Maggie's Farm

The universe was not made to our specifications. Nor were human beings. So there is nothing surprising in the fact that we are dissatisfied with many things at many times. The big question is whether we are prepared to follow any politician who claims to be able to "solve" our "problem."

If we are, then there will be a never ending series of "solutions," each causing new problems calling for still more "solutions." That way lies a never-ending quest, costing ever increasing amounts of the taxpayers' money and-- more important-- ever greater losses of your freedom to live your own life as you see fit, rather than as presumptuous elites dictate.

Thomas Sowell, in today's Utopia vs Freedom

Compromise, hell! That's what has happened to us all down the line - and that's the very cause of our woes. If freedom is right and tyranny is wrong, why should those who believe in freedom treat it as if it were a roll of bologna to be bartered a slice at a time?

Sen. Jesse Helms (1921-2008), writing in 1959 on compromise in politics. 

If America isn't about freedom from the State, then it isn't about anything except lovely landscapes - and money and malls, but most countries are about those things, more or less.

Much easier than cement for walkways and pavers: QuikKrete Jointing Sand. Great invention. Sweep it into the gaps, then mist with water and you have a hard sand/polymer bond that won't crack like cement, or grow weeds like stone dust.

It's about time something this easy was invented. I refurbished one of our slate walks with this stuff yesterday.

When you go to an Italian funeral, it's always "Too young, too young."
When you go to an Irish funeral, it's always "He had a good run. Let's have a drink."

Deacon Kevin McCormack, on 770's WABC religion radio program this morning

Is the era of the small town over in America? Bookslut thinks so.

I'm not sure how "small" is defined. As readers know, I work in a city (Hartford), sleep in exurbia. Everybody needs places to be a bit anonymous - but not too anonymous.

At the least, you want your regular shopkeepers, bartenders, and maitre d's to know your name - but you can do that in both city and country when you find the places you like.

Photo: A small town in NH, c. 1890. Note the large scale elimination of trees from the hillsides, typical of the 1800s in New England. Firewood, charcoal, and lumbering, thus creating hillside pastures and driving the bear and moose up to Maine. Also note the fine streetside Elm trees, now all gone due to the Elm Tree Blight.

No CVS or Dunkin Donuts in evidence: how did people survive?

Alcohol is good, unless you are alcoholic. Guns are good, unless you are a murderer. Medicine is good, unless you OD on it. Vehicles are great, if you pay attention. Big Macs are good, unless you eat so many that it makes you tired, slow, and repulsive-looking.

Everything is like that.

From Samizdata on alcoholphobia:

There is only one kind of professional 'alcohol educator' worth listening to, and they are called sommeliers.

From Insty, Tax Burden of Top 1% Now Exceeds That of Bottom 95%. The problem there is that there are too many people with no skin in the game, and it turns most of the population into members of a cargo cult, awaiting the arrival of their magic goodies.

I am a flat-taxer: 13% on all income, for all. No deductions, no tax forms, no increases except temporarily in wartime.

Re Sen. Corker:

Corker says President Obama recently met with him, something he appreciates. But Corker doesn't think Obama "has his feet on the ground with regard to what appropriate health reform is." He adds, "And he personalizes everything, it's all, 'I, I, I.'" Corker suspects that for Obama "doing this with some massive bill is about politics...To him, it's about a political victory, not about doing what's in the long-term interest of citizens."

Teddy Roosevelt rightly fascinates biographers.

I am not ready for a new one after having read Edmund Morris' multi-volume bio, but Douglas Brinkley's new one looks to be a big seller: The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America.

Our pet theory is that Americans snap up history books because they get no serious history in school. 

How many people really imagine that Presidents and Washington have power over the economy?

Governments, of course, only really have power to damage economies. Economies have lives of their own, following their own natural laws like weather. Even the Almighty Fed is very limited in what it can do.

Still, people seem to think that Presidents are somehow responsible, and I suppose that is because politicians seek any advantage, no matter how insincere.

Neither Bush nor Obama are responsible for the recession. It's called a "business cycle." People are blaming Obama now, and the O is trying to blame Bush. It's all stupid boob bait.

Besides cycles, what has the power to damage economies is government intervention like taxation, deficits, subsidizing of failing businesses, and regulation. Those things hobble economies, holding them back from what they naturally want to do (which is to produce things, including labor, and to price them), and I have no doubt that businesses have been worrying about what the Dems might do to hobble them.

Lefties always seem to love wealth and money, but to have contempt for those who create those things. Most of the very wealthy people I know are Dems or "Independents."

I posed this question to a very nice, well-intentioned but scientifically-illiterate Greenie lady I sat next to at dinner on Saturday night:

"What if there really is scary global warming, but it turns out it isn't caused by man, but instead by natural variation from other factors that are too complex to be understood? Then what?"

There was no reply. Her brain appeared to short-circuit.

I am a fun dinner companion.

One year ago, I parked my car (legally - no No Parking signs) on the side of the road to eat my take-out Thai lunch as a break from the office, while admiring a lot full of fancy used cars.

Cop pulls up behind, turns on flasher. "What are you doing here?"

"Eating my lunch and looking at the pretty cars, officer."

"License and registration, please."

"OK. Here they are." (Goes back to his car to check it all, then returns)

"You need to move along."

"WTF? F-you. I'm an attorney, and I am doing nothing wrong. What's the matter? Didn't get any last night, ahole?"  "All right, Officer."

I happen to be white. Policing happens to everybody, and sometimes it is a damn annoyance and ridiculous. I decided not to send a letter of complaint, because they might be on the lookout for my gold-plated Rolls 5 year-old Lexus sedan after that. You have to use your brains: cops are your employees, and they are pros, but also pricks sometimes.

As an attorney, when a police officer stops you and says "I smell alcohol on your breath. Have you been drinking?" the correct response is never "Officer, I see powdered sugar on your chin. Have you been eating jelly donuts?"

Of your tax dollars to produce one, one-week job. That isn't efficiency, in my book. Wouldn't a tax cut have worked better?

Or a $50,000 check mailed to each American? That would have surely produced a short-term stimulus...altho I believe economic cycles heal themselves anyway, and best, without government intervention, just like everybody gets over the flu after a while except those who were already dying.

If the US Treasury had sent me a $50,000 check (shamelessly borrowed from my kids and future grandkids), I would have bought myself a used S&W .45 revolver for $700 to shoot beer cans off a big old log, and used the rest to pay off kids' college debts.

And around $1500 of it to bring our veterinary account up to date. Vets are paid better than Docs these days.

A brief Mankiw explanation of his view on government power, in the context of medical care, which echos my views but is more concisely expressed. A quote:

(My) philosophical inclination most likely influences my views of the healthcare debate. The more power a centralized government authority asserts, the more worried I am that the power will be misused either purposefully or, more likely, because of some well-intentioned but mistaken social theory. I prefer reforms that set up rules of the game but end up with power over key decisions as decentralized as possible.

and:

What puzzles me is that Paul (Krugman) seems so ready to trust solutions that give a large role to the federal government. (In the past, for instance, he has advocated a single payer for healthcare.) I understand that trust of centralized authority is common among liberals. But here is the part that puzzles me: Over the past eight years, Paul has tried to convince his readers that Republicans are stupid and venal. History suggests that Republicans will run the government about half the time. Does he really want to turn control of healthcare half the time over to a group that he considers stupid and venal?

Read the whole short piece. Then I saw this interview with Princeton's Utilitarian Philosophy Prof Peter Singer. One exchange in that interview:

Do you really think the government can make choices regarding care fairly and efficiently?

Mr Singer: Since my New York Times article appeared I've had many people write to me with their heart-breaking stories of being denied care, or being unable to afford care, for themselves or for their families .No human system is going to be error-free, but I'm convinced that the government can set up a process that will make choices that lead us to obtain better value for our health-care dollars than the completely uncontrolled system that exists now.

Utilitarians always give me the creeps. It's always about having "experts" in "control" of our lives - preferably them. Speaking of power and control, Kaus makes a comparison with the proposed IMAC with base-closing commissions, with this wise comments:

Why isn't a base-closing style commission the solution to every one of our problems? After all, it's logical that the problems our peculiar system of government--featuring a Congress that gives powerful voice to regional and local interests--hasn't yet solved will be precisely the problems that our peculiar system of government is almost incapable of solving. Otherwise they would have been solved already! 

and

The Constitution created an unwieldy system--requiring that every law pass two houses and get approved by the President--that we long ago concluded was incapable of generating the quantity of binding laws a modern society needs. The response was the creation of the administrative state--the "unelected fourth branch of government" that writes enforceable rules subject to nobody's veto (except the lawyers and the courts). At least the base-closing solution grounds the outcome in the consent of elected officials.

The "administrative state." That's the word for it. Like Versailles.

In every language, the first word after "Mama!" that every kid learns to say is "Mine!" A system that doesn't allow ownership, that doesn't allow you to say "Mine!" when you grow up, has - to put it mildly - a fatal design flaw.

Frank Zappa (h/t, Samiz)

Dino's reminder of the Newsweek comment that the O "is sort of a god" reminded us of this post from one year ago:

I love hope and change, don't you? That's why I buy Powerball tickets on occasion -and why I work out. Nevertheless, my life is pretty darn good, even if I have to work long hours.

Obama's got the Big Con going. Beran at City Journal gets it. One quote:

The danger of Obama’s charismatic healer-redeemer fable lies in the hubris it encourages, the belief that gifted politicians can engender a selfless communitarian solidarity. Such a renovation of our national life would require not only a change in constitutional structure—the current system having been geared to conflict by the Founders, who believed that the clash of private interests helps preserve liberty—but also a change in human nature. Obama’s conviction that it is possible to create a beautiful politics, one in which Americans will selflessly pursue a shared vision of the common good, recalls the belief that Dostoyevsky attributed to the nineteenth-century Russian revolutionists: that, come the revolution, “all men will become righteous in one instant.” The perfection would begin.

In rejecting the Anglo-American politics of limits, Obama revives a political tradition that derives ultimately from Niccolò Machiavelli. In the Discourses on Livy and The Art of War, Machiavelli argued that it is possible to create a communitarian republic like the one whose outlines he glimpsed in Livy’s (highly romanticized) version of Roman history—a polity in which citizens, forsaking their own swinish pursuits, would become happy in the pursuit of a common good. Wise laws, he maintained, would “make citizens love one another.” The virtuous res publica of the Romans could be conjured anew.

Via Gateway, re WH medical care advisor Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (Rahm's brother)

Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others" (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008).

Yes, that's what patients want their doctors to do. But Emanuel wants doctors to look beyond the needs of their patients and consider social justice, such as whether the money could be better spent on somebody else.  

That's why they want Docs to be government employees instead of your privately-hired professional.

Synthstuff saw the above and expanded on the topic.

Psalm 14

14:1 Fools say in their hearts, "There is no God." They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is no one who does good.

14:2 The LORD looks down from heaven on humankind to see if there are any who are wise, who seek after God.

14:3 They have all gone astray, they are all alike perverse; there is no one who does good, no, not one.

14:4 Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon the LORD?

14:5 There they shall be in great terror, for God is with the company of the righteous.

14:6 You would confound the plans of the poor, but the LORD is their refuge.

14:7 O that deliverance for Israel would come from Zion! When the LORD restores the fortunes of his people, Jacob will rejoice; Israel will be glad.

Via Insty:

THE RELIGIOUS QUALITY OF ENVIRONMENTAL EXTREMISM: I think that people start with a desire to be extremists — or, at least, to feel good about themselves and condemn others — and then look around for an ideology that gives them what they want. The actual merits are far less important, as is demonstrated by the transparent idiocy of most ideologies.

God, honor, duty, family and country should be enough to keep any sane person busy and satisfied for a lifetime in a free country - with a little huntin,' fishin,' gardenin,' Scotch whiskey, and writin' and bloggin' on the side, of course.

From a Theo piece:

It took Obama six months to pick a dog, but he wants a Health Care Bill by next week?

Who's he kidding?

Does medical insurance represent a market failure? Robin Hanson

Related: When politics replaces market forces.

The medical insurance mess has been put on hold for the summer, at least. I guess it's not really all that urgent after all. The O did his cause no favors last night, as Betsy summarizes.

And after Carnahan and Sibelius got laughed at in Town Hall meetings this week, it must have been clear that nobody was buying the government line. Remarkably, and in contrast with the rest of the fawning press, the AP saw fit to point out the O's lies.

I repeat: Isn't lying supposed to be a bad thing?

Can I go on blog vacation now?

I agree with Vanderleun that the "press conference" last night was a fellatio fest of seemingly prepared and rehearsed questions with lying responses (lying is back in fashion), but the O missed an amazing opportunity. Among the softballs and adulation was the question about Prof. Gates' arrest for disorderly conduct with police officers.

The correct answer was this: "Our American police officers respond to calls of all sorts, never knowing what sort of situation they are walking into. Their job is to protect the honest and the innocent, and our job as citizens is to give them the respect and gratitude they deserve for doing that."

In my view, Gates should have thanked the officers for wanting to protect his house. Most people know that it is never wise to give shit to police officers, regardless of the situation. Cops are always a bit edgy on the job - and rightly so.

And the "Don't you know who I am?" approach only works for Kennedys: they own the copyright.

Update: The O didn't mean to call the cops "stupid." Of course not.

Update: The cop comes across as more professional than the O:

"Mister Gates was given plenty of opportunities to stop what he was doing. He didn't. He acted very irrational, he controlled the outcome of that event."

"There was a lot of yelling, there was references to my mother, something you wouldn't expect from anybody that should be grateful that you were there investigating a report of a crime in progress, let alone a Harvard University professor." 

According to the police report, Crowley asked Gates to talk outside, to which he responded "Yeah, I'll speak with your mama outside."