Because Most Voters Are Healthy

Canada's ObamaCare Precedent - WSJ.com

I answered the good doctors question at the end with my title.

Here is the problem with the Canadian system:

The problems were brought home when a relative had difficulty walking. He was in chronic pain. His doctor suggested a referral to a neurologist; an MRI would need to be done, then possibly a referral to another specialist. The wait would have stretched to roughly a year. If
surgery was needed, the wait would be months more. Not wanting to stay confined to his house, he had the surgery done in the U.S., at the Mayo Clinic, and paid for it himself.

When the writer was young and living in Canada, he was in favor of the system -- because he was healthy!! How good is your fire insurance? Would it be better if it was "free" government fire insurance?? Basically, you have no idea how good something is unless you use it. "Free fire insurance" would be a great example of a government program -- the VAST majority of people would never use it, so would be happy. The few that did may be happy or unhappy, but it would make no difference -- since the government provided it for "free", their would be no alternative, so it would be like a lot of other things that we just say "that's the way it is"

I personally know multiple people that I work with that have emigrated from Canada or England to get health care. They liked government health care when they were healthy and voted for it. Why not? It was fine until they ended up on the short end of health care rationing. Are there folks that get sick and are happy with it? Sure, some are at the front of the line -- even though the vast majority of lottery players lose, the fact that some win keeps a lot of gamblers in the game. Government health care can be thought of as a "line lottery" -- if you never get sick, you never have to worry, so it is GREAT! If you do get sick and are lucky enough to end up with a shorter wait -- again, GREAT! You win!

Like a lot of socialist policies though, the trouble with this is that EVERYONE except the very filthy rich is forced to play, but those that take jobs that pay more end up paying MUCH more to play, yet unlike gambling, they don't get any more chances to win. The "game" penalizes those that it needs the most to keep operating, so less and less people are incented to work at higher stress and higher difficulty jobs that pay more -- all that pay allows them to do is to finance the health care gambling game that they could play without any job at all!!!

The incentives are reversed -- minimal or no work is advantaged over difficult and long hours of work.

Follow Europe?

European election results: Battered and bruised | The Economist

I think our MSM usually indicates that Europeans are a lot smarter than Americans and we ought to emulate them. So ought we be moving hard right and protesting leftism? Somehow I suspect that this topic won't get a lot of coverage in our unbiased US press.

History Of Liberalism in US

Forbes.com - Magazine Article

Nice short academic article that just recites some history. Three waves of US liberalism:

1).Progressives.  Woodrow Wilson. The "vision of change" -- old is bad, new is good. Destruction of tradition.
2). Economic liberals, FDR, "extended rights". Forget "pursuit", you have the right to ACHIEVE food, a home, medical care, education, retirement, a well paying job you like -- tons of stuff. "Gimme liberals"
3). Cultural liberals. "freedom from morals" -- no fault divorce, gay rights, abortion, legal drugs, etc. "do what feels good" liberals.

BO is looking to extend all three of these waves, and the fact that each of them has done broad damage to America already in the past is of no concern. Understanding a liberal is essentially just understanding the world view of a two year old.

• I'm a new phenomenon, forget all that has gone before me, be still and know that I am god.
  
• I want it, I want it all, I want it right now, and I have no responsibility to do anything to get it. Make it so, Peons.
  
• I'm going to do whatever I want to do and do it whenever and with whomever I like. Restrictions are evil and stupid, whatever feels good to me ought to be applauded and celebrated.
  

A Muslim Nation?

Barack Hussein Obama: US "one of the largest Muslim countries in the world" :: Toby Harnden

Our MSM chastises anyone so foolish to ever make the statement that the US is a "Christian Nation". It is one of those cases that I'd tend to agree with them -- we USED to be one, and we were founded as an "Anglo-Saxon / Judaeo-Christian VALUED" nation, but no longer. I guess BO is right yet again, we may as well be a "Muslim Nation" -- I'm not sure if that is somehow better than a "Pagan Nation" which is what we really seem to be, but it is probably more accurate than "Christian".

So, does anyone have any expectations of some flap in the press over BO making this statement??? Now whenever there are any statements about a "Christian Nation", we get the big "intolerance" claims -- no gays, no legal abortion, no drugs, no beer, people looking in your bedroom window ... all that "Christian stuff".

So, how about a Muslim Nation? Last I checked the Muslims were much more strict on all the same stuff as the Christians, PLUS, you get your women in burkas, stoning adultresses, rape being the womans fault, stoning gays, multiple wives, etc ... so why would the MSM not immediately leap to the horror of what it would mean to be a "Muslim Nation" when our infallible President BO makes the statement?

It is enough to make one suspect the potential of press bias!!

The Race to One Party

The GOP Ain't Dead Yet - WSJ.com

The left is still having problems with not everyone joining the Democrat party. One party rule is a strong tradition of the left, and the idea that anyone would not think the same as their brilliance has directed us puts them in some degree of high dungeon.

Naturally, all problems are a direct result of Republicans and Republican policies -- while it may need saying (again and again and again), it needs no supporting evidence -- it is a plain fact.

Unfortunately, they have been able to come up with only one way: Impostor theory. The movement's instinct, developed during better times, is to dismiss all failings as authenticity problems. The true faith wasn't discredited, they say, Dubya simply failed to live up to it. We didn't change Washington, they moan, Washington changed us. 

Sorry, chaps. Conservatives did change government, and their long experiment with that institution discredited central elements of their faith. That is obvious today, even if it remains a forbidden thought for the movement itself.

There we have it -- massive pork, federal meddling in education and a huge new drug program were ALWAYS part of the core Republican policy, and the idea that "conservatives" caused all current problems (they were always such huge fans of sub-prime loans for instance) simply needs no support. It is the obvious -- like the earth being round.

I'm one of the few folks to the right of Marx that had the strong stomach to slog through Frank's "What's the Matter With Kansas". I'll save you the trouble -- it says OVER and OVER that the only values worth thinking about are economic, and OBVIOUSLY, Democrats can "give" (rob from the "rich" and give to the "poor") far more than Republicans will, so only an idiot would vote Republican! From Franks and (BO's) POV, that golden goose will just keep laying eggs just as fast after they cut it open and take a few extra!

So Frank's believes he has completely discredited the idea of "populist Republicans" in the following paragraph. There simply is no "elite", just as there is no "left wing media" -- it doesn't exist at all. However, no matter how few Republicans are left, as long as they draw breath there is a threat of a return to "the religious right" or worse. Potentially death camps for Christians would be a good move??

One way back is the populist one, expanding on conservatism's understanding of itself as a rebellion against "elites." I have spent no small amount of ink criticizing the emptiness of this rhetoric -- conservatism is pretty much responsible for our massive economic inequality, after all -- but I will acknowledge that hollow populism beats none at all.

Ah, the threat of having a two party system -- we need to recognize the danger (how ever small it may be) and work to stamp out the last vestiges of those evil Republicans!

Dunning-Kruger Effect

Dunning-Kruger effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As Darwin put it, "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge". The Dunning-Kruger (DK) study seems to prove it and shows the following:

1. Incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill.
2. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others.
3. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy.
4. If they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill.

We **ALL** fall prey to this, since we are OFTEN incompetent!  In fact, for ALL of us, our areas of incompetence VASTLY exceed those areas we are competent, and the worst problem tends to be those areas where we are "unconsciously incompetent". We are too stupid to know that we don't know!

I believe the greater the intelligence of a person and lower their formal training, the worse the DK problem is likely to be. Why? Because formal training is going to teach some level of humility, no matter how intelligent you are. In formal training you WILL find out there are things that you thought you knew but didn't. Some things will be counterintuitive and downright HARD for you even though you are normally bright. These discoveries will tend to teach at least a little humility, so it will be more possible to realize the dangers of "unconscious incompetence" and avoid some DK effects.

If you are more intelligent than the average person, you can commonly "make something up" that will sound plausible to all but the more intelligent or the better trained in some area that you happen to drift into. Even worse, if you couple high intelligence with argumentative ability, you are likely to intimidate even those who really DO know from pointing it out since you will STILL be hard to argue with / convince. (If you are REALLY bad, you will just call them "racist" if they point out where you are wrong!)

A near certain sign of a vast level of ignorance and high level of the DK  effect is the belief  that "Someone that was "smart" could explain this to me SIMPLY (meaning "simple" to the person that wants the explanation)". Often this comes with the corollary that "If it can't be explained (to the person) "simply", NOBODY  understands it very well and all views (certainly MINE!) are pretty much "equal"".  (the simple answer to this is Quantum Physics -- even guys like Feynman said that if you weren't confused, you REALLY didn't understand it!)

The core of this idea is viewing ones self as the center of the universe to an extraordinary degree -- why is it that all phenomena ought to be easily explainable to YOU (if indeed to ANYONE)? It is a piece of unfounded faith that shows extreme ignorance coupled with hubris, but remember, it is very possible to couple extreme ignorance with high intelligence. Narcissists are often exactly this case -- convinced they are the only one that really matters, and their special knowledge, opinion and perspective is really the only one that counts! (Obama may be the greatest example of this in history!)

High Dunning-Kruger and great communication skills is especially dangerous. "See Obama". Note, Reagan had great communications skills, but very low DK -- he clearly knew what he didn't know and acted accordingly. Bush had poor communications skills, and I'd argue a low DK problem as well -- he also was willing to bring in expertise that he knew exceeded his and support them. BO has no clue about economics, mideast history, running car companies, what it takes to win against terrorists, or apparently even Constitutional Law, which was SUPPOSED to be his specialty!  -- but no matter. He is absolutely convinced he can do all of them because he has a law degree from Harvard and worked as a Community Organizer for awhile!

Very much thought about this and the term "chilling" doesn't really do it justice!

Unintended Effects

Perils of pop philosophy

In general, I agree very much with this author -- I too find that the more I read about various things, the less confidence that I have that I "really get it" -- and that odd word "epistemology" (the study of meaning/knowing) pops into my head more and more often. Sadly, the problem discussed here is MUCH worse when the "dominant cultural vision" is in power. When Bush was President, the MSM was quick to point out how "overly simplistic" or "wrong headed", or just plain WRONG most all his thoughts and polices were. Thus, BO.

But wait, just because trying to rocket skyward at 10K MPH forever may not be a "perfect solution", doesn't making trying to plunge earthward at 100K MPH a perfect solution either. There is a HIGH potential that MANY alternatives are at least equally, if not much worse. The set of wrong answers is always infinity, and the set of "good / correct" answers is always much much smaller, often even coming close to ONE. (as in 2+2=4).

Those are real enough, but there’s also the problem that the general
glut of information and opinion makes it disconcertingly easy to kid
yourself about how well you understand a particular topic. (My friend
Michael Moynihan refers sarcastically to “Google pundits”
who affect deep understanding after plucking a few talking points from
a search—a sin I’m sure I’ve committed myself on occasion.)  It’s
something of a cliché, but the older I get, the more I find that
learning more about an area where I once held a strong opinion will
often mean realizing just how limited my own understanding is. No doubt
if you look back to the earliest days of this blog, you’ll find me
ranging across a much broader array of topics with much more
confidence. There is, as Yeats

reminded us, a certain perversity here: People who actually know
something are more likely to be fairly tentative and circumspect, while
people ill-informed enough to think everything is quite simple will be
confident they know all they need to.
I find that paragraph particularly scary as I think of BO. In my life to date, I've never seen anyone with the combination of as much arrogant certainty across a broad set of topics and as much general credulousness from the broad swath of Americans. This is a very dangerous combination.

Anarchy and Disney

Since I've never read any serious books on anarchy, I decided to pick one up. It is titled "Anarchism A Collection of Revolutionary Writings" by Peter Kropotkin. He died in 1921 and was considered a hero in the USSR at the time this set of writings was pulled together in 1970. Both Kropotkin and Roger Baldwin (the guy that pulled this book together) found the move to at least socialism if not communism and anarchy to be "inevitable". Death is inevitable, otherwise, the future of man is pretty much a closed book. The lesson ought be learned many times by now, but for some reason it never is.

Here is a good little quote from the book to give you a flavor for this guy:

Primitive man may have thought it very right -- that is, useful to the race-- to eat his aged parents when they became a charge upon the community--a very heavy charge in the main. He may have also thought it useful to the community to kill his new-born children, and only to keep two or three in each family, so that the mother could suckle them until they were three years old and lavish more of her tenderness upon them."

Touching. You see Kropotkin is an "atheist, scientist and evolutionary moralist". ALL forms of control MUST be removed before the flower of human nature can truly blossom. Only the foolish or the "oppressors" believe in God, the state, or laws of any sort. All man needs for a perfect society is "the quest for pleasure". It is the only natural motivation that there is, and if we simply return to it, we will have a "just", "fair", and "equal" society -- oh yes, and of course all private property has to be abolished.

We can prove with a wealth of examples how in the animal and human worlds the law of mutual aid is the law of progress, and how mutual aid with the courage and individual initiative which follow from it secures victory to the species most capable of practicing it.

Well, I guess that is "proven" then. It is so odd that the "inevitable" and ONLY way for a species to survive (anarchy / mutual aid) hasn't caught on more. Thinking of the bees -- I could swear that they had defined roles like worker, queen, drone, etc and that each did what they were required to do or the other bees stung them to death. But I must be wrong. Ever see a pack of housecats hunting? It is a thing to behold -- it is hard to beat cats for hands down mutal aid of each other -- and why not? No question that their species would not have made it if not for that ever present feline mutual aid!

The socialists and communists have a lot of support for guys like this. I'd expect that BO would find many of his arguments about capitalism, private property, classes, oppression, etc to be very convincing. Of course BO kind of likes power, so I think the "abolish the state" would be a bridge too far. If there isn't any government, you don't have a big plane to scare the folks in Manhatten with, nor the money to go up for the big date with the missus!

Reading a book like this while on a business trip to a convention being held at the Disney Dolphin hotel is strange. I grew up listening to folks in my family bray about "the big shots" and how there was "no hope for the little guy". Now I have to admit that BO is hard at work making sure that middle class folks fall to poverty and the bottom of the "wealthy" fall to lower middle, but for the last 30 years, opportunity has been great.

I went out for a nice walk tonight around an area called The Boardwalk and over to the gates of Epcot Center. As a young man, my family never made it to Disney, an ocean, a mountain, or anywhere outside the upper midwest. I remember my aunt, a nurse telling about seeing the Magic Kingdom on CA, Alaska, or Yellowstone. My uncle in Rockford worked and a screw plant, and they were "rich" as well -- they went on vacations to places like Disney, mountains, etc.

For thousands of years, families would take many generations to make any movement at all on the economic ladder, then all of a sudden, along came America and the opportunity was there. So now I've been to Disney multiple times with my kids, on cruises and on trips all over the US as have millions of others. That opportunity was provided because failure WAS an option -- those that failed to invest in education, markets, property or just plain failed to take the risks of moving to where a decent job was or zillion other things would OFTEN fail!

The beautiful resorts, accessible by a huge majority of Americans, were built on the idea that "not everyone makes it" -- int0 the NBA, on to the stage at Carneigie Hall, or not even to Disney. The fact that failure WAS an option enabled so many more to gain so much, and to raise the standard of living and the potential for all. Is that over now??

I hope not, but I fear that it hangs by a weaker thread than it did in the late 70's. Class warfare has been ignited, but I suspect very few of the folks walking around at these resorts realize that it is them on whom that war has been declared.

Oh, and unless you just want to get mad at "oppression" or just have no brain, this book is way to painful to read to recommend to anyone.

Behold the Power and Danger of the MSM

New poll results are devastating for Obama's Gitmo plan | Washington Examiner

York doesn't state the obvious here. Marketing works!! The MSM was all over Gitmo as one of the big Bush sins, so folks hated it. Of course they knew nothing about it, and no matter how many times Bush or Cheney told them how important it was, they couldn't be believed. They were LIARS!!!

Nobody would drink soda if it wasn't for marketing -- it is expensive, doesn't taste that good and isn't any good for you. But we are all marketed to all the time on it and it is readily available at every corner, so we drink it. We are all sheep, the only issue is if we are able to REALIZE that we are sheep and at least apply SOME critical thinking.

As soon as BO was in power and said he was going to close Gitmo, the MSM was happy. HOW it is supposed to be closed isn't their concern, that is for LEADERSHIP -- of which BO knows nothing. So far he shifts with the polls and has no trouble stating one thing and doing the opposite (campaign finance, wiretaps, military tribunals, gays in the military, releasing torture photos, the importance of deficits, putting lobbyests in the cabinet ... oh well, I'm tired of typing). Will he change his mind on Gitmo? It wouldn't surprise me any at all.

Racism Under New Management

RealClearPolitics - 'Out of Context'

Sotomayor has indicated that her "latino woman better than white man" statement was "taken out of context" ... to which Sowell replies:

What could such statements possibly mean-- in any context-- other than the new and fashionable racism of our time, rather than the old-fashioned racism of earlier times? Racism has never done this country any good, and it needs to be fought against, not put under new management for different groups.

Sowell goes on to make the following unarguable point:

The very idea that a judge's "life experiences" should influence judicial decisions is as absurd as it is dangerous.

It is dangerous because citizens are supposed to obey the law, which means they must know what the law is in advance-- and nobody can know in advance what the "life experiences" of whatever judge they might appear before will happen to be.

Whey bother to have a written Constitution? laws? Bible? anything? If new versions can be made up out of whole cloth at any moment because of somebodies "life experience", "compassion", or just plain "whim". The "standard" that is being foisted on us at every turn now from car companies to the Supreme Court is "no standard at all". The rule of law is dead -- all hail the power of BO!

Helpful Hoplophobe'sTravel Guide

Guns in Parks: The Hoplophobes’ Travel Guide to the United States | The New Ledger

Huge public service done here to help those that are phobic of the horror of a concealed permit person carrying a gun might gun them down. Who says gun folks aren't sensitive!!

Helpful hints on areas that are especially safe are provided (based on the difficulty of getting carry permits). NYC is incredibly safe  (from being shot with a legal concealed gun) -- impossible that anyone will be carrying a legal gun. Same for Newark NJ and Washington DC.

South side of Chicago is incredibly secure from legal gun owners -- great spot for those hoplophobes to visit, along with South Central LA. Good spot to be REALLY relaxed about the potential for seeing a legally carried concealed gun!!

Good foreign travel insights as well. North Korea is notoriously free of any guns for citizens at all, so that ought to be a SUPER safe destination. 

Great job, and no doubt an immense help to those concerned about the terror of someone with a legally concealed gun being in their vicinity!!

Is Life Worth Death?

Schumpeter's Moment - WSJ.com

Great little column, it has nothing to do with my title other than that is what it made me think of. Capitalism is the only thing that creates growth and individual freedom, BUT, it also creates differential wealth (rich and poor) and it isn't perfect -- crashes come with it, no matter how much we want to avoid them. It relates to our "ultimate dilemma" as humans -- one we don't really get to play in except as parents for children, and in the case of a decision to take our own life -- which certainly doesn't "work" in that death is hastened rather than avoided.

Where that becomes troublesome, however, is the moment when
government comes to be seen as the sole source of security. What we,
the public, need to understand is that the best guarantor of security
is not government. It's economic growth. While we want to believe
otherwise, the cold fact is that government can't guarantee economic
permanency. Nobody, and nothing, can.

Pragmatically speaking, we must figure out how to increase people's
sense of security without making government itself bigger or more
powerful

The bottom line is that we have to find ways to ENCOURAGE risk -- in going to school, investing money, starting a business, inventing something or a host of other "risky behaviors". Cases where effort or capital or both is put to some use where "the outcome is uncertain". In the real world, that is true in **ALL** cases. BO and the MSM will tell you "Social Security is certain" -- but if North Korea puts an ICBM into DC at the wrong time, or some nasty strain of influenza hits -- or more likely, they just muck up the economy enough, it ISN'T "certain". Humans don't deal in positive certainty -- only negative. See death.

So what about the ultimate Schumpeterian challenge: Can capitalism be
saved? France's President Nicolas Sarkozy in October 2008 proposed a
brilliant formulation. He said: "The financial crisis is not the crisis
of capitalism. It is the crisis of a system that has distanced itself
from the most fundamental values of capitalism, which betrayed the
spirit of capitalism."

Well put, and BO is taking us away from the spirit of capitalism at warp speed!

Costs Of Supporting Republicans

Dealergate: Stats demonstrate that Chrysler Dealers likely shuttered on a partisan basis

What happens when there is extreme one party rule with no media oversight? They run amok. They ALWAYS run amok. "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely".

If one needs to close some dealerships, I'm sure a politician can't think of a much better method than to correlate the dealership owners list with Republican donors, and "shazaam!". Now a businessman might use some stupid correlation like cars sold, money taken in, profitability, customer satisfaction, etc, but that is where the businessman is stupid.

Hey baby, this is ALL about BO style politics! Corruption? What the hell is corruption? He hasn't even thrown any Christians to the lions yet -- he is being a pretty long suffering guy. If folks "get it" without a lot of violence, he may let a lot of really bad Republicans live with just a minium of retraining and relocation. Talk about a wonderful guy!

Heil BO!

Warming Your Heart

Momma Voted for Obama

We all know the horrors of the right wing family. Two parents, usually in a home, nearly always attending church, working, saving, teaching morality -- the kind of depravity that often creates Republican voters. Such things have often been despised as "indoctrination" in the media.

Nice little site showing how the Democrat side of the fence is all open-minded and trying to keep nasty things like politics out of the little donkey's young life!

How about, "All Democrat children are special, over half of them never get by the abortion clinic!"

The Essensce of Unconstrained

The 'Empathy' Nominee - WSJ.com

The heart of the unconstrained vision is that current thinking, feeling, practices and opinion are superior to any strictures of the past, including a written constitution. Thus we have:

In a speech published in the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal in 2002, Judge Sotomayor offered her own interpretation of this jurisprudence. "Justice [Sandra Day] O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases," she declared. "I am . . . not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, . . . there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

I'd argue that is very much a racist statement. The criteria I like to use is what the attitude would be if the statement was reversed. Second, I would hope that a wise white man with
the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a
better conclusion than a minority woman who hasn't lived that life.

My wordview is that if the second formulation is seen as racist, then the first must be as well, else the term "racism" has no meaning.

Naturally, the idea of ideas and words "having no meaning" is what her first formulation means. There can NEVER be a universal definition of wise. Translation, all points of view are relative, and it is perfectly reasonable for mine (or BO's) to be the one taken as correct -- and NOBODY (least of all, say "God") can EVER declare that there is some "universal truth" ... of which a better understanding would be "wise".

So, BO has appointed a relativist, racist that no doubt will see fit to re-write whatever law she sees fit as often as possible to the court and there is nothing that can be done to stop it.