What Happens When The PC Warriors Have Their Way

I've never listened to Michael Savage. I don't know what his schtick is. I don't really care. He's a popular radio personality who generally seems to be a conservative fellow traveler, that's enough for me.

Even if he were a liberal trying to get into a Tory-run island (kind of defies logic, doesn't it?), I'd still stick up for him. Anyway, London Mayor Boris Johnson had a great quote about the whole Home-Secretary-denies-entry-clearance-to-Michael-Savage-kerfuffle.

My first objection to the utterly demented decision by Jacqui Smith's Home Office to announce that Michael Savage, America's third most popular radio show host, is banned from entering this country. It just makes us look so infantile, so pathetic. . . . Perhaps Jacqui Smith thinks that it 'sends out a signal' about the kind of Britain we want. On the contrary, it reinforces a culture -- created by this Labour Government, and its addiction to political correctness -- where people are increasingly confused and panic-stricken about what they can say and what is forbidden, a culture where a police officer can seriously think he is right to arrest a protester for calling a police horse 'gay.' Our courts and tribunals are clogged with people claiming to have suffered insults of one kind or another, and a country once famous for free speech is now hysterically and expensively sensitive to anything that could be taken as a slight.

Spew hatred towards women, Jews, & Western Civilization generally, and you will be admitted and protected in this country--MI5 might track you, but your right to say such ridiculous things will not be impeded.

Speak out against this kind of hatred every day on the radio and effectively, call a spade a spade, and you will not be allowed past the Immigration desk at Heathrow Terminal 4.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Universal Health Care Sucks

I've often said that the egalitarian impulse towards universal health care--broadly, socialized medicine--is pleasant sounding rhetoric that really means everyone's health care will suck equally.

Thomas Sowell, as he is wont to do, makes a better point about the difference between health care and medical care. At first brush, it seems like a splitting of hairs, but it is not.

To wit:

Insurance is not medical care. Indeed, health care is not the same as medical care. Countries with universal health care do not have more or better medical care.

We often hear the number--40 million--of uninsured people in the United States as though this were itself a problem begging for a solution. It almost never occurs to anyone that many of these people choose to go without health care--for whatever reason.

The bottom line is medical care. But the rhetoric and the talking points are about insurance. Many people who could afford health insurance do not choose to have it because they know that medical care will be available at the nearest emergency room, whether they have insurance or not.

This is especially true for young people, who do not anticipate long-term medical problems and who can always get a broken leg or an allergy attack taken care of at an emergency room — and spend their money on a more upscale lifestyle.

This may not be a wise decision but it is their decision, and there is no reason why other people should lose the right to make decisions for themselves because some people make questionable decisions.

Enough Sowell-quoting. Read the column for yourself. Universal Health Care isn't about bringing down the costs of health care. I don't care at all that the UK or Sweden or wherever spend less on health care than the United States. We spend more because (and I know this is going to shock some of you) we want to spend more on health care.

Sure, if you want the country to spend less on health care, give over control of it to government bureaucrats who will ration whatever limited medical options they make available--fewer MRIs, surgery only for the young, 1 drug option instead of unlimited, money for research for drugs which most successfully lobbied members of Congress.

And this is just a short list of things that occurred to me at 1:43am.

I'm not going to argue that US health care is the best it could be. I would argue that though flawed, it is the best in the world and further, that deregulation and simplification of insurance markets and de-coupling health care from employment, etc., etc., would make it even better. Socialization/universalization of health care would make it worse.


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Brits With Backbone

Between time spent at Cambridge & UCL on my MA, I've listened to a lot of liberal elites. They have the same opinions on, well, everything, as the liberal elites in the US.

My flatmates are among what I believe/hope to be a silent majority of Brits in this country who are, you know, sane when it comes to their politics. They love their country & respect the troops who defend their freedom.

I'm not going to repeat the whole story, Ace has got it covered, but there was a Welcome Home parade yesterday for British troops returning from Iraq. The usual, useful idiots--al Qaeda in Iraq & Taliban apologists--were out to embarrass themselves as they tried to shame the troops.

Mission decidedly not accomplished.

Anyway, I wanted to post video footage of the Brits in the street--the ones out to welcome home their heroes--shouting the "protesters" out of the public square. This is the usually silent majority I referred to above.

Note: As with any link to Ace, the usual language warnings apply. Additionally, there may be cursing in the vid, I can't tell; their accents make it hard for me to discern 4-letter words from ones we don't find offensive, but funny. Given the inflamed emotions, I'd imagine a few of the former were thrown around. You've been warned.




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Words Of Wisdom From Margaret Thatcher

President Obama & the Obamabots at State may not think much of the UK or our Special Relationship, but I sure do. In honor of that relationship I present, for your consideration, Stuart Taylor quoting Lady Thatcher:

If this president fails, who will revive our economy? And when? And what kind of America will our children inherit? But with the nation already plunging deep into probably necessary debt to rescue the crippled financial system and stimulate the economy, Obama's proposals for many hundreds of billions in additional spending on universal health care, universal postsecondary education, a massive overhaul of the energy economy, and other liberal programs seem grandiose and unaffordable. . . . I hope that the president ponders well Margaret Thatcher's wise warning against some collectivist conceits: 'The illusion that government can be a universal provider, and yet society still stay free and prosperous.... The illusion that every loss can be covered by a subsidy. The illusion that we can break the link between reward and effort, and still get the effort.

Remember, The Road to Serfdom is paved with trillions of dollars worth of liberal good intentions.


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Iowahawk In The UK

Dave Burge is back writing for Anorak. This time he tackles the topic of Gordon Brown's counter-terror policy--specifically, Brown's penchant for arresting those who "irritate" him.

Enjoy.

COUNTER-TERRORISM POLICE today rounded up hundreds of Britons suspected of membership in organizations described as “irritating” to Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The exact number was not released, but police officials said that many more are expected, “depending on the Prime Minister’s mood this morning.”

“Our sole purpose is to keep citizens safe from the threat of international terrorism,” said Thomas Ayckroyd, a spokesman for the Home Office. “While these detainees may all be British citizens, they were clearly engaged in treasonous acts designed to destabilize Her Majesty’s government by embarrassing, irritating, or otherwise inconveniencing the Prime Minister.”

For a more serious take on the very serious erosion of democracy in the UK evidenced by Brown's arrest of Damian Green, Shadow Minister for Immigration, read Roger Kimball.

Shouldn't be irritating our violent immigrants now, should we?


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Fact: Global Warming Fried The Brains Of 9 British Jurors

Reader and friend of OL&L, B. Berns, wrote of the latest ridiculous Global Warming court ruling:

Are you sure we want to move there????!!!!!????

Short answer: Not permanently.

If you're not familiar with what I'm talking about, last week a jury in Britain ruled that the threat of Global Warming was great enough to justify 35000 GBP in damage to private property.

Jurors accepted defence arguments that the six had a "lawful excuse" to damage property at Kingsnorth power station in Kent to prevent even greater damage caused by climate change. The defence of "lawful excuse" under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 allows damage to be caused to property to prevent even greater damage – such as breaking down the door of a burning house to tackle a fire.

This is a gross application of the "burning house" exception.

I won't waste your time going through all the tenuous linkage steps between a clean-coal fired plant and the purported far-off destructive results of global warming or climate change or whatever buzz word they're using to describe something about which the fetishists know so little.

Suffice it to say, the hysteria in the United Kingdom is completely out of proportion to the supposed threat and people are making stupid decisions as a result.


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