We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
That is the thing about America that most Americans don't realize. For all the hopeful speeches made by American leaders about exporting the Des Moines way of life to Baghdad or Kandahar, what people in those parts of the world see when they look at America isn't democracy and freedom, it's wealth and power. Those are the things they want, and they don't understand why American leaders keep chattering on about democracy and freedom, no more than we understand why Muslims keep going on about the Koran.
They're not interested in what we believe, but in what we have, and they can't make the connection between one and the other, as far as they are concerned they already believe the right things. Muslims see the West in purely mercantile terms, decadent but rich. Dubai and Riyadh are in their own way crude imitations of us, or how they think we are. Luxury cars, gold encrusted things, prostitutes and tall buildings. The same goes for Moscow and Beijing, which gave rise to their own ruling mafias riding around in limousines, squandering fortunes, building tacky towers and imagining that they are outdoing the West.
The SG talks about liberty: "millions of people with chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease, and as a result of the health care... they will be unshackled from the disabilities that those diseases put on them and have the opportunity to enjoy the blessings of liberty." There's freedom inside all this compulsion and coercion, because when the government supplies your needs, then you can enjoy life. That's the argument!
Instead of 2000-page Obamacare, with its vast new omnipotent and costly bureaucracies, they should have simply gone for Medicare for all. Eliminate Medicaid, Chip, etc. and put everybody on Medicare.
While I detest any expansions of government power, I think that, politically, it would have been more popular. Wrong, but more popular.
My preference would be to have the federal government out of medical care, and education, entirely. And out of a few other industries and enterprises too.
The inner-ring suburbs around a major city collectively have a much greater area than the city itself. Hence, even modest reductions in density regulations in these areas--replacing large lots with small ones, single-family homes with townhouses--would have a larger effect on the housing supply than allowing a few more 50-story apartment towers downtown.
Matt points out that housing deregulation would have a number of benefits. High-density living is better for the environment. It promotes a more diverse and efficient service sector. It makes reliable and convenient mass transit feasible. But I think the most important message of Matt's book, and others like Ryan Avent's The Gated City, is that it makes clear that astronomical rents are a result of specific regulatory decisions, not an inevitable malady of urban life.
Or are you totally retarded, and still need elected dingbats to tell you how to live? Efforts to intrude into our lives and choices are becoming absurd. Nannie Bloomberg is one of the worst.
Now he's worried that food donated to the homeless might have too much salt. Kosher food, no less. This guy has some weird obsession with what other people eat. It's not a normal concern, especially for a male. Does he think he's my mother?
The machinations of the Army Corps of Engineers - levees, water diversions, flood control etc - around New Orleans prevented the maintenance of the Mississippi delta by blocking the flow of the silt down the river.
But, if you read the article, the LA Times writer repeated brings up "climate change" and how the current situation "left the sinking Mississippi Delta defenseless against the slower but inexorable onslaught of rising seas brought about by climate change." (By the way, it is not "sinking. River deltas are sustained by river silt, or else normal erosion and currents wash them away.)
Thus the author first explains the real mechanics of why the delta has shrunk, and then brings in the irrelevant topic of "climate change" and seal level, converting an interesting article into a propaganda piece. That bugs me.
Sea levels have been slowly rising to a total of around 120 meters since the last Ice Age, recently by an unalarming average of 3 millimeters per year. (Since 2010, they have been dropping, to the dismay of the alarmists.)
and, just for fun, post-glacial climates. Looks like we're trending downward from the optimum, which is not good:
Since pregnancy is a disease, then, someone else should pay the premium for insuring against the consequences of a woman’s risky, careless behavior. She shouldn’t even be responsible for grabbing some free condoms at the clinic and taking care of the risk herself.
Look even closer, and we see the real progressive agenda at work: increasing the power and reach of the federal government and its bureaucratic minions by discrediting and marginalizing any other source of authority over our behavior, especially institutions of moral authority such as churches. That way the government can aggrandize its power by relieving people of the responsibility for their choices through palliating their damaging consequences while making others pay for them. Tocqueville noticed 150 years ago this tendency of centralized power to expand by infantilizing the citizenry. Centralized governments, Tocqueville remarked, act as “if they thought themselves responsible for the actions and private conditions of their subjects, as if they had undertaken to guide and to instruct each of them in the various incidents of life and to secure their happiness quite independently of their own consent.”
Here at Maggie's, we might be termed "skeptics" but, when it comes to climate, we're really of the "Who cares?" school more than anything else. (Of course, worrying about the next Ice Age and its effects on real estate values does keep us up at night.)
Best summary I have seen of The Skeptics' Case, presented in a way that even non-scientists can easily follow.
I have concluded that we can accomplish very little with convinced warmistas and probably even less with true deniers. So we just make our measurements, perfect our theories, publish our work, and hope that in time the truth will out.
"The data doesn't matter. We're not basing our recommendations on the data. We're basing them on the climate models." -Prof. Chris Folland, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research
"The models are convenient fictions that provide something very useful." -Dr David Frame, Climate modeler, Oxford University
"It doesn't matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true." -Paul Watson, Co-founder of Greenpeace
"Unless we announce disasters no one will listen." -Sir John Houghton, First chairman of the IPCC
"No matter if the science of global warming is all phony ... climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world." -Christine Stewart, former Canadian Minister of the Environment
As regular readers know, we tend to believe that this is all a big trumped-up boondoggle, and of no importance. Furthermore, here at Maggie's we pray for global warming.
Who is crazier: the ignorant, lunatic, hyper-reactive Muslems, or our pathetic Western governments? Gee whiz, I am so deeply sorry I hurt your sensitive feelings while sacrificing our lives while trying to rescue your freedom and lives.
"This is a world in which nobody asked the Islamic conference, the grouping of the 56 Islamic countries, to issue an apology when Christians are attacked and churches are burned in Egypt or in Pakistan. And have we heard a word from any Islamic leader anywhere about the radical Muslims in Nigeria who are not only burning the churches but are burning women and children who are Christian in the churches. When I hear that, I’ll expect my president to start issuing apologies.”
According to The Washington Post columnist, this response makes the United States look weak and despite looking weak, those on the other side rarely reciprocate.
“Nothing but burning the White House can relieve the wound of us, the Muslims, caused by the Burning of Quran in the US,” he underscored.
“Their apology can be accepted only by hanging their commanders; hanging their commanders means an apology,” he reiterated.
Obama has sent a letter to his Afghan counterpart Karzai, apologizing for the burning of copies of the Holy Quran.
These people make Islam look both stupid and bad. If they don't want to understand me, why should I bother trying to understand them? "Hearts and minds"? Are you kidding?
Screw 'em. We gave them a chance, and that's all we can do. On this topic, I agree with Obama and the Russians and the Brits before: Afghanistan is a tar baby. If they aren't one kind of trouble, they're another: heroin, terrorism, tribal warfare, Taliban. Kipling knew this.
How many generations does it take before the younger people look around and say, “Of course somebody else is going to pay for me. Of course there’s a bailout. If I screw up or don’t save any money, it doesn’t matter.” I say we’re living on borrowed time. We’ve drawn down the balance of our bedrock values. Once the stigma of being dependent is eliminated, more and more people want to be that way.
What kind of club is that, where half the members pay no dues? (chart via Foundry)
To mix metaphors, we believe that every citizen should have some skin in the game. It's only "fair."
Of course, from a political standpoint the Left wants all the free-loaders and dependents they can get. We all get that. (Look at what has been happening to Disability. After some time on Disability, no matter how functional, few will ever work again. It has become the new Welfare. Everybody has some disability, don't they? Nobody's perfect.) Here's a question from Bernie: Can Obama Win Re-Election by Promising Free Stuff?
Mr. Obama says he is not waging class warfare against the wealthy in America. He is, of course. His campaign slogan might as well be: ” Vote for Me … I’ll Give You Free Stuff.” This is enticing. Imagine if you pay no federal income taxes and one of the candidates says, “I’ll take money from rich people and give it to you to pay your mortgage – even if you were irresponsible and bought a house you couldn’t afford. Vote for me, I’ll make sure you get unemployment benefits for almost two full years. And, oh yeah, vote for me and I’ll make sure you get birth control pills — free of charge.
Half of our culture no longer puts death and taxes next to each other, no longer understands that Uncle Sam taking your money is a bad thing, no longer understands what angered Robin Hood and what prompted the Boston Tea Party. This half of our culture has actually reached a point that they view taxes as a noble form of patriotism and charity.
We need to start showing them how it’s affecting their lives on a daily basis. We must get people to hate taxes again and look at it as the absolutely minimal necessary evil that it’s intended to be. We don’t get there by scolding them. We get there by teaching them.
I do my own interior design, and I ain't got no license. When guilds conspire with government, things go nuts. I think I'll just go move my sofa, for the sake of rebellion.
ObamaCare is designed to become a government-controlled Welfare program for all, with insurance companies as back offices, check-paying services for a one-size-fits-all government program. Leviathan is always hungry. Freedom and free choice is the cost.
Are there really tons of folks out there who want the federal government in charge of their own medical care? Who really wanted this, except for government? And government employees are exempt from it, which just goes to show...
The politicization of medical help has only just begun. It's a feature, not a bug.
As an aside, recall that the Church supported Obamacare. Compassion, of course. Compassion without discernment is just vanity and foolishness.
If you are of the Muslim religion, you don't have to give all the new Obamacare healthcare reform regulations and penalties another thought. Because the concept of being compelled to participate in such a healthcare program offends Islamic sensibilities, Muslims are specifically exempt.
As a matter of fact if you are Amish, American Indian or a Christian Scientist you do not need to participate or pay the taxes associated with healthcare reform. That means not having to be forced to buy healthcare insurance, not paying the taxes or the penalties if you don't get it.
Clearest explanation I've seen about Obamacare:The Real Trouble With the Birth-Control Mandate -Critics are missing the main point. There are good reasons that your car-insurance company doesn't add $100 to your premium and then cover oil changes.
One quote:
Notice the doublespeak confusion of "access" and "cost." I have "access" to toothpaste because I have two bucks in my pocket and a competitive supplier. Anyone who can afford a cell phone can afford pills or condoms.
Poor women who can't afford birth control are a red herring in this debate. HHS isn't limiting this mandate to the poor anyway. We all have to pay. The very poor typically don't have employer-provided health insurance in the first place. "Allowing women to space their pregnancies"? Was there some sort of federal ban on birth control before this?
It's not about "access" and it's not about "insurance." It's because Americans, when paying even modest copayments, choose to spend their money on other things. They prefer a new iPod to a "wellness visit" to the doctor.
As the HHS unwittingly admits: "Often because of cost, Americans used preventive services at about half the recommended rate." Remember, we're supposed to be worrying about skyrocketing health-care expenses. Doubling the number of wellness visits and free pills sounds great, but who's going to pay for it? There is a liberal dream that by mandating coverage the government can make something free.
Sorry. Every increase in coverage means an increase in premiums.
That doublespeak about access and cost is what I have been writing about. If it's a plan to pay for every medical cost, it isn't insurance in any ordinary sense.
The issue is not whether birth control and abortion are available. They are. The issue is whether the government should have the power to force your neighbor to pay for these things, and/or to require all insurance policies to cover them. Also, neither of these things are particularly expensive.
The insidious premise of the discussion is this: If it isn't covered, it's not available. But don't people buy their own Nyquil, Tylenol, heat pads, Viagra, divorce counseling, cosmetic surgery, toe fungus medicine, toothpaste, Botox, morning-after pills and Dr. Scholl's foot products?
Have people become so trained to expect somebody else to buy what they want that the premise has become distorted? I am a happy product of an unexpected pregnancy, and refuse to regard pregnancy as a disease. Pregnancy is health. If an unexpected pregnancy is a disease, then I am a disease. A tumor, or something.
In fact, I cannot understand why some medical insurances cover pregnancy at all, much less abortions. In my view, we all ought to be free to buy, or not buy, medical insurance of any sort with any sorts of coverage, depending on what makes sense for us. We ought to be able to bring a check list of what we want to the table, and see some nation-wide competition for our business. Get bids, like anything else.
Here at Maggie's, we tend to prefer high-deductible Major Medical coverages with our own choices of docs. Cheap protection from financial catastrophe.
One in five Americans — or slightly more than 67 million — now relies on federal assistance, at a cost of $2.5 billion annually. That’s the highest in the country’s history, the authors wrote. The index also found that Americans who depend on federal assistance receive an average of $32,748 in benefits, about $300 more than the nation’s average disposable personal income.
