"We had to Pass the Bill to See What Was In It. Well then, Asked and Answered."

Jeff Goldstein discovers the wit of despair.

It's almost as though merely passing a law to give everyone health insurance does not, of itself, create new health insurance.

If You Can Find the King, You Can See Him...

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert just spent eight months trying to get the Depatment of Health and Human Services to let him take the State's Medicaid paperwork online. He finally had to appeal to President Obama.

"We tried for eight months to get the waiver," says Herbert. HHS delayed and delayed and delayed -- and then finally said no. "The denial we got back from the secretary of HHS was by e-mail, of all things," Herbert says, pausing a second for the listener to take it in. "The irony is rich."

To his credit, Obama immediately saw the worth of the idea and got the desk jockeys to okay it. But the whole episode displays everything the Right hates about Big Government: the delays, the inadequate responses, the self-serving hypocrisy. What the Left fails to understand is that these things are natural, and unavoidable parts of any bureaucratic process.

Bureaucracies exist to enforce, not to innovate. Office-holders are not empowered to make decisions, but rewarded for complying with them. HHS could not - literally could not - make the change Herbert asked for, because no one of sufficient authority told them that they could. It doesn't matter if they're officially allowed to make such decisions; in practice they will make the decisions that will create the minimum of ripples.

It reminds one of a French peasant hiking his way to Versailles and getting permission from the guards to enter, finding the King, and asking his permission to build a bridge over his stream, because the local Count wouldn't let him and the Bishop was indifferent.

America isn't supposed to work this way. We aren't supposed to be bowing in tender supplication to the arbitrary whims of our emperor and his eunuchs. We're supposed to be a free people. But freedom is messy; and our aspiring eunuch class likes things neat and tidy.

Justin Bieber's Litmus Test

I cannot bring myself to write about Justin Bieber at Genre Confusion, so I'm doing it here. It's more about politics, anyway.

So the golden boy of the pop world got asked a bunch of questions that have nothing to do with music, and he may not have answered them like he was supposed to:

"I really don't believe in abortion," the teen idol said. "It's like killing a baby?" When asked if he was still adamantly pro-life in cases of rape, his stance didn't really change. "Um. Well, I think that's really sad, but everything happens for a reason," he said. "I don't know how that would be a reason. I guess I haven't been in that position, so I wouldn't be able to judge that."

So far, so 16-year-old. It's probably not something he's ever really thought about, and he mumbled through it as best he could. Whatever. I neither know nor care what he really thinks enough to criticize him on how artfully he articulates it.

Another point of contention from the interview is the Canadian crooner's admission that he never plans to become an American citizen. "You guys are evil," he joked. "Canada's the best country in the world." The young man even took a dig at the U.S. healthcare system. "We go to the doctor and we don't need to worry about paying him, but here, your whole life, you're broke because of medical bills."

Let's give the kid a little credit here. Sure, he's traveled the world and is in a higher tax bracket than most of us can even fathom, but how many 16-year-olds are even remotely aware of how insanely expensive healthcare can be? The fact that he's cultured and tuned in to the everyday struggles of those surrounding him (he mentions his bodyguard's premature baby and the costly complications stemming from that) is a refreshing glimpse of a Hollywood star that hasn't completely lost touch with reality and everyday people.

This, on the other hand, is just bursting with stupid. Not Bieber's polite and thoughtful opining on the intricacies of health care, that's just the opinion every Canadian is issued at birth. What's stupid is this particluar Popeater claiming that mere chauvinism coupled with declarations of evil reflects maturity and insight.

Justin Bieber doesn't know anything about health care or how much it costs. He doesn't have to: he's Canadian. Debates about health care costs occur above his pay-grade. Somber, credentialed professionals in brightly lit rooms have these debates for him, so that, as he boasts, not a golden hair of his pretty head ever need be disturbed by them.

Justin and his opinions on premarital sex are understandable -- the kid is, after all, a sex symbol to millions of tween girls -- but were the questions about abortion, rape and even politics appropriate given his age and the fact that these topics have seemingly nothing to do with his music, movie or any of the products he sells?

"I think that anyone who has as much sway in popular culture as Justin should be asked all questions," Grigoriadis said. "I agree that he does not bring up these issues in his work at the moment, but it's possible that he will in the future, as he decides that he wants the public to know more about him."

How does one say "bullshit" in Canadian?

Rolling Stone asked these questions for one reason and one reason only: to determine if Frankie Avalon Leif Garret Justin Bieber was one of the Right People with the Right Opinions. If he is, then RS can insert the Teen Idol as More Sophisticated Observer of Human Affairs Than We Would Have Thought angle. If not, so much the better: the Pop Sensation With Troubling, Controversial Opinions angle always sells better (you don't think these thumb-suckers actually like interviewing 50 Cent and Eminem, do you?).

So based on this, I'm guessing he got a C+. Expect continuing coverage for the next several millenia.

Micheal Moore, Health Care: The Fisking (A Zombie Post from March 2010)

[Editors Note: I've been cleaning out the old blog today, adding tags, deleting drafts that would never see the light of day, when I stumbled upon this. God only knows why I got this far and never finished it. I was faced with either deleting it or getting rid of it. And for some reason I cannot choose to un-fisk Michael Moore. I just can't quit the big fat bastard]

Because.

To My Fellow Citizens, the Republicans:

Say, what you will about the man, he loves him some schtick. And he loves no schtick like the "Phoney Politeness" schtick.

Europeans: Say, The Government's a Bit Big

My copy of The Communist Manifesto (it is wise to know the ways of one's adversary, tovarisch) has an introduction from a dyed-in-the-wool Marxist from the 1980's or so. The old comrade claims that the "flexible-response" of Western Democracies when confronted with Bolshevism (permitting unions, mandating the eight-hour-work day, the minimum wage) caught the Reds completely by surprise. They didn't expect that the kapitalists had such foresight in them.

Anne Applebaum, in Slate, traces the return of this democratic flexibility:

It's saying too much to call it a pattern, and it may well not be a permanent change: I'm sure there are plenty of European politicians who won't survive their next encounter with the voters. But there is something in the air. It almost seems as if at least a few Europeans have actually drawn some lessons from the recent recession and accompanying turbulence in the bond markets. They have realized, or are about to realize, that their state sectors are too big. They are about to discover that their public spending, which seemed justified in good economic times, has to be cut. The middle class knows in its heart of hearts that its subsidies, whether for mortgages, university tuition, or even health care, can't last. Some voters even know that their pay-as-you go pension systems aren't sustainable in the long term, either.

Facts are stubborn things, as a certain Founding Father put it. The state can only do so much, should only do so much. We are in the midst of discovering again where that line should be drawn. And our own President seems to be behind this learning curve:

Our recent foray into health care reform took us in the opposite direction from the rest of the developed world, too, not that we were really doing anything so different to start with. As Besharov and Call also note, Americans are wrong to think they currently enjoy "private" or "free-market" medicine. Even when it is not directly state-funded through Medicare or Medicaid, American health care is paid for by employers. And those employers, in turn, get a tax cut for providing health care to employees—in other words, a subsidy.

While I find the conflation of tax cuts and subsidies specious ("Because only taking ten dollars from people instead of fifteen is exactly the same as giving them five bucks. Dumbass." - Vodkapundit), basically, this is right: we don't have a free-market health care system. When Obama and the Democrats claimed that their "reform," far from being a takeover, was but the logical extension of current obligations, they were not lying. They had simply convinced themselves to extinguish a bonfire with gasoline.

Real health-care reform, on the other hand, will involve freeing health labor and capital, instead of funneling it into the insurance and legal industries. If we're not making it easier to build hospitals, we're not doing a thing to make health care more affordable.

I Generally Haven't Used the Term "ObamaCare"...

...to describe the Health Insurance Care Bill. For one, it relies on form of nomenclature leagues away from being as witty as it's supporters believe it, while being fully as tiresome as its opponents lament. For another, Obama didn't write the damn thing; Pelosi, Reid, and their infinite crew of Democratic Congressmen did. Since they're the ones up for election this November, I think the hate should be properly focused.

Now that Jon Stewart et al, are calling it "offensive," however? I won't call it anything else.

Politics: The Art of the Perverse.

Things That are Not a Right.

The commonplace from the left with regard to health care is that it is, or should be, a "right" (usually with the accompanying boilerplate "In a country as rich as ours..."). The more sophisticated, such as President Obama, talk in terms of a designation between "negative" rights (free speech, religion, assembly, et al.) and "positive" rights (everything Franklin Roosevelt meant when he discussed "freedom from want"). To embrace the latter is understood as the evolved understanding.

Over at Hot Air, Ed Morrisey encounters a group of super-articulate teens claiming just that. He explains why so-called "positive rights" aren't rights. (Hat tip: Insty)

As human beings, we want to see people succeed to the point where they can feed, clothe, and care for themselves independently, as that establishes true personal freedom.  However, none of us have the right to confiscate the services of a doctor or nurse without their consent, and without their ability to set a price for their time and expertise.  We don’t have the right to walk into a grocery story to demand apples when we’re hungry, either, although we should have access to the market without bias when we can properly compensate its owner for the goods.

I can speak freely on my own, without anyone opening my mouth or putting words in it. All my right to free speech requires is that someone else not silence me. The same is true for any other so-called "negative" rights. Health care, on the other hand, requires someone else's labor to provide. To claim it as a "right" is thus to claim the labor of another. It is a difference in degree from the medieval corvee, under which a lord could take the labor of the peasants on his land without compensating them.

During the Carolingian period, the kings of France began to grant income from royal estates to lords they desired to keep well-disposed toward the crown. Unlike feudal grants of land, which were passed down from generations, and upon which the lord took up residence and possession, these gifts, or benefices, were usually in monetary form only, keeping the actual land and economic activity performed thereupon under royal control. They could be revoked at royal whim, and so encouraged obedience to royal wishes.

Freedom of speech is a right. Free Health care is a benefice. And it's only a matter of time before that benefice is denied to those deemed politically unworthy.

The Problem With ObamaCare

Over at Protein Wisdom, dicentra issues a pretty solid denunciation of what Pelosi's bill is and what it will accomplish:

"I Hope You Die," is not a threat.

This morning, the radio played what it described as "death threats" left  on the voicemails of various Democrat Congressman who voted for ObamaCare, especially Bart Stupak, who got played like a cheap fiddle by the President and Speaker.

Not one of them actually constituted a death threat. The worst of them was "I hope you die!", a hot-headed and uncivil thing to hear, to be sure. You could call it a "death wish" if you want, and you could call it a narrow distinction. But the reason language exists is so that distinctions can be made. And wishing that someone would drop dead, however morally lacking, is leagues away from promising to kill them, even unseriously.

What I don't understand is the media and Left clutching their fans and smelling salts as though this did not happen during the Bush Years. Politics is a sport played by the passionate. People lose their minds and shout hyperbole. Why can't we have a media that either decides it's all horrific rudeness and a threat to the republic, or it's all bold speaking-truth-to-power? Pick a standard and apply it equally.

What's the problem with that?

UPDATE: See this, this is a threat:

Cantor said "a bullet was shot through the window" of his campaign office. The incident happened Monday, Fox News has learned, the latest in a rash of apparent threats and acts of intimidation against members of Congress. Most of the threats so far have been reported by Democrats, but Cantor -- the No. 2 Republican in the House -- is one of about 10 lawmakers who has asked for increased security protection, Fox News has learned.

Matthews: Refusing to buy Health Insurance is like Refusing to Serve Blacks

Bwah?

Oh, it's all "interstate commerce." If you can make people sell products to black people, then you can make people buy health insurance.

That is so exactly what James Madison had in mind about "interstate commerce."

On We Blindly Stumble...

The Health care bill is a sham. It won't work. It can't work. When has the government ever reduced costs on anything? I can't imagine being one of the people who believes otherwise. They're like battered wives; oh, this time he really means it. No, he doesn't. He means to take whatever you have and that you should feel grateful for having him take it. None of your backtalk, woman. Now get the slop on the table.

In America, the scope and size of government is the issue. It's always been the issue. What else could a free people argue about, but how far their freedom goes? And now, thanks to the desire of progressives to insure equal outcomes from unequal incomes, we will watch freedom go very far away.

Service is Our Priority. Customers, Not So Much.

The Daily Caller, like any good wadi o'wingnuts, never misses an opportunity to compare the current congressional clusterf--- of a bill with what government health care looks like. Digging into the Daily Mail yields no information on the supposed 21 billion pounds sterling spent on "failed schemes to tackle inequality" but does yield that 487 million was spent on consultants.

Barack Milhouse Diocletian Steps into the Path of History's Train

Price controls? Really?

Up until this point, he could deflect criticism of the health care plan on the grounds that it wasn't his plan. When he went to talk to the Republicans, he could say that things got into the bill that were contrary to his desires. Now he's gone and put the millstone right around his neck.

I'm so glad we elected the smart guy.

(Hat tip: Insty) 

Update: Reason.com steals my joke. Which is to say, the joke is kind of obvious, and I got my dashed-off tripe in before they could finish their researched article.