On Egalité

Ruling regimes have always been this way about the privileges of power.

Like the revolutionaries in France, Russia, and elsewhere, they appeal to the masses' utopian desire for égalité--equity & fairness--all the while excepting & exempting themselves from the plans and rules they outline for everyone else.

In the extreme, they give the hoi polloi communism or in the intermediate, socialized medicine, etc., to sate the class warfare they (revolutionary leaders in the former, John Edwards with his "two Americas" or Barbara Boxer with her "well-dressed" critique of town hall participants, in the latter) themselves started.

This impulse, this pursuit of égalité has caused more death and destruction than any other single ideological movement in world history.

Between Stalin's Russia, Mao's China, the Khmer Rouge and many, many more, literally hundreds of millions of people have either been killed outright or starved and died as a result of the programs & policies emanating from égalité.

Mind you, I'm not opposed to the idea that all men (& women) ought to be viewed equally before the law. This, I believe, is the idea expressed in the Declaration of Independence.

What I have a problem with is the leveling philosophy that views equality as an end unto itself. Most often, this philosophy is expressed by people who do not subject themselves (see the Sidwell Liberals from last week, "limousine liberals," and anyone else in history or contemporary times who opts out of the programs they establish for everyone else) to the practical ramifications of their social reordering.

In the USSR, China, Cuba, etc., they had/have their private doctors, dachas, and other special privileges, while the people around them lead equally sucky lives.

This then is the end result when égalité is your highest order principle: No one is lifted up, because of the disincentive to improve one's lot in life. Rather, in order to achieve equality or equity, others are pulled down, their wealth redistributed, and their liberty, along with that of everyone else, limited.

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

America's Relatively Low Life Expectancy ≠ Bad American Healthcare

And there are even more factors involved than Steve Chapman outlines in this awesome quote:

It's true that the United States spends more on health care than anyone else, and it's true that we rank below a lot of other advanced countries in life expectancy. . . .

One big reason our life expectancy lags is that Americans have an unusual tendency to perish in homicides or accidents. We are 12 times more likely than the Japanese to be murdered and nearly twice as likely to be killed in auto wrecks.

In their 2006 book, 'The Business of Health,' economists Robert L. Ohsfeldt and John E. Schneider set out to determine where the U.S. would rank in life span among developed nations if homicides and accidents are factored out. Their answer? First place.

That discovery indicates our health-care system is doing a poor job of preventing shootouts and drunk driving but a good job of healing the sick. All those universal-care systems in Canada and Europe may sound like Health Heaven, but they fall short of our model when it comes to combating life-threatening diseases.

One of the other things that skews the numbers for the US is the way we count infant mortality rates. Here, any baby that shows any signs of life is counted.

Not so in the rest of the industrialized world. This discrepancy--the fact that the United States counts everything & the rest of the world is much, much more selective--skews the numbers the leftists use to argue that American health care is too expensive/worse than everywhere else.

Liberty: Nevermind that the difference between America and the rest of the world is that here, individual Americans spend whatever they will on health care because they are free to do so. In the rest of the world, their governments spend some arbitrary amount on healthcare that serves some while rationing everyone else into queues for basic procedures.

I've said it before & I say it here again: American health care is not perfect. But it is the best in the world.

And there are market-based changes that can make it even better & cover more people.

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

A Trend?

via Ace

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My Friend Branden B. On President Obama's New York Times Op-Ed

The main contributors to this blog are yours truly (lybberty) and my brother, matt. From time to time, I post submissions from guest contributors whose principles align with the principles of OL&L.

This is one of those times.

Longtime friend & friend of the blog, Branden B., weighs in with some insightful analysis of President Obama's health care op-ed which ran in Sunday's New York Times. I recommend it for your review.

I read Obama's editorial this morning on health care in the NY Times. A few things jumped out at me because they seemed incredible. I don't completely understand the issue nor do I pretend to; however, I did learn a thing or two in school along with everyone else who took Econ 110 and they could shoot holes through his argument as easily as I could.

First, it's obvious that the President is putting the majority of his effort into demonizing insurance companies. For those who have read Atlas Shrugged, it is phenomenal how similar his language is to the looters in Rand's book. I am not saying that insurance companies are perfect entities or that Rand's philosophy is even mostly correct. It just blew me away that he was lifting their language so exactly:

...in unwarranted subsidies to insurance companies that do nothing to improve care and everything to improve their profits.

...we’ll be able to ensure that more tax dollars go directly to caring for seniors instead of enriching insurance companies.

...reform will provide every American with some basic consumer protections that will finally hold insurance companies accountable.

...A 2007 national survey actually shows that insurance companies discriminated against more than 12 million Americans

Secondly, take a few moments and read the following paragraph, think for a bit, and then tell me why this will not work.

We will put an end to these practices. Our reform will prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage because of your medical history. Nor will they be allowed to drop your coverage if you get sick. They will not be able to water down your coverage when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or in a lifetime. And we will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses.

Again, I understand that there are real people affected by the problems he outlined above. That said, what does he think is going to happen to the insurance premiums for everyone (including those that are sick) if companies are required to turn a blind eye to just about everything they use now in determine (insurance) premiums? He doesn't even acknowledge that your premiums are going to at least double and possibly triple or quadruple. At that point, the government will then step in and say that insurance companies can't raise premiums (as it was in Atlas). Insurance companies will then go bankrupt and the government will conveniently step in with their fixed plan, paid for with your tax dollars.

Finally, what does this last sentence mean?

If you have health insurance, we will make sure that no insurance company or government bureaucrat gets between you and the care you need.

The first "we" is Obama, a government bureaucrat. We could rewrite that to say:

If you have health insurance, we [government bureaucrats] will make sure that no insurance company or government bureaucrat gets between you and the care you need.

I don't normally do these sorts of rants but I could not believe that the President peddled these fallacies so blatantly in the morning newspaper.

[ed. note: Branden, this is what you get for reading the NYT Op-Ed page.]

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President Obama's Ringing Endorsement Of The 'Public Option'

'What, are all you free-marketers afraid of a little competition!?!!'

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Pie-In-The-Sky Green Jobs

I suggest you look elsewhere for employment.

Joel Kotkin in Forbes:

Nothing is perhaps more pathetic than the exertions of economic developers and politicians grasping at straws, particularly during hard times . . . All told, green jobs constitute barely 700,000 positions across the country -- less than 0.5% of total employment. That's about how many jobs the economy lost in January this year. . . . Green power is expensive and depends on massive subsidization, with government support levels at roughly 20 times or more per megawatt hour than relatively clean and abundant natural gas. . . . A recent study on renewable energy subsidies on the Spanish economy found that for every "green" job created more than two were lost in the non-subsidized economy.

Ah, unintended consequences. The social planners/economic developers can never account for all of them. This is why government ought to err on the side of less, rather than more regulation of the economy.

(see also "ethanol" & the unintended starvation in lesser developed countries)

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Democrats Subordinate The Needs Of The Children To Yet Another Union

For shame, Mr. President, for shame.

This time, it's the teachers' union. John Fund in today's WSJ Political Diary has the story:

My vote for the worst scandal in America right now is the education monopoly that keeps poor, inner-city kids trapped in failing public schools. Special mention here goes to the politicians who oppose giving these children the choice to escape even as they send their own kids to private or elite public schools.

Let's call them Sidwell Liberals, after the famous Washington, D.C., school where President and Mrs. Obama send their daughters. Despite this personal experience, Mr. Obama signed into law a provision passed by Congress that shuts down Washington D.C.'s voucher program, depriving 1,700 disadvantaged kids of the chance to escape failing public schools through the use of scholarships that let them attend private schools. Two of them attend Sidwell Friends School with the Obama girls.

Mr. Obama's Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, professes to support the D.C. choice program but his actions speak louder than words. He has taken back 200 scholarship offers that had already been made to local parents for the next school year. A bipartisan group including Connecticut Independent Joe Lieberman, California Democrat Dianne Feinstein and Nevada Republican John Ensign recently introduced a bill that would extend the Opportunity Scholarship Program for another five years. "It's not a liberal program or a conservative program," Mr. Lieberman said, "It's a program that puts children first."

Mr. Duncan himself knows the value of choice. He told Science magazine that he thought carefully where to send his daughter to school in the D.C. area when he moved from Chicago to join the Obama cabinet. He explained his decision to live in Virginia thusly: "My family has given up so much so that I could have the opportunity to serve; I didn't want to try to save the country's children and our educational system and jeopardize my own children's education." Would that the parents of the Washington D.C. children who will be thrown out of their current schools had that same option of relocating in upper-income Arlington and enjoying its relatively good public schools.

Many of the Members of Congress who voted to kill the D.C. scholarship program have made choices their own constituents would love to have but can't. A Heritage Foundation study found that 38% of Members of Congress send their children to private school, a rate about four times higher than the national average.

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Mark Steyn: 'Government Health Care Would Be Wrong Even If It “Controlled Costs.”'

Steyn makes much the same point about liberty that I've been trying to make only he, you know, does it with more flair & humor.

On the price tag: It’s often argued that, as a proportion of GDP, America spends more on health care than countries with government medical systems. But, as a point of fact, “America” doesn’t spend anything on health care: Hundreds of millions of people make hundreds of millions of individual decisions about what they’re going to spend on health care. Whereas up north a handful of bureaucrats determine what Canada will spend on health care — and that’s that: Health care is a government budget item. If Joe Hoser in Moose Jaw wants to increase Canada’s health-care spending by $500 drawn from his savings account, he can’t: The law prevents it. Unless, as many Canadians do, he drives south and spends it in a U.S. hospital for treatment he can’t get in a timely manner in his own country.

You can make the “controlling costs” argument about anything: After all, it’s no surprise that millions of free people freely choosing how they spend their own money will spend it in different ways than government bureaucrats would be willing to license on their behalf. America spends more per capita on food than Zimbabwe. America spends more on vacations than North Korea. America spends more on lap-dancing than Saudi Arabia (well, officially). Canada spends more per capita on doughnuts than America — and, given comparative girths, Canucks are clearly not getting as much bang for the buck. Why doesn’t Ottawa introduce a National Doughnut Licensing Agency? You’d still see your general dispenser for simple procedures like a lightly sugared cruller, but he’d refer you to a specialist if you needed, say, a maple-frosted custard — and it would only be a six-month wait, at the end of which you’d receive a stale cinnamon roll. Under government regulation, eventually every doughnut would be all hole and no doughnut, and the problem would be solved. Even if the hole costs $1.6 trillion.

How did the health-care debate decay to the point where we think it entirely natural for the central government to fix a collective figure for what 300 million freeborn citizens ought to be spending on something as basic to individual liberty as their own bodies?

That’s the argument that needs to be won. And, if you think I’m being frivolous in positing bureaucratic regulation of doughnuts and vacations, consider that under the all-purpose umbrellas of “health” and “the environment,” governments of supposedly free nations are increasingly comfortable straying into areas of diet and leisure. Last year, a British bill attempted to ban Tony the Tiger, longtime pitchman for Frosties, from children’s TV because of his malign influence on young persons. Why not just ban Frosties? Or permit it by prescription only? Or make kids stand outside on the sidewalk to eat it? It was also proposed — by the Conservative party, alas — that, in the interests of saving the planet, each citizen should be permitted to fly a certain number of miles a year, after which he would be subject to punitive eco-surtaxes. Isn’t restricting freedom of movement kind of, you know . . . totalitarian?

Freedom is messy. In free societies, people will fall through the cracks — drink too much, eat too much, buy unaffordable homes, fail to make prudent provision for health care, and much else. But the price of being relieved of all those tiresome choices by a benign paternal government is far too high.

Government health care would be wrong even if it “controlled costs.” It’s a liberty issue. I’d rather be free to choose, even if I make the wrong choices.

This is a distinction I've made privately and tried to explain on the blog: There is a difference between what America pays and what Americans pay for health care (or anything else, for that matter).

Leftist progressives want government to plan & manage an ever-growing share of American life in pursuit of their dystopian utopian dreams.

Make no mistake: This is The Road to Serfdom.

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From The Facebook Thread: Detente, Liberty, Healthcare &c.

[ed. note: This is for those who do not follow the lively discussion on Facebook]

Ryan D. writes:

What's the difference between the moral imperative for using US resources to spread freedom, and the moral imperative to provide affordable healthcare for the poor? IMO, it's just team politics. I'm interested in seeing how [you] distinguish between using the moral imperative in foreign policy (and, for that matter, social policy), and health care.

And my response:

IIRC, I did not argue that spreading freedom ought to trump national interests full-stop, but that at a minimum, we should err on the side of freedom & democracy when in doing so we were not clearly acting against our own best interest. I think that our own best interest in the long term ought not be subordinated to unclear, debatable, potential gains to be made in the short term.

Historically speaking, the failure of detante in the middle Cold War is a pretty strong critique of realpolitik. And I'm not advancing a strictly neoconservative view of this history. This is coming from the godfather of Cold War history himself--John Lewis Gaddis.

I did not say that I felt no moral obligation or desire to help those w/o health care. I just don't translate that into wanting to tax other people to fund a government program that assuages my guilt & makes me feel better about myself.

I'm a natural rights guy.

My moral impulse to spread the "unalienable rights" is the same at home as it is abroad. I reject the cult of rights that has become progressive morality. As Folsom argues, these ever-expanding rights impose an obligation on society--an obligation which infringes on individual liberty by using the coercive power of government.

I firmly believe in the ability of market reform to drive down costs (of procedures & meds, etc. see Lasik surgery for a prime example of this), increase access, and continue medical technology innovation.

Eliminating the de facto government subsidy of employer provided healthcare & giving everyone a flat tax credit would go a long way towards accomplishing what I envision. Hell, I don't make a sufficiently compelling/persuasive argument in favor of market-based reforms, but Holman Jenkins does.

A collectivist response with fairness/equality as its main goal will not innovate. It will not drive down costs. And rather than using the amoral price mechanism allocate healthcare resources, will employ some arbitrary bureaucracy to ration care.

It may well be called "universal," but tell that to the queues of people who die waiting for cancer treatment & heart surgery. Tell that to the seniors who do not get hip replacement surgery. Tell it also to people waiting to get a friggin' MRI or colonoscopy. And don't forget about one other unintended (I'm sure) consequence of going socialist, the decline in future med tech innovation & pharmaceutical development.

Sure, Americans pay a lot of money on healthcare. So what? They are self optimizers who do so largely because they value the extension in life they believe they are receiving as a result of that care.

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The Latest In My Ongoing Critique Of Progressivism

Yesterday I wrote about how progressives' knee-jerk response to world problems--real or perceived--is yet another government plan that will re-order society, reduce individual liberty and centralize power & control with the enlightened ones.

It's not that I think progressives are bad people. God love 'em, they've got great intentions, it's the unintended consequences of their utopian reordering that I'm worried about.

Consider healthcare. Does the United States have problems? I've admitted countless times that it does and in numerous posts, suggested a few things we could do to reduce costs & improve quality. I always remind people that ~90% of Americans have insurance, another 5% choose not to because they are healthy or wealthy, 2.5% are illegal immigrants, & the remaining 2.5% are the 2.5% I think we can help by introducing market reforms--essentially eliminating state & federal distortions of the market.

I think these things would do much of what progressives want to accomplish, only without a hasty, ad hoc reordering of 1/6th of the American economy.

Progressives are prepared to throw out the baby with the bath water, because for them, health care is a moral issue. Cost/benefit doesn't play a role at all. Despite what they may say (and here I remind readers that I'm not lumping all Democrats together, just the far progressive left), the cost or the quality of the care is not the issue.

The only thing they care about is the fairness of it all. Ah, égalité.

So long as everyone has access to care--even if it's just a few vitamins & a glass of water--it doesn't matter that some people die in the queue for a heart transplant or that others don't get hip replacement surgery or needed meds to improve their quality of life--the only thing that matters is that it is equal for everyone.

Of course, it won't be equal for everyone. And this is what history teaches. The rich opt out because they can afford it. The well connected in government opt out because they're owed favors. Everyone else suffers. So it went in the former USSR. And China. Continues for the Castros & their revolutionary cronies in Cuba. Ditto North Korea. Even in the social democracies of Europe--the elites (including socialist & other miscellaneous left-leaning members of parliament) always opt out.

Even in the European countries where you think socialized medicine in all its incarnations is a such a screaming success, it's not. They are dealing with mounting costs which result in higher taxes, more rationing, & poorer overall care.

Additionally, the only reason they are as good as they are is because as in so many other things, they are able to free ride on American drug development and other medical technology improvements. Because of the high prices Americans elect to pay, pharmaceutical & other medical technology companies respond with new and better drugs and medical devices.

Everyone else, everywhere else in the world benefits as a result.

As I said at the outset, social justice (whatever that means) is the morality of this century's progressives. Those who question their crusade for justice & equality--deniers!--will be subject to ad hominem attacks for not submitting to the latest dogmatic demand. Obviously, the degree to which one embraces the social justice cause du jour is a sign of how good of a person she or he happens to be (thus, the unfunny Goode Family).

How socially unrighteous of us deniers. As penance for our skeptical reception of the latest progressive nostrum, I suggest buying a few carbon offsets & repeating aloud Obama's 2004 Democratic convention speech 10 times.

But, of course, progressivism as religion is another post for another day.

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Ah, Progressives: Albert Jay Nock On The Cool Kids With Their New & Nifty Ideas For Saving The Planet etc.

Because they really believe in the novelty of their ideas and that they, in all their fervor, are the change they've been waiting for.

“I have been thinking,” Nock wrote in 1932, “of how old some of our brand-new economic nostrums really are. Price-regulation by State authority (through State purchase, like our Farm Board) was tried in China about 350 b.c. It did not work. It was tried again, with State distribution, in the first century a.d., and it did not work. Private trading was suppressed in the second century b.c., and regional planning was tried a little later. They did not work; the costs were too high. In the eleventh century a.d., a plan like the R.F.C. [Reconstruction Finance Corporation] was tried, but again cost too much. State monopolies are very old; there were two in China in the seventh century b.c. I suppose there is not a single item on the modern politician’s agenda that was not tried and found wanting ages ago.” Among virtually all of the political writers of the Left and the Right in the 1920s and 1930s, Nock shines brightest for seeing from the outset that the differences between the various collectivist schemes then circulating amounted to differences in branding. “Communism, the New Deal, Fascism, Nazism,” he wrote in his Memoirs, “are merely so-many trade-names for collectivist Statism, like the trade-names for tooth-pastes which are all exactly alike except for the flavouring.”

Is there a problem in the world? It follows that there is a progressive government "plan" to solve it--a plan that will centralize & ascribe control to your social, intellectual, & educational betters, reduce your liberty, and inevitably fail.

Unfortunately for us, the inevitable failure of these plans--in the case of global warmism & healthcare--may take a number of years and cost society lives, quality of life, and trillions of dollars.

Oh well, what's a few broken eggs on the way to a utopian omelet, right?

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The Anti Googlopoly

Wired has a great article (via Mankiw) on the likelihood of Google going the way of IBM and Microsoft. Take a look.

As a teaching assistant in BYU's American Heritage course, I taught that although monopolies and cartels are a market weakness, attempts to squelch them are mostly futile, because profits attract fierce competition and technological innovation overcomes barriers to entry, whether natural or manufactured. These also tend to minimize the negative effects of monopolies on consumer well-being--monopolistic industries almost always become more competitive over time.

However, monopoly power is a very real thing, and companies routinely engage in collusive and/or predatory behavior in order to raise prices above the competitive level. We, as libertarian-leaning citizens, should be opposed to policies that provide advantages to one firm or industry over another, but we should be in favor of things that help promote a competitive landscape—we “worship” the market, not the corporation. The difference between those two points, and confusion over the intentions of many a politician, has certainly led to the “Big Business-loving Republican” caricature that is so common, but I digress.

My view on antitrust issues changed with the antitrust class at BYU where I learned that, by using accepted economic analysis, the DOJ economists could identify whether a merger would increase or decrease consumer well-being.

If we are in favor of competition, how much power do we want the federal government (DOJ) to have in policing competition? To prevent illegal activity (yes, the definition of “illegal” here may be dubious), the gov’t should arguably possess a credible threat—usually the litigative process—but that threat has the potential to mire the company in court hearings for several years, and castrate its innovative impulses. That is something everyone should oppose.

I certainly don't find my internet activities limited by Google's business model. Do you?

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Democrats Don't Want Health Care Reform, They Want Socialized Medicine

And nothing else will do.

According to health care economists (h/t Matt L.), 90% of Americans are insured. Of the remaining 10%, better than 25% are young & healthy and feel no need to subsidize the health care costs of the old & sick and thus, go uninsured. Shall we force them?

About another 25% of the remaining 10% are of sufficient means that they feel they are able to burden the risk of going uninsured and pay for their own care. Shall we take away their liberty?

Roughly 25% more are illegal aliens. Um, yeah.

The remaining 25% of the 10% of Americans who are uninsured are financially or medically (pre-existing conditions, etc.) or some combination thereof, unable to get insurance.

Democrats want to scrap the whole system--the best system in the world--to cover about 2.5% of the population.

There are better, cheaper ways to enable these people to get access to health care. And contrary to Obama, Reid, Pelosi & co., Republicans have made a number of proposals which would make health care cheaper & better for everyone.

To wit, Jim DeMint on ABC's "This Week" with George Stephanopolous:

Republicans, including me, have introduced lots of health care reform proposals. I introduced a tax equity, which would allow people to deduct the cost of their health insurance. The president and Senator Conrad voted against it. I had a proposal that would allow people to buy health insurance in any state, not just a single state monopoly. The president and the Democrats voted it down. I had a proposal that would allow individuals to use their health savings account to pay for a premium. They voted it down. They even voted against allowing small businesses to come together and buy their health insurance . . . . So, George, what we've seen is that Republicans do want reform that will make health insurance more affordable and available. But the only proposals we're getting from Democrats is more government control of health care.

[emphasis added]

The point, for Democrats, is not about finding a way to make health care cheaper & better for Americans, it is about putting everyone into a scheme over which they, in their infinite wisdom, have complete control.

(see also Cap & Trade)

via Political Diary

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Walter Cronkite As The Beginning Of The End Of Media Credibility

First of all, RIP.

This is not intended to disrespect the recently departed Cronkite, simply as a critique of what he embodied & what I'm not sad to see pass with him: the media establishment.

The democratization of news & opinion found on the internet, while not 100% awesome, ought to be considered nothing less than a resounding success. Consider this quote from from John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary magazine:

[The late Walter] Cronkite, the gravelly voice of accepted American wisdom, whose comportment suggested he kept his money in bonds and would never even have considered exceeding the speed limit, devastated President Lyndon Johnson in the wake of the 1968 Tet Offensive by declaring that the United States 'was mired in stalemate' in Vietnam -- when Johnson knew that Tet had been a military triumph. Had there been an Internet in 1968, and military bloggers aplenty, Cronkite's false conclusion about Tet would have been challenged immediately; we would not have had to wait for [veteran Vietnam reporter and author Peter] Braestrup to publish his enormous book ['The Big Story,' contradicting Cronkite] nine years later. So the passing of Walter Cronkite is a moment to remember an era that has passed, an era toward which we should not experience a moment's nostalgia.

I feel nostalgic about practically everything. Not for this.

(h/t Scott L.)

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I Still Support Sarah Palin, Haters To The Left

What she has--charisma, charm & good looks--cannot be taught. And she has them in spades. Where she may lack or be a little deficient--policy (though not energy), etc.--she can learn.

To my mind, any objective survey of the national Republican political landscape--Romney, Huckabee, Jindal, Gingrich, whoever--must conclude that Sarah Palin is the one with the most potential.

If she didn't have so much popular appeal, her antagonists in Alaska & elsewhere would not be so dogged in their attacks.

For instance, check out the latest from John Fund in today's Political Diary:

The Associated Press report yesterday that Sarah Palin was about to be found guilty of violating state ethics laws set off a round of speculation that the Alaska governor was resigning later this month one step ahead of the sheriff.

In reality, it appears as if the improper leak may be little more than a parting shot against her by her critics, who have filed a total of 19 ethics complaints and hundreds of Freedom of Information Act requests against her. The leaks indicated that the Alaska Personnel Board has concluded that Governor Palin used her public image and notoriety to raise money for a legal defense fund she created to pay the costs of defending herself against ethics complaints. The only sanction it recommends is that she no longer accept direct payments from the fund to reimburse her $500,000 in legal expenses.

So far none of the ethics complaints filed against Ms. Palin have resulted in any findings of wrongdoing. The leaked portions of the report indicate that an investigator concluded that because an average citizen would have been unable to raise large sums to pay for legal bills, Governor Palin should not be able to either. "Governor Palin is able to generate donations because of the fact that she is a public official and a public figure. Were it not for the fact that she is governor and a national political figure, it is unlikely that many citizens would donate money to her legal defense fund," says a preliminary finding by the investigator.

Team Palin pushed back quickly. The governor herself used Twitter to send an abbreviated defense of herself: "In violation of Ethics Act more allegations were filed today by serial complainer; gave to press be4 we could respond; ridiculous, wasteful," she tweeted. "Some ask why not sue abusers of Ethics Act bc state wastes 1000's hrs/millions of tax dollars to fight (and win!) frivolous charges, tho it costs political critics NOTHING to file/play their wasteful game; They should debate policy in political arena, not hide w/process abuse."

Other Palin supporters joined in. Thomas Van Flein, her personal attorney, noted: "There has been no board finding of an ethics violation and there is a detailed legal process to follow before there is a final resolution." The head of her legal defense fund, Kristan Cole, told reporters: "This legal expense fund was thoroughly vetted by numerous attorneys from Alaska to the East Coast [and is meant] to help the Governor with the crushing legal fees she has incurred solely because of her public service."

No one doubts Ms. Palin has made a series of boneheaded public relations moves since her surprise choice as John McCain's running-mate last year. But the ethics charges strike many observers as bogus or nitpicky. They have included challenges to her out-of-state trips that appear dubious and even a complaint that her husband, Todd, wore a jacket made by a company that sponsored his snow-mobile races.

What the leftists have done to Sarah Palin is classic, well, leftist behavior: Use of courts through frivolous suits, etc., in pursuit of the politics of personal destruction.

I mean, can anyone believe the latest charge?--that she used her notoriety as governor & former VP candidate to raise money for her legal defense fund to defend herself against frivolous ethics charges like the one that says she used her personal notoriety to raise money to defend herself and I think you get the picture. Ridiculous.

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

Programming Note: Everybody Needs A Vacation

Folks, apologies for my absence. As some of you know, I've recently returned to American and have been busy celebrating national holidays, waterskiing, watching M's games, entertaining guests, etc. Forgive my writing absence. I'll bet back to it in the next day or so.

In the meantime, here's a couple of good reads to tide you over.

• At Rasmussen, Michael Barone holds forth on the "accomplishments" of the Obama administration thus far.

• Matt Welch & Nick Gillespie do something similar in the Washington Post. Taken together, these two columns are a devastating critique of President Obama.

• Finally, in the City Journal, Ed Glaeser, an economist at Harvard, writes about human capital in New York City. Get a rope. (h/t Matt L.)

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Quote of the Day: Wal-Mart & The National Insurance Mandate

Megan McArdle via the WSJ's Political Diary:

I find it hard to believe that none of the liberal commentators breathlessly celebrating Wal-Mart's 'capitulation' on national health care have even entertained the most parsimonious explanation: that Wal-Mart is in favor of this because it raises the barriers to entry in the retail market, and hammers Wal-Mart's competition. Yet somehow, this appears nowhere in any of the analysis. . . . Wal-Mart is always going to have a seat at the table when employer mandates are discussed, because Wal-Mart is the nation's largest private employer. Target and Macy's probably won't have a seat at the table. So Wal-Mart can influence the rules in ways that benefit Wal-Mart at the expense of the competition.

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'Life, Liberty, & The Pursuit Of Happiness'

It feels good to be back in the United States. In 2006 & 2007, I spent the 4th of July in Cambridge (UK) & London, respectively.

Though we found appropriate ways to celebrate--BBQs, impromptu tea parties in the river Cam, viewing Live Free Or Die Hard, etc.--there is nothing like being home on the 4th of July.

I love this country and everything for which it stands and I am grateful to everyone--from the Founders to the soldiers--who who has given the "last full measure" to build her and defend her.

Image link

Nathan Hale

"I only regret that I have but one life to give my country."

Independence Day Must Reads:

Apotheosis of Liberty - Thomas Jefferson

A Day at the Beach - Peggy Noonan

Making History - Peggy Noonan

Celebrating and Safeguarding Our Freedom - Fr. Roger J. Landry

A Family's Valor, A Nation's Freedom - Karl Rove

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American Healthcare Has It's Problems, But It's Still The Best In The World

Seriously. There are some things that could done to resolve these problems (see here & here), but American healthcare is still the best in the world, warts and all. Free market reform of American healthcare would only widen the gap between us and everyone else.

From doubleplusundead via Russ from Winterset at Ace of Spades (standard language warnings about AofS apply), a cautionary & enlightening tale.

It seems that a Canadian couple gave birth to a premature baby this weekend in Hamilton, Ontario. Since Canada is just another Third World Hellhole where brain surgery is done with a 16" Poulan and a 6-pack of Moosehead, its not exactly a shock that NOT. ONE. SINGLE. Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU for short) bed could be found for the child. I know what you're thinking: Russ, they couldn't find one single NICU bed available in the City of Hamilton for this baby? NO. They couldn't find one single NICU bed available for this baby in the entire PROVINCE of Ontario. You know, a PROVINCE? Sort of like a STATE, only 196% more [dumb]?

Luckily, Canada just happens to be the mildly retarded cousin of the United States of America; and like most families, we look after each other - even if the slow relatives are complete window-lickers who eat their own boogers in public. The baby was brought to Buffalo, NY, where she is enjoying the fruits of America's evil profit-driven health care system. If this was the end of the story, I'd be willing to smile and wish the happy hosers well with the addition to their family; however, as Paul Harvey used to say, there is ..... the rest of the story.

This kind of stuff--Canadians coming to American for medical care, surgery, &c.--happens all the time.

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The Democrat Party: Bought & Paid For By Wall Street

I know, I know, as opposed to all the other special interests that own that party. (subscription required)

The Republicans’ loss of Wall Street magnifies an ancient fissure in the party, a conservative contradiction: the misalignment of incentives between the party’s free-enterprise wing and its entrenched business interests.

“The problem with socialism is socialism,” Willi Schlamm famously observed. “The problem with capitalism is capitalists.” From Wall Street to Detroit, businessmen have had at best a marriage of convenience with free-market principles, a fact that often puts the Republican party in the impossible position of mediating between philosophical purists and parochial business interests that profit from expansive government, protectionism, and regulations that smother competition. Republicans have long thought of themselves as the party of Big Business and free enterprise but, as Wall Street sends its money and votes to Democrats and snuggles up in an ever-cozier relationship with the government, Republicans face the choice of being the party of Big Business or the party of free enterprise — the party of capitalists or the party of capitalism.

The Democrats have already decided which party they are. Which is to say, the Democrats have figured out that they can keep Wall Street in their coalition by offering them easygoing social liberalism, a few sweet tax breaks, and good access to government revenue streams. Republicans are not above the same deal-cutting and back-scratching, obviously, but they have a knottier coalitional contradiction to resolve: The capitalists don’t want capitalism, and neither do a lot of mid-American social conservatives. Even as Reagan talked about the miracle of the invisible hand, the blue-collar social conservatives who put him in office indulged in a near-paranoid loathing of Japan — an economic phobia that is still very much alive in Republican heartland attitudes toward trade with China and India. George W. Bush talked up free trade — except on steel, sugar, and most agricultural commodities. The Republicans’ philosophy is informed by free-market idealists who celebrate the wonders of Schumpeterian “creative destruction,” but the guys flying business class would much rather sink into a nice warm bailout and let capitalism creatively destroy somebody else’s money — the taxpayers’ money, for instance. The bankers are the last guys who want free markets right now, and so it’s no surprise to find them writing big checks to the Democrats. But against all evidence, Republicans remain the party of Wall Street in the public imagination.

Obvious & easy jabs at Democrats aside, this is an interesting quandary for the Republican party.

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3 Conservative, Market-Based Steps To Reform Health Care

(from Gabriel Malor @ Ace)

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Garry Kasparov: 'Citizens Who Once Chanted "Death To America" Now Call For The Blood Of Ayatollah Khamenei'

Very compelling column from chess master Kasparov on the implications of Iranian protests.

But what has been flagging so far has been leadership from the United States. Only in his second statement, a week into the crisis, did President Barack Obama underscore the importance of nonviolence, though he still declined to support the Iranian protestors. I understand the reluctance to provide Iranian leaders with the opportunity to smear the protestors as American stooges. But can the leader of the Free World find nothing more intimidating than bearing witness when it is clear that the regime doesn't care who is watching?

Sen. Richard Lugar (R., Ind.) and Fareed Zakaria on CNN, among others, have defended Mr. Obama's extreme caution. Mr. Zakaria even compared the president's actions to how George H.W. Bush responded timidly to the impending collapse of the Soviet Union and its hold on Eastern Europe in 1989. Mr. Zakaria explained, "Those regimes could easily crack down on the protestors and the Soviet Union could send in tanks." True. But the Soviet Union used tanks to quash dissent when it could. Dictatorships use force when they can get away with it, not when a U.S. president makes a strong statement.

President Dwight Eisenhower might have learned that lesson in 1956 when he said nothing and the Soviets sent tanks into Budapest anyway. Likewise, in 1968 the Soviets cracked down in Czechoslovakia even though the West said little. Regardless of what Mr. Obama says, the Iranian leaders will use all the force at their disposal to stay in power.

There is no reason to withhold external pressure that can tip the balance inside Tehran. Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi is not an ideal democrat. But should he and his supporters win power they will owe their authority to an abruptly empowered Iranian electorate. It is reasonable to expect that the people will hold a Mousavi government accountable for delivering the freedoms that they are now risking their lives to attain.

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Milton Friedman Fridays - On The Environment &c.

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Karl Rove: 'From 1998 To 2002 Nearly Twice As Many New Drugs Were Launched In The U.S. As In Europe'

From the Evil Genius's column in Thursday's WSJ:

Nearly everyone agrees that some reforms are needed. But it is also vital to protect areas of excellence and innovation. Stanford University professor Scott Atlas points out that from 1998 to 2002 nearly twice as many new drugs were launched in the U.S. as in Europe. According the U.S. Pharmaceutical Industry Report, some 2,900 new drugs are now being researched here. America's five top hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in any other developed country, according to Mr. Atlas. And a McKinsey Co. study reports that 40% of all medical travelers come to the United States for medical treatment.

These are some of the costs--the unanticipated consequences (diminished drug research)--associated with a single-payer system.

Where's the incentive to develop new drugs if there is no profit to be made? If government is going to pay for research & development of new drugs, well, how is it going to pay for it? And if government does pay for it, who decides which drugs to develop?

When healthcare is rationed, so is R&D for life-saving drugs. And when government controls the R&D decisions, then government picks the R&D "winners."

Who donated the most to a powerful Senator? Here comes your funding. What is the hated disease de jour? Here comes your funding.

Unlike the millions or billions made when government picks the winners (and bankruptcy for the losers) in a financial crisis, in this instance, the losers die.

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Checking In With Dr. Ronen Bergman Part III

Here's Part I.

Here's Part II.

Ed West at the Telegraph (London) met with Dr. Bergman just before the start of the Iranian elections. In the course of his interview, he explored how the BBC was a propaganda tool of Ayatollah Khomeini back in 1979.

Yeah, I know, so what else is new?

Anyway, the interview:

When we met in a west London hotel not far from the notorious Iranian embassy, Bergman pointed out: “The BBC gave free hours of free broadcast to Khomeini from Paris. It is unbelievable. Every time there is a person who is fighting ‘royal’ forces, in the sense of their being autocratic, the BBC gives them a free hand and carte blanche, without trying to understand what their views are.

The European Left, he says, have always fallen for any group that is anti-monarchy without understanding their true ideology. The BBC did not realise Khomenei’s true nature, and nor did the socialists and Communists who sided with him.

No prizes for guessing, incidentally, what happened to Iranian Marxists.

The Left and the media (but I repeat myself) have had a long and sordid love affair with nasty elements around the world. I'm sure this example doesn't surprise anyone.

What it should become, however, is the large grain of salt you take when you see the western media sympathize with "freedom fighters" from around the world.

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Checking In With Dr. Ronen Bergman Part II

Here's Part I.

At the NYT blog, "Room for Debate," they asked several "Middle East experts" for their opinion on the happenings in Iran. Dr. Bergman was one of those they asked.

In Tehran the earth is shaking, but in the Arab world there has been no public official response to the post-elections riots. Bernard Lewis, the renowned orientalist, told me on Monday that this is because Arab governments are concerned about backing the wrong horse.

By contrast, debate is lively in the Arab media and on Arab-language Web sites. But there is one exception: the Palestinians seem almost indifferent to what is going on in Iran. This may seem surprising. After all, the Iranian regime is a major supporter of Palestinian hardliners, providing funding, training and weapons, particularly to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both of whom owe their ability to confront Israel to direct Iranian support. But surfing the major Palestinian Web sites at noon today (Tuesday, Tel Aviv time), reveals very little interest in what is happening in the streets of Tehran.

The most prominent Palestinian to have publicly expressed an opinion on the events is a former Israeli Knesset member, Azmi Bishara, who fled Israel and is wanted for questioning for allegedly spying for Hezbollah.

In an op-ed piece earlier this week in Al Jazeera, Bishara concluded that the events in Iran reflect the views of middle-class Iranians, not those of the majority of the population. And to the extent that Iran becomes more westernized, he stated, this process will result from an ideological clash within the regime itself.

Bishara did not say a word about how all of this might affect the Palestinians. Even when his piece was copied to Hamas’s most active forum, Paldf, it did not give rise to a discussion on what the impact on the Palestinians would be.

Perhaps this is because the Palestinians realize that what happens in Iran — short of a complete overhaul of the regime, which is highly unlikely — is not going to have an effect on the support they receive from the Revolutionary Guards and the Ministry of Intelligence. This is contrary to the view of much the Western media, which sees the events in Iran as a sign of an impending regime change.

The turmoil in Tehran, as far as the Palestinians are concerned, is a dispute between rival political factions; it does not concern them, and it does not interest them.

The Iranian governmental entities in charge of exporting the Islamic revolution will continue to do so under a reformist government just as they do now and just as they did in the past when the reformist Mohammad Khatami was in office. One way or another, the Iranian regime will keep stoking the flames of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Click the link to read the rest as the rest of the experts hold forth on all things Iranian.

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Taxing Your Good Health

That is what will happen if Democrats get their way with single-payer health care--socialized medicine--in this country. And the President admitted as much in his infomercial last night:

As a candidate, then-Sen. Obama bashed his rival for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton, for proposing that Americans be mandated to have health insurance.

"She'd have the government force you to buy health insurance," he said Feb. 23, 2008. "I disagree with that approach. I believe that the reason Americans don't have health care isn't because no one's forced them to buy it, it's because no one's made it affordable."

But now the president is acknowledging that his thinking on the issue has "evolved" and he could support a law mandating that individuals purchase health care coverage, with fines for those who do not.

Obama stressed that there must be some kind of waiver for those who are simply unable to afford it.

"People have made some pretty compelling arguments to me that if we want to have a system that drives down costs for everybody, then we've got to have healthier people not opt out of the system," the president told ABC News.

As he notes, in order for this system to work--to actually drive down costs--you have to include healthy people as well as the sick--everyone is forced into the plan. Many of these healthy people do not have health insurance or carry insurance with really high deductibles because they are healthy and do not need it.

In a single-payer system, the healthy would be forced into the same health plan as the sick--effectively taxing their good health and eliminating all other choices open to them. This is utilitarian leveling at its, well, level-best. In order to reach a more equal outcome for everyone, Obama and co. will tax your health and infringe on your liberty.

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Checking In With Dr. Ronen Bergman Part I

Not personally mind you, but via the web. What can I say? I trust Cambridge-trained historians to get the facts right more than I trust western journalists with an ax to grind.

The first thing I found, from The Jewish Week in NYC, was essentially a recapitulation of what I heard from Dr. Bergman and then put in my notes a couple weeks ago. This part, however, is new:

Q: What can you tell us about Mir Hossein Mousavi, the so-called pro-reform opposition candidate who spearheaded the protests over the election returns?
A: Mousavi was the Iranian connection to the Americans in the Iran-Contra affair, and American and Israeli intelligence said he was the most extreme person they had met. He reminds many of another so-called Iranian moderate, former President Mohammad Khatami. Khatami came in [in 1997] as a great hope and people said he would be the Gorbachev of Iran — that he was going to change Iran. But the big leap forward in the Iranian nuclear project was under Khatami. Khatami cherished suicide bombers in the [Palestinian] territories and twice he called for the destruction of Israel.

Q: If Mousavi became president, could he change anything?
A: No, because I don’t see Mousavi bringing about change. And the fact we see him as a more moderate element of the regime and see him as a reformer, does not mean he is a reformer. He does not call all the shots.

When I say that I support the revolution in Iran, it is with eyes wide open about the political realities of Mousavi's nuclear ambitions. I understand that he is similar to Ahmadinejad in this regard--or rather, that even if he weren't different, he's not the one calling the shots, it's the supreme leader. I get all that.

I support democracy in Iran because I believe that the more democratic Iran becomes, the less likely they are to both build a bomb and use it against their enemies--specifically Israel. I do not believe that the Obama administration's attempts at diplomacy have a snowball's chance of succeeding. What has happened in North Korea is a cautionary tale.

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Democracy For Democracy's Sake: Obama & Iran

Friends of mine (not in the mob sense) argued that Obama maintained silence and largely ignored what was going on in Iran all of last week for two main reasons:

1. He didn't want to give credence to the likely Iranian claim that the protests were the work of American Imperialists & Zionists.

2. Ahmadinejad was going to win anyway and Obama didn't want to do anything to harm his future negotiating posture. And anyway, the other guy wants nukes too, so what's the difference?

Regarding the first point, the supreme leader & co. are always going to blame the American imperialists and the Zionists, regardless of what Obama says.

Regarding the second point, regardless of Mousavi's similar nuke ambitions, democracy & democratic outcomes are inherently good. And they are particularly good when they push back against a totalitarian regime. A more democratic state is probably the only way Iran gives up its nuclear dream and quits funding world terror.

As unpersuasive (to me, anyway) as these arguments are, they are entirely refuted by the fact that Obama has done a complete about face and dropped a lot of critical rhetoric on the supreme leader, Ahmadinejad, and the rest. Oh, and the Iranian dips are no longer invited to Obama's July 4th weenie roast--or rather, they had the good sense to decline the Obama administration's invitation even if Obama didn't have the decency to rescind it.;

Apart from the fact that his silence last week was wildly unpopular, what about Iran has changed to cause Obama's rhetorical shift?

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Holman Jenkins: 'Our President Is An Object Of Craving Utterly Independent Of The Policies He Pursues'

From his column in today's WSJ:

Mr. Obama, therefore, has an unlikely degree of freedom to throw overboard his agenda and go for growth without fear of his public abandoning him.

From the start, he has seemed uniquely detached and noncommittal about his own policy positions, as if he was entertaining them only to see if they might be useful to him. Let's not underestimate this advantage over lesser politicians, who get trapped by their rhetoric. Let's also hope Mr. Obama takes advantage, becoming the "growth" president and saving the big initiatives for his second term. Otherwise, with the AIG disaster before him, he may be remembered as the president who nonetheless blundered into similar disasters trying to manage Citibank et al.

Don't bet on Obama becoming the "growth" president.

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Dr. Ronen Bergman On How Israel Views Current Events In Iran

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Milton Friedman Fridays - On 3rd Party Payment In Healthcare

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What Market Reform To Health Care Could Look Like Vs. Obama's DMVification Of Healthcare

Two of my three favorite columnists at the WSJ Op-Ed page--Holman Jenkins & Daniel Henninger with Bret Stephens writing about Iran--wrote about healthcare this week and their columns were fantastic.

In his column, Jenkins "reflects," in 2070, about the effects of market reform on healthcare in the United States. This is what we could get, if only Eric Paul, Ryan Cantor, and Kemp Newtley were in charge rather than the Democrats.

And, lo, it proved true, as 100 million intelligent, well-educated employees of Corporate America were allowed to see for the first time what "tax free" health insurance was really costing them. They saw how it distorted their behavior and caused them to allocate far more of their incomes to the medical-industrial complex than they would have chosen for themselves.

Eyes newly opened, they demanded cheaper insurance options, covering fewer services (cancer wigs, family counseling, in-vitro fertilization), and opted for plans with higher deductibles and co-pays in return for much lower monthly rates.

Because consumers were now spending their "own" money on health care, doctors and hospitals found it necessary to publish and even advertise their prices. A hospital that specialized in heart surgery, performing thousands of procedures a year, found it had both the highest quality and lowest cost -- and now marketed itself as such. Ditto specialists in cancer, diabetes and other conditions.

For the first time, Americans spent less and got more. Spending fell overnight by 13%, which happened to be exactly what economists had predicted if the price tags were restored to health care and consumers were allowed to see clearly what they were getting (or not getting) for their money. As predicted, too, spending thereafter rose only in line with incomes.

What's more, many fewer people remained voluntarily uninsured now that health insurance was no longer a gold-plated extravagance affordable only by those in the top brackets who could slough off 40% of the cost on other taxpayers. Existing programs for the needy, in turn, could be downsized and revamped into voucher programs. The federal budget benefited twice over -- from fewer claimants and from medical care that was less costly. Fiscal wreck was avoided.

Bookending this imagined optimism, Henninger reminds us that government always over-promises and under-delivers. He uses the "fearmongering scare tactics" of reviewing the history of Medicaid. The faint of heart would do well to ignore historic reality and read the fawning reviews of the President's healthcare plan written by his fellow travelers in the MSM. Henninger just might persuade them that Obama isn't right all the time.

Whatever Medicaid's merits, this federal health-care program more than any other factor has put California and New York on the brink of fiscal catastrophe. I'd even call it scary.

Spending on health and welfare, largely under Medicaid, makes up one-third of California's budget of some $100 billion. In New York Gov. David Paterson's budget message, he notes that "New York spends more per capital ($2,283) on Medicaid than any other state in the country."

After 45 years, the health-care reform called Medicaid has crushed state budgets. A study by the National Governors Association said a decade ago that because of "new requirements" imposed by federal law -- meaning Congress -- "Medicaid has evolved into a program whose size, cost and significance are far beyond the original vision of its creators."

In his speeches, Mr. Obama makes the original vision of his "public option" insurance plan sound about as simple as driving through toll booths with an electronic pass on your windshield. It's going to be all about "best practices" with patients "reimbursed in a thoughtful way," as if the federal government is about to become just another big Google.

Medicaid is a morass. Since the program's inception, Congress has loaded it up every few years with more notions of what to cover, shifting about 43% of the ever-upward cost onto someone else's tab, mainly the states. A 1988 congressional mandate requires local schools to pay for schooling and related services for disabled children, but because Congress underfunds its mandates, the states pay the rest through Medicaid.

The list of add-ons is endless, and there's little about it that is thoughtful. Why shouldn't one think that, as with Medicare and Medicaid, the Obama Public Option in time will become an impossible fog for patients to navigate? But unto eternity the program's administrative complexity will provide work for bureaucrats, Members of Congress, their staffs, lobbyist spouses and the "health-care" establishment of foundations and economists.

The President's "public option" will cost more in taxes, provide poorer overall medical care and will infringe on individual liberty. These are the facts.

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'Hey Pop, How 'Bout You Put Down That Plastic Grocery Bag Before I Report You To The Enviro-Cops'

I read Weekly Reader practically every week from the point at which I was able to read through the 5th grade. Everyone at my school did. It was on the pages of the Weekly Reader that I first learned about "CFCs," the melting polar ice caps, global warmism, whales, the rainforest, recycled paper and so on and so forth.

An email with a forwarded article from my brother reminded me of this grade school propagandizing:

Dad

This must be how you felt when I'd come home from Ms. [witchy teacher's name redacted]'s class in 2nd grade convinced we needed to save the whales and rainforest. Fortunately I had your skepticism to steer me clear of her environmental sanctimony.

This little article from Jonah Goldberg in the latest NR is "priceless"

'HELPING Dad become a better man: priceless."

That's the closing line of a new MasterCard commercial. You know those commercials; they've been out for nearly a decade. A typical one goes something like this: "Bric-a-brac: 17 dollars. White elephant: 28 dollars. Getting your wife to remove the restraining order: priceless."

Only this one has a little boy tailing his father--a man who looks like a perpetually adolescent extra from the old sitcom Friends--through a home-improvement store pointing out ways the carbon-profligate old man can reduce his footprint. The boy replaces the usual narrator as well.

"Energy-saving bulb: four dollars," quoth the child. "Reusable bag: two dollars. Helping Dad become a better man: priceless."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

There are two kinds of folks in this world: those who find this sort of thing creepy, and pod people. Okay, maybe that's a bit too strong. But how anyone could fail to find this commercial one of the more disturbing convergences of corporate power, advertising, and progressive groupthink is beyond me.

If you can't see why, maybe it will help to look a few spaces ahead of where we are. In Britain, an electric utility launched a website for kids that teaches them how to become "climate cops." Their duty is to keep a "watchful eye" and monitor the "energy crimes" of their family and neighbors, with the ultimate goal of building a "climate-crime case file." Beware that Johnson kid with the clipboard going through your recyclables.

If you still can't see why this kiddie Gestapo stuff is offensive, change the issue from environmentalism to eating habits (you know that's coming, by the way), or religion, or just about any subject where you don't think a six-year-old should be scolding you for weakness of character or informing on you to the authorities.

Now, it's not that I think kids shouldn't be encouraged to be civic-minded. And while I find today's climate obsessions to be suffused with religious hysteria, I don't see anything terrible in encouraging kids, or anyone else, to conserve resources. But that's not the issue here. Nor is environmentalism per se.

It's the kids.

There is something evil about recruiting children to lobby their parents on political causes. Okay, it's not always evil; sometimes it can be funny, like the time in 1965 when Soupy Sales told the children watching his TV show to sneak into their parents' bedrooms and take the "green pieces of paper" from their wallets and send them to him.

Sales apologized for cracking a joke that a few kids took seriously. But no apologies are forthcoming from MasterCard for broadcasting something in earnest that in a healthy society would be seen as a joke. The idea of enlisting children to the Cause is as fashionable today as it was under Robespierre. To crack the bunker walls of the family and seduce the children has always been a top priority of totalitarians, hard and soft. Progressives love to elevate the sagacity of children--Hillary Clinton says some of the best theologians she's ever met have been five-year-olds--because doing so gives children all the more authority when they parrot the talking points of the latest progressive fad.

James Lileks asks about the MasterCard ad: "If the kid didn't learn these steps to righteousness at home, where did he get them?" Precisely. It's not as if normal, uncoached six-year-olds talk about making their fathers "better men."

If the man in the ad were a better father, he would have scolded his kid for the disrespect and demanded to know who was teaching him such crap.

Because you "can't legislate morality" or teach it in public schools, we were taught the morality of the secularists. And it was and remains, environmentalism (along with, of course, relativism and its derivatives, multiculturalism, &c.)

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My Notes From A Seminar Address By Dr. Ronen Bergman

I was all prepared to type up this information following the Chatham House Rule, but Dr. Ronen Bergman graciously declined to invoke it at the conclusion of his remarks.

Thus, I will tell you, dear reader, forthrightly, that all of this information comes from Dr. Bergman and the opinions are strictly his, based on his experiences interacting with and reporting on events in Israel and the broader Middle East.

In my opinion, Dr. Bergman is the best investigative journalist on Israel-related affairs in the Middle East. Full stop.

[My handwriting is poor and barely legible even to me. Furthermore, my note-taking ability is not great. As a result, please excuse any deficiencies in these notes]

• role of intelligence in shaping history

• winning the intelligence battle is not always winning the war

• you cannot give a talk w/o a good story

• in 2003, a group of Israeli signals intelligence officers broke an Iranian code from the Iranian ministry of intelligence--a complicated cypher. Super computers cannot crack a code the way they could. It still takes 2-3 years to crack a code. There are different methods. One whole apparatus becomes transparent as a result of cracking this code--the Iranian ministry. Israel couldn't handle al lthe raw intel so they got MI6 involved. They got a profound understanding and lots of actionable intelligence. They let CIA know. CIA head of station in Baghdad met with Ahmed Chalabi while drinking in a pub--he had a job in an Iraqi ministry as a result of American pressure. (Sidenote: "Curveball"--defectors defect because they are defective) Head of Station and Chalabi are talking and the American tells Chalabi that they are reading Iranian stuff. Iran case office doesn't believe Chalabi. They set up a dummy thing in Baghdad. CIA, etc., are smart enough not to act on the intelligence without secondary corroboration so the Iranians think Chalabi is lying to them. Iranian ministry writes up a whole telegram about the lies Chalabi told about their intel being read by Mossad/MI6/CIA. CIA read it. CIA so zealous & political and desirous to embarrass the Department of Defense over Chalabi that they leaked it to the New York Times. Israel tried to get the NYT not to publish. NYT did anyway. Michael Mukaseywrote a letter of apology to Israeli operatives with Dr. Bergman has seen with his own eyes.

• Dr. Bergman wants to tell us that we, the West, are winning the intel war, but he can't. The last few years have seen recovery. 2002 was crucial. Maj. Gen. Meir Dagan was appointed head of Mossad. Former head of assisnation in Gaza in the 1970s. Sharon appointed him and told him he wanted Mossad with a knife between the teeth [ed. note: much of this part can be found in his WSJ column--though with more detail here]. Degan changed three things 1. the "blanket is too short" to cover all priorities--must narrow task list. 2. Iran/Hezbollah and its proxies & 3. Maj. Gen. Farkash becomes head of Military intelligence. Shifted resources from Syria to Iran and Hezbollah. Understood allocation of resources. As a result of all of this, the Iranians themselves have acknowledged some "strange things." 3 airplanes fell from the skies. Scientists have disappeared. Centrifuges explode. Computers die.

• July 2007 a miraculous mishap in one of the Iranian nuclear labs

• September of that year, Israeli jets destroyed the North Korean reactor in Syria--being built unnoticed from 2002-2007. Syrian President and son still believe that all electronic transmission is being intercepted by Israelis. As a result, they have erected and apparatus to bypass traditional communications--courier. Syrians used to find strange objects that would explode when they examined them. They called GRO and asked the Soviets to send experts. KGB came, examined the device and it exploded, killing 12 KGB agents. Syrian filed a complaint with the UN. Now they send communications by packet on motorcycle.

• April 2007 a joint investigation concludes that Syrian/North Korea are building a reactor to create a bomb. Given two options--tell UN or act. They decided not to give it to inspectors. Decided to strike. Worried Syria would attack. IDF was ordered to prepare for war with Syria to begin in September 2007. This then leaves them with decision of whether or not to take responsibility. The, 'kick the [scatological reference] out of the bully in the daylight or destroy his car in the middle of the night and only you and he know.' Israel called Turkey and had the Turkish minister call President Assad and tell him about this decision. After the fact, Benjamin Netanyahu said, "I don't know what happened, but I supported it." This is the only semi-official Israeli statement acknowledging their participation. Assad did not react.

• September 2008, someone replaced the back-seat of Imad Mughniyah, one of the leaders of Hezbollah. This was a guy who had been at the top of everyone's terror lists beforeOsama bin-Laden came along.

• Muhammad Suleiman, security advisor to Assad, went to take a smoke while on vacation. His wife made him step outside. This ended up being the most fatal cigarette he would ever smoke. A sniper from the sea shot him--this was a major loss for President Assad.

• January 2009, Hamas was surprised that their booby traps prepared in anticipation of Israeli attack/invasion of Gaza were all taken out from the air. One of Hamas's most powerful weapons is their ability to play Israeli public using IDF casualties.

• In the same period, Israel took out an arms convoy in Sudan that was destined for Hamas/Hezbollah. This was a result of collaboration between Egypt and Mossad.

• All of this represents a major recovery in the war between Israel and Iran and its proxies. If they hadn't taken out the Syrian reactor, a nuclear Syria would have changed the course of history.

• IAEA going to release a report next week saying Syria is in breach of non-proliferation.

• Arms continue to be smuggled through Sinai.

• In the last 6 months, Iranian nuke program has accelerated and they will soon have enough for a bomb.

• There is a major dispute about what Obama is saying--it's not very clear. Israeli decision makers want to think Obama is giving a vague signal (regarding their strike options against Iran). Obama told Newsweek he wasn't going to dictate and tell them how to defend themselves. Netanyahu told Obama Israel reserves the right to defend itself. Obama and Sec. Robert Gates agreed. Obama wants this as a threat (and possible Israeli strike) but they also want to be able to say that Israel is crazy/unpredictable (in their negotiations with Iran).

• Menachem Begin ordered an attack on the Iraqi nuke plant. Sam Lewis, sitting in his office, was in total shock when informed of this attack. An Israeli attack on Iranian nuke facilities probably won't happen in 2009 or during the US-Iran dialogue. But Israel probably still adheres to the Begin doctrine.

• Must understand the impact of the Holocaust--even to the point of irrationality. Striking the Syrian reactor reflects how Israel will respond to Iran. If Europe/US/UN/etc. don't stop Iran, Netanyahu will order a strike. This will tremendously affect the history of the Middle East and put Israel in the killing zone between Sunni and Shia.

• General Dagan has established deep cooperation with Europe and the US. They don't care if they share secrets because they face an existential threat. They'll work with former enemies. Jordan & Egypt intel agencies are talking about the Iranian threat the same way as Israeli intel agencies. They are afraid of Iran and want to stop them from getting nukes. There is a lot of hatred of Iran and collaboration/cooperation between Egyptian & Jordanian intel agencies and Mossad as a result. No overt cooperation between Israel and Egypt and Jordan, but covertly, it is happening now.

• On Obama's speech re: Iran nuclear power: 2 weeks ago, an Israeli delegation came to London to meet with their British counterparts. British official asked Israelis what they thought of US/Iran dialogue. Israel wasn't sure what to think. They are lagging behind US changes in policy. There will be conflict between Netanyahu and Obama about settlements (in the West Bank). Japan is 6 months away (given nuclear power plants) from creating nuclear weapons (if they wanted). Iran wants to be like Japan (possessing nuclear power). US says they can't because they lied about their ambitions in the past, but Obama said in his speech that Iran has the same right to nuclear power. Israel is afraid of dialogue and that they will continue enriching. Israel is most afraid of perceived "success" of the dialogue (by the Obama administration) than failure of the dialogue because the US will be on the wrong side and Iran will continue to enrich in secret.

• Shimon Peres was minister of defense at 31 years of age.

• David Ben-Gurion was always afraid that he would have assembled the remnants of the Holocaust and not done everything he could to defend Israel.

• Legally, Israel submits to 1945 British wartime law and as a result, journalists must submit everything to military censors. They have to say, for instance, that Israel has nuclear weapons "according to non-Israeli sources."

• Europe says, "we have lived under the Cold War with the nuclear threat and it came out alright." These (Iranians) aren't the same folks. Iran is building the bomb in part (if not solely) to ensure the preservation of the current regime. Cannot make the same assumptions about rationality and state preservation and MAD, etc.

• November 2007 NIE report--British intelligence went ballistic--report said that Part IV, the weaponizing group ceased its work in 2004. This was a minor and disputed point. They had all the parts, they just hadn't assembled the car. Brits have since persuaded Americans they were wrong.

• Watch and listen to Iran--they believe they are close.

• We only know what we know. Israel has a limited capability. Iran is heavily fortified and defended. Israel believes an attack on 3 sites would only delay Iran by 2-3 years.

• re: Syrian nuke program: What was on their (Syrian leadership's) mind? Syria made the job for attackers easy. Israel was surprised by Syrian--thought they were focused on missiles and chemical weapons. Syrians got 1.5 billion from Iran and paid North Korea after declining the services of A.Q. Khan. Israel is aware of what's going on in Syria.

• What can Intel do? Raid on Syrian reactor affected history. When it does not deal with social movement or economics, it can have major impact. Voices in Israel want to topple the Iranian regime. Dr. Bergman does not think we should do anything like that.

• Are you worried about being used by Israeli intelligence agencies? Intel agencies have an agenda and their information should be treated with suspicion. "I (first person) am not the favorite person of Mossad." Was interrogated just last week for having possession of classified documents. Made fun of them for their astute reading of "Top Secret" across the top of the documents included in his book. He has long-time sources he has come to trust.

Please see these recent articles by Dr. Bergman:

Israel's Secret War With Iran

It All Depends On Egypt

Letter From Tel Aviv: Netanyahu's Iranian Dilemma

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

Mark Steyn Holds Forth On Socialized Universal Healthcare & The Spread Of Apathy

This is why someone hopefully pays Mark Steyn the Big Bucks.

Look, by historical standards, we’re loaded: We have TVs and iPods and machines to wash our clothes and our dishes. We’re the first society in which a symptom of poverty is obesity: Every man his own William Howard Taft. Of course we’re “vulnerable”: By definition, we always are. But to demand a government organized on the principle of preemptively “taking care” of potential “vulnerabilities” is to make all of us, in the long run, far more vulnerable. A society of children cannot survive, no matter how all-embracing the government nanny.

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

Government In Your Refrigerator: Health Care & Liberty

Safeway CEO Steven Burd has got a great piece in today's WSJ describing his company's market-based reform of their healthcare plan. Effectively, they have incentivized good behavior--not smoking and reducing your weight, for instance--while penalizing the flip side of that coin.

Their costs have remained flat since instituting this plan and now Burd wants to be able to increase the cost penalty of bad behavior/incentive for good behavior to more accurately reflect the real costs.

All of this is fine and innovative for a private company; I do not like the liberty-infringing possibilities of this type of reform coupled with universal health care.

As with anything else, it is one thing for a private entity, which gives employees the choice to work there or somewhere else, to adopt these types of reforms. I don't even really have a problem with Medicare/Medicaid adopting these types of market incentives/penalties.

But this type of response from the Federal Government in a universal healthcare environment is just one example of the loss of individual liberty. Of course the government is going to take an interest in what you eat and smoke when they are the ones footing the bill for your healthcare.

When I pick up the London tabloids to see what's what (not often, obviously) I often read about how some arm of NHS (their universal healthcare agency) is going door to door to take a look-see in people's refrigerators.

At this stage, it's just "taking a look." But the next, logical step is to prohibit consumption of whatever the government deems unhealthful or whatever. It doesn't take a predictive genius to see where this is going: complete government prohibition on whatever is considered "bad" and forced adoption of whatever the latest science considers "good."

And they said you couldn't legislate morality.

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