 or so comments on the Wall Street Journal's report of the story (all spellings quoted verbatim):
RealityCheck wrote: "... the Tea Party protesters were protesting against goverment spending and any sort of public good only to find out Public transit was lacking..IT’S NOT SARCASM IT’S IRONY"
MehNeh wrote: "Really teabaggers? Now you’re complaining that there wasn’t adequate government spending on public transit when you needed it? Grow up. Government isn’t some toy that you get to play with whenever you want and refuse to share with all the other kids."
urizon wrote: "It’s a typical right-wing tactic to defund a socialt service to the point where it becomes dysfunctional, and then complain about how government isn’t working."
And much, much more in the same vein. Meanwhile, every political conversation I've overheard in the past few days has followed the same basic script, tinged with the same barely contained joy that these so-called fiscal conservative protesters have inadvertently outed themselves as lovers of government who just won't pony up the tax dollars to pay for it.
But before you rush to join the hypocrisy-fest, I ask you only to consider a very quick thought experiment. Suppose for a moment that, after the protest, Rep. Brady had written a public letter to the Metro commissioner praising the excellent service Metro had provided for him and his fellow protesters, and thanking Metro for the extra train cars that were made available for the event.
Now try to imagine liberals' reaction.
Why, it would be ... wait for it ...
Almost exactly the same! Change a few words, and it would become "How DARE these so-called fiscal conservatives protest government spending and then turn around and sing the praises of a government service? Don't these idiots know where the money for Metro trains comes from!? What a bunch of hypocrites! They LOVE Metro, but they don't want to pay taxes to fund it!"
If you say something that invites intense criticism from opponents, and then you turn around and say the exact opposite, and receive the same exact criticism, that's when you know you just can't win. It's also when you know you're up against an opponent who decided you were wrong before you even opened your mouth.
The fact that the tea party rally was a protest against government spending on health insurance, not a protest of government spending on subways, evidently makes no difference to liberals who have suddenly lost their enthusiasm for mass protest movements. If you are unwilling to recognize the basic validity of opinions you do not share, why bother with facts?
And so, unless you live in the Washington area, it's even less likely that you heard much about an interesting little aftershock to the tea party that surfaced a few days later. Republican Congressman Kevin Brady of Texas, a prominent organizer of the event, had the temerity to criticize the Washington Metrorail system for not providing more train service to accommodate demonstrators protesting excessive government spending. If you noticed a strange, sputtering noise late Wednesday afternoon, it was probably half a million Washington liberals collectively choking on fury mingled with glee when the story broke.
In a letter to Metro, Brady had this to say:
“These individuals came all the way from Southeast Texas to protest the excessive spending and growing government intrusion by the 111th Congress and the new Obama administration,” These participants, whose tax dollars were used to create and maintain this public transit system, were frustrated and disappointed that our nation’s capital did not make a great effort to simply provide a basic level of transit for them.”
Washington liberals (perhaps it would be simpler and equally accurate to say "Washingtonians") promptly had a field day with this apparent hypocrisy concerning their subway system. Here's a tiny sample of the 690 or so comments on the Wall Street Journal's report of the story (all spellings quoted verbatim):
RealityCheck wrote: "... the Tea Party protesters were protesting against goverment spending and any sort of public good only to find out Public transit was lacking..IT’S NOT SARCASM IT’S IRONY"
MehNeh wrote: "Really teabaggers? Now you’re complaining that there wasn’t adequate government spending on public transit when you needed it? Grow up. Government isn’t some toy that you get to play with whenever you want and refuse to share with all the other kids."
urizon wrote: "It’s a typical right-wing tactic to defund a socialt service to the point where it becomes dysfunctional, and then complain about how government isn’t working."
And much, much more in the same vein. Meanwhile, every political conversation I've overheard in the past few days has followed the same basic script, tinged with the same barely contained joy that these so-called fiscal conservative protesters have inadvertently outed themselves as lovers of government who just won't pony up the tax dollars to pay for it.
But before you rush to join the hypocrisy-fest, I ask you only to consider a very quick thought experiment. Suppose for a moment that, after the protest, Rep. Brady had written a public letter to the Metro commissioner praising the excellent service Metro had provided for him and his fellow protesters, and thanking Metro for the extra train cars that were made available for the event.
Now try to imagine liberals' reaction.
Why, it would be ... wait for it ...
Almost exactly the same! Change a few words, and it would become "How DARE these so-called fiscal conservatives protest government spending and then turn around and sing the praises of a government service? Don't these idiots know where the money for Metro trains comes from!? What a bunch of hypocrites! They LOVE Metro, but they don't want to pay taxes to fund it!"
If you say something that invites intense criticism from opponents, and then you turn around and say the exact opposite, and receive the same exact criticism, that's when you know you just can't win. It's also when you know you're up against an opponent who decided you were wrong before you even opened your mouth.
The fact that the tea party rally was a protest against government spending on health insurance, not a protest of government spending on subways, evidently makes no difference to liberals who have suddenly lost their enthusiasm for mass protest movements. If you are unwilling to recognize the basic validity of opinions you do not share, why bother with facts?
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Paging Dr. Adams
Arguing in defense of a troop of British garrison soldiers on trial for firing into a crowd of violent Bostonians in 1770, a young and ambitious lawyer named John Adams famously reminded a hostile colonial jury that "facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." The soldiers had, Adams argued, acted in self defense when a mob of hundreds of taunting dock workers and teenagers assaulted a sentry with clubs and pelted his comrades with ice and oyster shells. Despite populist anger throughout the colonies, and newspaper headlines decrying a "Boston Massacre," Adams won the case, and the soldiers went free.
Two and a half centuries later, facts are still stubborn things. Somebody kindly remind liberal Democrats crusading for public health care.
In the wake of August's town hall protests and Barack Obama's collapsing job approval polls, his core constituency is sounding a bit rattled, as if they can't quite comprehend the sudden outburst of anger provoked by Congress' attempt to pass a trillion-dollar health care overhaul this summer.
November 2008 was the month of murky nostrums about that most meaningless of political rallying cries, change. August 2009 was the month those vague promises of change crystallized into tangible alterations to our society. The transition was sobering, and bewildering, for Democrats who interpreted their electoral victory as a mandate to enact radical reforms, rather than a warning of what happens to dominant political parties that stray too far from the American mainstream.
None of which is to say health care reform has run aground and foundered. With so much of his dwindling political capital invested in this fight, I expect Obama and his congressional allies will salvage some sort of reform, probably in the form of new regulation for the insurance industry, and maybe more. But liberals' cornerstone reform, a publicly run insurance plan open to all, is in actual doubt for the first time since Obama came to office. Democrats everywhere are waking up in cold sweats from nightmares that it's 1994 all over again, when another young, charismatic Democratic president's campaign for public health insurance failed and ushered in 12 years of Republican congressional majorities.
So I suppose certain liberals can be forgiven if at the moment their defenses of ObamaCare sound a little strained. But what I will not under any circumstances forgive are arguments in favor of a gradual government takeover of an entire industry that rest on completely false premises.
So far, my favorite such argument is, hands-down, that presented last Wednesday by Thomas Frank, the Wall Street Journal's token liberal op-ed writer (who never answered my e-mail from last year). Health care must be provided by government, Frank bluntly asserts, because health is a "public good," not some sort of individual condition controlled by individuals. After pointing out that many of the present problems with health care in this country stem from government meddling and (incredibly) using that as an argument for more government meddling, Frank lectures his readers thusly:
"One reason government got involved is that our ancestors understood something that escapes those who brag so loudly about their prudence at today's town-hall meetings: That health care is not an individual commodity to be bought and enjoyed like other products. That the health of each of us depends on the health of the rest of us, as epidemics from the Middle Ages to this year's flu have demonstrated."
To quote Kim Jong Il: "Oh reary?"
Because a quick trip to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells a different story. Per the "National Vital Statistics Report" for 2007, the 10 leading causes of death in America were:
1) heart disease
2) malignant neoplasms (aka cancer)
3) cerebrovascular disease (which leads to stroke, and is often caused by hypertension)
4) chronic lower respiratory disease (usually associated with smoking)
5) accidents
6) Alzheimer's Disease
7) diabetes
8) influenza and pneumonia
9) nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis
10) septicemia
I can't help but notice that not until number 8 on the list do you encounter a cause of death that can spread from one person to another, as implied by Frank's unsupported claim that "the health of each of us depends on the health of the rest of us." I also can't help noticing that the major causes of death are largely linked to lifestyle choices, and have no interpersonal properties whatsoever. You can't exactly catch my heart disease, whether or not a politician in Washington decrees that you must pay my medical bills.
I know full well such observations won't change the minds of collectivists like Thomas Frank, whose stated objective is the creation of a new entitlement that permanently yokes our physical health to the tender mercies of government. But I'm chalking this one up as a small victory for stubborn facts nonetheless.
Two and a half centuries later, facts are still stubborn things. Somebody kindly remind liberal Democrats crusading for public health care.
In the wake of August's town hall protests and Barack Obama's collapsing job approval polls, his core constituency is sounding a bit rattled, as if they can't quite comprehend the sudden outburst of anger provoked by Congress' attempt to pass a trillion-dollar health care overhaul this summer.
November 2008 was the month of murky nostrums about that most meaningless of political rallying cries, change. August 2009 was the month those vague promises of change crystallized into tangible alterations to our society. The transition was sobering, and bewildering, for Democrats who interpreted their electoral victory as a mandate to enact radical reforms, rather than a warning of what happens to dominant political parties that stray too far from the American mainstream.
None of which is to say health care reform has run aground and foundered. With so much of his dwindling political capital invested in this fight, I expect Obama and his congressional allies will salvage some sort of reform, probably in the form of new regulation for the insurance industry, and maybe more. But liberals' cornerstone reform, a publicly run insurance plan open to all, is in actual doubt for the first time since Obama came to office. Democrats everywhere are waking up in cold sweats from nightmares that it's 1994 all over again, when another young, charismatic Democratic president's campaign for public health insurance failed and ushered in 12 years of Republican congressional majorities.
So I suppose certain liberals can be forgiven if at the moment their defenses of ObamaCare sound a little strained. But what I will not under any circumstances forgive are arguments in favor of a gradual government takeover of an entire industry that rest on completely false premises.
So far, my favorite such argument is, hands-down, that presented last Wednesday by Thomas Frank, the Wall Street Journal's token liberal op-ed writer (who never answered my e-mail from last year). Health care must be provided by government, Frank bluntly asserts, because health is a "public good," not some sort of individual condition controlled by individuals. After pointing out that many of the present problems with health care in this country stem from government meddling and (incredibly) using that as an argument for more government meddling, Frank lectures his readers thusly:
"One reason government got involved is that our ancestors understood something that escapes those who brag so loudly about their prudence at today's town-hall meetings: That health care is not an individual commodity to be bought and enjoyed like other products. That the health of each of us depends on the health of the rest of us, as epidemics from the Middle Ages to this year's flu have demonstrated."
To quote Kim Jong Il: "Oh reary?"
Because a quick trip to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells a different story. Per the "National Vital Statistics Report" for 2007, the 10 leading causes of death in America were:
1) heart disease
2) malignant neoplasms (aka cancer)
3) cerebrovascular disease (which leads to stroke, and is often caused by hypertension)
4) chronic lower respiratory disease (usually associated with smoking)
5) accidents
6) Alzheimer's Disease
7) diabetes
8) influenza and pneumonia
9) nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis
10) septicemia
I can't help but notice that not until number 8 on the list do you encounter a cause of death that can spread from one person to another, as implied by Frank's unsupported claim that "the health of each of us depends on the health of the rest of us." I also can't help noticing that the major causes of death are largely linked to lifestyle choices, and have no interpersonal properties whatsoever. You can't exactly catch my heart disease, whether or not a politician in Washington decrees that you must pay my medical bills.
I know full well such observations won't change the minds of collectivists like Thomas Frank, whose stated objective is the creation of a new entitlement that permanently yokes our physical health to the tender mercies of government. But I'm chalking this one up as a small victory for stubborn facts nonetheless.
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