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That’s a B-2 Stealth Bomber not a stealth fighter. Just a nit pick for accuracy’s sake. Cheerio!
“When smart people write really stupid things.”
I missed the point.
Actually, I would love to hear about the free market plan to provide health care to the elderly.
I am for a private club determining who gets in or not. I am disheartened that it came down to race.
I admit that summer campers of any race, religion, size, mental state, etc, usually are excessively rowdy. As a lifeguard in my youth, I hated summer campers. Boisterous, unruly, and just plain crazy, it was hard to keep tabs on all the swimmers as the camps usually pushed the pool to capacity.
‘When smart people write really stupid things.’ is very depressing. Lots of people worshipping the state… This post is a strong argument that pro-govt propaganda in public schools has been an amazing success story.
Congrats on the WSJ reference but it annoys me they didn’t link back to the original article. Ever since I started keeping a blog, that’s been the number one rule: Always link back to the source.
Oxymoron.
Carry on.
I was coming to say what Mike did. The word “complexion” was obviously a poor poor choice by the pool, but they could well have said “$1900 was not worth a bus full of day camp kids coming in every day and causing a big disturbance.” I used to take a van full of special needs kids to our local pool once a week each summmer; there was one on one supervision but they still caused a ruckus every week. The kids had a right to be there as it was a public pool and I would have had a problem with anyone who said otherwise but I always felt bad for the families with young kids whose day out was being affected by our kids. I could totally understand if a membership-based pool determined that the downside was much greater than the camp’s fees.
(Of course if the white day camp kids are or have played at the club without incident then I take it all back.)
Hmm, the pool story. As a supporter of the free market, which of course goes hand in hand with voluntary association, I have little issues with this private club turning away these kids based upon race (if it was based upon race), but nor would I associate with that club after the fact.
On the other hand, this camp could very well found their pool or club and admit whomever they please.
Good work! Sadly, my print copy had your name spelled ‘Rodney’.
“I am disheartened that it came down to race.”
What else could it have come down to? Religion?
I thought the point of the stealth bomber photo would be that we wouldn’t be able to see it. Doesn’t seem very stealthy.
(yes I know it’s invisibility factor is to radar not eyeballs)
Bob, the free market “plan” to provide health care would probably revolve around charitable organizations finding the most efficient ways to provide care for the most people with the money that is voluntarily donated to them, and health care providers actually competing to lower the costs of care rather than setting up government-approved schemes to stifle competition and protect their own market share.
Did somebody say something smart on Yglesias’ site?
Yes, it’s a B-2 stealth bomber, not a stealth fighter. Then again, the F-117 stealth fighter never had air-to-air weapons, so it wasn’t really a figher either.
Well how about they do things like save, buy their own insurance, pay a bigger chunk of their health care costs, etc. Without the 65+ crowd, quite simply, we would not have a health care problem. The vast bulk of our health care spending is for people 65+.
Graphic
And the point is that government providing things like public goods and subsidizing private goods that have positive externalities is not shocking or unusual. Government trying to provide private goods as if they were public goods leads to all kinds of problems. For example, Yglesias is wrong in that it wasn’t just that they couldn’t provide attractive clothing, but that they often could provide for basics like toilet paper. And there are serious problems with incentives. Let alone issues like rent seeking. Rent seeking doesn’t go away in a centrally planned economy it just takes a different form. Overall the standard of living in the U.S.S.R. was significantly below that of the U.S., Europe, Japan and other such countries. Largely in part because it was a centrally planned economy vs. an economy with distributed planning and respongind to market signals as to which resources are the most valued at various places in the economy.
Not likely. Pools are expensive to build, run and maintain. For a summer camp program they look to lease facilities from private companies. The free market does not provide for all of one’s wants. There can be barriers to entry such as high fixed costs, sunk costs, etc.
Related to Brandon Bowers point, I’d like to throw this out there: I’m not too sure what my organization’s policy is when it comes to using it’s name when blogging so I’m going to try to keep this as anonymous as possible. I work for a non-profit charitable organization that was founded to find a cure for a fatal genetic disease. In 1955 children diagnosed with this disease didn’t live long enough to see grade school. As of 2008 the median age of survival for people with this disease was 37. This was all accomplished through charitable donations from private citizens, as well as corporate giving (they’re not all greedy money-hoarding scum-bags; in fact some of our largest contributions come from corporate giving). Since the disease affects a relatively small population, we have never received federal funding. What has been accomplished has been through a business-like relationship with pharmeceutical companies whereby we provide the initial investment in drugs related to this disease that the companies could never monetarily justify researching and developing (the reason being that with such a small target population, they could never recoup the average 18 billion or so it takes to get a drug from discovery to market). Working here has really opened my eyes to what charitable health orgs. can accomplish without government assistance.
No. The words “free market” and “plan” cannot be uttered in the same breath. A market is no longer “free” once it is “planned” from above. That is not to say that an unhampered free market is without order, rather the order comes from the interaction of market participants, not imposed upon the partcipants from some governing body.
Why would anyone do that to a perfectly good pizza?
I would love to hear about the Constitutional authority of the federal government to provide such to the elderly.
It’s presumptuous on my part, I know, but your question assumes that there’s some de facto requirement of the .gov to step in whenever the free market cannot or will not fill the need for x. “If the free market won’t do it then certainly the government *must*!”
Which is just so many flavors of wrong…
Bob, don’t you know not to question the holy writ? The first pillar is “There are no market but free market, and friedman is his prophet.”
The Yglesias piece doesn’t seem stupid to me. It boils down to one fact and one opinion. The connection between them seems pretty weak, but not to the level of “point and laugh at the stupid, children”.
Fact: The USSR and Cuba did a decent job of providing access to medical care. Even while the rest of their economies took a dirt-nap. There was no bread in the stores, but there were good doctors. When the public system of healthcare (and everthing else) collapsed, so did life expectancy. Under the private-ish system that replaced communist health-care, life expectancy has only rebounded to about the 1960s level.
Opinion: A fully private system of care for the elderly would provide worse care than a fully public one.
The opinion doesn’t follow from the graph, but the graph doesn’t contradict it either. Meh. I’m glad my job does not require me to write a certain number of blog posts per day. I’d probably end up phoning it in far more often than MY does.
Far from the dumbest thing I’ve seen written about health-care, though.
Bob and Brandon-
Remember, what the government is pushing is “affordable health care insurance”. This is very different from actual, affordable health care.
comprehensive health plans, medicare, too much regulation, FDR manipulating wage freezes, etc have gotten us in to this mess.
Another govt plan is not the answer.
India has a free market system with some good ideas to look at. They have low levels of insurance (prices aren’t artificially inflated), so a premium is put on frugal innovation. They offer tier-based services. If you want luxuries, you pay for it. If you can only afford the most basic service, that’s what you get.
Health savings accounts would revolutionize medicine if they’re not competing against the govt inflating health care costs.
so it seems the free-market
plansorry, solution- for the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions is to thin the herd.There’s a guy in his 40s who hangs out in the morning outside the nearby metro station begging for money for dialysis treatment (and no, he’s not faking unless he’s relaxing his hair and radically changing his diet to fool everyone). How can the free market meet his needs? It’s nice that sometimes charity fills the void, but that isn’t something unique to capitalism.
India!?!? Seriously?!?!?!
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1711814_1523733,00.html
That’s one of India’s better hospitals. on the WHO ranking list, India is #112</ out of 190.
also
The lack of an effective public health system has led to a booming private system, which takes care of three-quarters of the country’s needs.
But the system is unregulated, and poor people are often forced to turn to medical practitioners who are little more than quacks.
Dr. Reddy at the All India Institute is a member of a new private initiative called the Public Health Foundation, which wants to train thousands of public health professionals to meet the country’s vast needs.
“There are no standard guidelines (for) treatment which are universally disseminated and adopted for practice by primary care physicians, there are no quality checks,” he said. ” And therefore both malpractice which is intentional as well as inadequate medical treatment, these are problems that plague the private sector health care delivery.”
The scene is radically different for those who can pay for top-of-the-line private services. India’s million plus doctors include specialists on par with the best in the world. These doctors staff state-of-the-art facilities that not only cater to middle class Indians but also attract patients from other countries.
#23 | Mojotron
‘There’s a guy in his 40s who hangs out in the morning outside the nearby metro station begging for money for dialysis treatment…’
Do you know what he’s done to help himself? I don’t know any of his circumstances and am sorry he’s in this predicament. I’m always stunned when I ask someone whether they’re on a transplant list and they say ‘no’ because they’re not willing to change any of their lifestyle choices- drinking alcohol, smoking, and illicit drug use. If they won’t help themselves, how can I help? why should I be forced to help?
Regarding Yglesias:
“Wherever there is a jackboot stomping on a human face there will be a well-heeled Western liberal to explain that the face does, after all, enjoy free health care and 100 percent literacy.”
- John Derbyshire.
Fancy Feast Fast Food – WTF? I guess serving this to guests as a gag (sorry) has a certain bent appeal, but good grief.
you can’t be serious about taking my comment about India that far out of context. ‘India has a free market system with some good ideas to look at.’ is not the same as ‘Let’s implement their system.’ There’s tons of issues with India- fundamentalist religions play a huge role in hindering their advancement.
You say this like it’s a good thing. The resources for those good doctors didn’t come from the magical central planning machine. The economy went down the shitter and apparently the central planners decided that doctors (among other things) were more important than food (probably since the central planners didn’t personally have any issues with food) and tens of millions of people died. But the healthcare (which was obviously allocated too much resources) was good so central planning of healthcare is a good idea? Really?
How about if Old People save some of their money during the 40 plus years they work so they can pay for their own dang health care.
Fact: The USSR and Cuba did a decent job of providing access to medical care.
Is that really a fact? How do you define “decent?” From what I understand, places like France and Switzerland do a good job, but Cuba’s really just plain awful.
Limiting caloric intact will increase your life expectancy by about 20%.
We need a study to see if being dirt poor with no food but basic vaccines, like in Cuba, is ultimately the most healthy way to live.
Would you volunteer every American to caloric restriction to improve longevity?
And infant mortality, what is single biggest risk factor? Teenage motherhood. What country has the highest teenage pregnancy rate and infant mortality? USA
Straight comparisons without controlling for known variables is moronic. Matt is not smart, he is just plain stupid or ignorant or both.
Keep in mind too, that the USSR/Easter bloc countries even falsified daily weather reports to show that SPain was cold and cloudy, for example. The fact that Yglesias accepts these “data” uncritically tells you everything you need to know about taking him seriously.
Even if the data were correct, I’d doubt the comparison would be much help in convincing me to adopt government run healthcare.
But I don’t beleive the data becuase Communists lie.
It makes no sense to focus on 0.001% of people that are in some sort of dire situation, and then debate an idea. The focus belongs on the general health of people that represents the majority of the population. You can’t save everyone; sometimes people have bad luck/bad genetics/bad choices and that’s just life, and they suffer more than others. Sometimes they even die before they reach the average life expectancy!
Isn’t the point of fast food – that’s fast, allegedly food and someone else does all the work??????
If I want veggie chow mein – I’ll get it from the Chinese restaurant.
Some people evidently have waaaayyyy to much time on their hands.
We definitely need to change the complexion of health care in America.
A lot of good comments in this thread … but Patrick’s quote gets the win IMO.
Part of the problem with health care (and to my mind, this will always be a problem, whether we have private health care or public) is that people always want to have their cake and eat it too. Look at my example of the pharmeceutical industry – the average cost of getting a drug to market is 18 billion. Why is this? In part it’s because drug discovery requires extremely smart people and highly specialized (and therefore expensive
: economies of scale and whatnot) equipment to do it. But it is also because we have a cadre of people screaming, “Drugs should be 100% safe!!! One life lost in clinical trials is too much!!!” To accomplish this, the government has saddled the drug companies with an enormous amount of red tape, which adds considerably to the already high price of drug research and development. Ok, fair enough: we want our drugs to be safe, rigorously tested, and reliable. However, then we also have a cadre of people (often, the very same people demanding 100% safety) screaming, “drugs should be available to EVERYONE!!!! NO ONE should be denied drugs because of the expense!!!!” That the two ideas can never both be accomplished without abject tyranny (and even then I question whether it could be accomplished) never enters their heads. When someone tries to point out that we can’t have it both ways, they shoot the messenger; usually by insinuating that he/she is cold hearted and doesn’t care about the sick and the poor.
Decent health care is rather subjective thing. It’s one thing when an American says Cuba and Russia have high standards of health services based on a graph and second hand accounts, but I’d like to hear a Cuban or a Russian actually say that. Simplifying a complex issue is a cheap tactic of debate. How many people cherry pick data here and there to make a case that the war drugs is working? It’s like saying the plot of The Big Lebowski is just about guy trying to get his rug back.
I coach Little League, one of the kids’ dads is a Cuban escapee. He was a doctor there. Conditions there were so good that he risked his life to get to America in a raft and has never gone back.
Is there seriously a need for this discussion?
#33 beat me to it. You can’t possibly take any soviet/cuban numbers, on anything, as fact.
#8, I’m all for the free market, but I have a big problem with exclusion when it comes to race. The free market generally didn’t help blacks all that much for the 100 years proceeding the abolishment of slavery. Jim Crow laws had black people living like second class citizens for a long time.
#23 | Mojotron — “so it seems the free-market plan sorry, solution- for the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions is to thin the herd. There’s a guy in his 40s who hangs out in the morning outside the nearby metro station begging for money for dialysis treatment … How can the free market meet his needs?”
It either will or it won’t. If it won’t and you force it, then you have destroyed the free market — quite the price to pay so one human individual can obtain dialysis.
“A man said to the universe: ‘Sir I exist!’ ‘However,’ replied the universe, ‘The fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.’” — Stephen Crane
In a followup article about the day campers,
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Campers-Complexion-No-Problem-for-New-Pool.html
a private school opened their pool to this day camp on days when their own camp wasn’t using it, so that’s a good end.
A comment to that story, though, claims that the problem was actually with the numbers of camp kids, and that other camps (of white kids) had been turned away too.
The truth lies somewhere in the middle of all these statements. After the wrap-up of the Jena situation a couple weeks ago, where it came out that the initial situation was made up (IIRR), I’m trying not to let my outrage gland lubricate too quickly about stories of this kind.
As just a member at a private neighborhood pool club I can say the management was incompetent in allowing 65 extra kids weekly access to the pool during open swim times.
If half that number of outside kids of any race descended onfamily swim time at our club, I would have a hearty laugh over it, but knowing my friends and neighbors and fellow members … heads would roll.
Any bets on when Mark Seven will show up to type in all caps about how Haley Barbour has never been to that pool in Philly?
I’m going to just say that I believe that the free market is a means to an end, and not an end itself. if the end result is that we’re paying the most per person for healthcare while obtaining mediocre results that are only two ranking spots ahead of Cuba’s universal plan for 20 times the price I don’t consider that a success. That in no means that I hold Cuba up as a model, they have an abhorrent human rights record and some of those are directly responsible for keeping health care costs low (iirc those with AIDS are imprisoned and it’s pretty much a death sentence there). But there’s no reason we can’t discuss that as well as our lousy system. Constantly shouting that we can’t trust their numbers because they’re commies doesn’t help anything; do you think that they’re lying and that the female mortality rate actually declined during that time period, or is the discussion of Russian mortality rates completely off the table because we can’t trust a thing they say because its propaganda?
I stated in a previous thread that we should be looking at the successes of the #1 ranked system, France, instead of the failings of much poorer systems. Part of their success is due to a mix of public & private sector. For example, testing facilities are privately owned and patients receive the results themselves, health care facilities are a mix of public and private and most people are very happy with it.
Actually, the Jim Crow laws were intended to subvert the free market.
“A comment to that story, though, claims that the problem was actually with the numbers of camp kids, and that other camps (of white kids) had been turned away too.”
I’m hoping it had more to do with the number of kids than race. Maybe some jerk did make a racist comment, but in this day and age the director of the place would have to weigh bad press versus a couple of racist members complaining. A whole bunch of members are complaining about a bunch of kids in their pool though, that he would have to act on. If there is any -ism involved, I wonder if it has more to do with elitism? My grandfather used to tell me that when he was growing up in his part of Connecticut, the racism against blacks was fairly low, because everybody hated the Irish immigrants.
I think MDGuy hit it on the head.
Everyone seems to want this health care utopia that just isn’t attainable in anyway. Even in countries with universal health care systems, people are still denied surgeries, drugs, wait on every long lists for procedures, etc. I’ve said it many times before, but the problem isn’t who pays, it’s about supply restrictions. Even if we removed these restrictions (which I think everyone agrees are bullshit)…to be honest, there will never be enough to go around to meet every single want and need.
What it boils do to is that some of us have morals and values that no one should just be denied medical services because of finances. These same people are willing to push those moral and values onto others whether they like it or not. Then there are those of us who have morals values that place individual liberty and responsibility above all else, including suffering and inequality. It’s not that half of us are thieves and the other half are uncompassionate. We’re just different and we should leave each other alone.
I say if you believe in universal coverage, you can pay for it and partake in it. Just don’t ask the rest of to do it too. When we can’t afford our medical care due to extenuating circumstances, we won’t ask for a hand out and we’ll suffer. I think that’s fair enough.
#43 | Hamburglar007
That market that existed for the century proceeding emancipation? The one with all the slaves?
Not a free market.
You can thank the Founders for that one, and their decision not to include black men (and all women!) when describing inalienable rights. Oppression made legal, though certainly not moral, and enforced by government under color of law.
I’d ask: in a true market economy, what profit motive in racism?
“Actually, the Jim Crow laws were intended to subvert the free market.”
So where was the groundswell of support to overturn those laws from white merchants and industrialists who realized what a goldmine they were cheating themselves out of?
This only holds any force if your reader understands what you mean by “free market”. Your (I believe) and my understanding of what a “free market” (read: a system of fully voluntary transactions) is is indeed an ends unto itself, but most everyone else sees “free market” (read: corporatism) as just another morally neutral economic system, like mercantilism or feudalism or socialism.
Hamburglar–actually the free market would have done a lot more to help blacks had the government not prevented it from doing so. Racial discrimination by businesses does not make economic sense–you lose money when you refuse to serve customers based on their race. Some of it will happen of course, because people aren’t always rational. But most businesses will find a way to sell their stuff to consumers who want to buy it–unless the government forces discrimination through segregation, denial of the right to contract based on race, denial of other property rights based on race, etc.
BTW how was the free market responsible for Jim Crow laws?
Mojotron,
What are the criteria for rankig health care services across the world? I’m not trying to discredit what you are saying, but it seems like judging healtch services is very subjective and leaves room manipulation. If the French are doing it with competitive services, sounds good to me. I just need something else to back up that some country is #1 at something.
“But most businesses will find a way to sell their stuff to consumers who want to buy it–unless the government forces discrimination through segregation, denial of the right to contract based on race, denial of other property rights based on race, etc.”
That ignores the fact that many of the very people with the most political power in the Jim Crow era were the same ones who would would have benefited the most finacially. To just say it was “the government” doing this makes it sound like it was some outside entity hurting both blacks and whites. This was a self inflicted injury on the southern white middle and upper class.
Actually, depending on the general mood and attitude of your customer base this isn’t necessarily true. If you were a restaurant owner in the south in 1955, allowing blacks to patronize your restaurant would have driven away a good deal of your white customers, who also happen to be the ones with the deep pockets. So racial descrimination would be a very rational (and simultaneously repugnent) decision that made economic sense. I imagine there were more than a few business owners who had no personal desire to enforce segregation but did it anyway to protect their bottom line.
Or protect their business from being burned out by their competitors.
“A comment to that story, though, claims that the problem was actually with the numbers of camp kids, and that other camps (of white kids) had been turned away too.”
I’m hoping it had more to do with the number of kids than race.
Me too, because discrimination based on race is an anethma, but there’s nothing wrong with discriminating based on age.
“Me too, because discrimination based on race is an anethma, but there’s nothing wrong with discriminating based on age.”
What do you mean? It wouldn’t matter what age they were. If I walk into my private club expecting only a few people, and find it filled with a large number of persons, that’s a reasonable basis for complaint (albeit petty IMO).
Despite that Yglesias points the “fact” that vodka also got cheaper. Yglesias’ post is case of post hoc ergo propter hoc. Kinda sad coming from a philosophy grad.
MDGuy guys nails it again ….
Mojopin #47 “Any bets on when Mark Seven will show up to type in all caps about how Haley Barbour has never been to that pool in Philly?”
lol I’m surprised he didn’t threaten to sue you for that one!
@47: Apparently he found his way back under his bridge.
Matt, I’m honestly not trying to be snarky, but how is that any different from the current private insurance market which, presumably, fills the need for pay-to-play health care (aside from creating yet another jobsworth for aspiring civil servants)? The instant you say, “Hey, Uncle Sugar, would you mind tending to the store for us? But only let people in who’ve paid their membership dues!” he’ll decide that there are too many people who don’t want to willingly submit and the battle is lost.
#54 | Zargon — “[CinCA's statement] only holds any force if your reader understands what you mean by ‘free market’.”
Of course. “Free market” means exactly what I intend it to mean, no more, no less.
/humpty dumpty
One of the classic tactics of Statists is to define terms out of existence. Thus, “free market” means the status quo, and its failures warrant ever-expanding forceful suppression of it. There are a thousand other examples, e.g. “libertarian.”
Any discussion about economics needs to start with a definition of terms or it is an exercise in navel-gazing, which it probably is anyway. Sigh.
I’d ask: in a true market economy, what profit motive in racism?
That’s a bit tautological, no? It’s obvious that without any notion of racism or racial superiority in the broader consciousness the market would probably not introduce it itself. That does not in any way address the question of how the market responds to such bias when they do exist.
And frankly, as others have pointed out, it’s silly to pin it all on the government, since the big players in the markets of the time were also the big players in the government at the time (not to mention various private institutions from the media to the Klan through which they could exert their influence). The fact is, there are plenty of conditions in which the market will do nothing to address a moral wrong, simply because it is more profitable to flatter the interests of the rich and powerful than it is to risk arousing their ire. To say “but that’s not a true free market!” is sort of beside the point.
#49:
Bullshit. The intent of the Jim Crow laws was not to subvert the free market. It was intended to keep black people out of white society.
#52
Plenty of businesses seemed to find the motivation for racism and exclude blacks during that era.
And the fact was that the free market economy didn’t suffer at all for it. In fact you can say the economy for white people benefited from it at the expense of black people.
I’d say that the Valley Swim Club just earned a daily health inspection for the rest of the summer. And they’d better be dead nuts on all inspection items or they will be closed until the issues are resolved. Which could be some time in September.
Not to say that I agree, but this will be the reaction of the government.
The fact is, there are plenty of conditions in which the market will do nothing to address a moral wrong, simply because it is more profitable to flatter the interests of the rich and powerful than it is to risk arousing their ire. To say “but that’s not a true free market!” is sort of beside the point.
Well, then, the question becomes whether the moral wrong in question creates an actionable harm.
Failure to obtain a job from me should not be an actionable harm.
Failure to secure my agreement to sell something to you should not be an actionable harm.
For either of these to be actionable harms, you would have to possess some claim on the job or on the property in question before I consent to transact business with you, and you possess none.
Plenty of businesses seemed to find the motivation for racism and exclude blacks during that era.
But it doesn’t matter if one or some – or even many – businesses found motivation to exclude blacks.
That just would increase the number of available customers available to the businesses that did NOT exclude blacks.
This would mean that the free market would reward people who weren’t racists with additional business.
That’s why the Jim Crow laws were necessary to the racists – because they protected those who wanted to exclude blacks from competition from people who would not exclude them.
Nobody is making the claim that no one would be racist in a free market. Of course some people would be. The point is that the market already contains a mechanism to punish those people. If they’re willing to bear the cost of the lost business, hey, it’s their funeral.
Bullshit. The intent of the Jim Crow laws was not to subvert the free market. It was intended to keep black people out of white society.
Those are the same thing. In order to keep black people out of white society, it was necessary to create a legal framework [and also to employ widespread terrorism] to cow those whites who would have employed blacks and opened their businesses to blacks into submission.
That’s just an absurdly simplistic reading of the situation. Do you suppose that white businesses did not face any extra-legal threats for serving black customers? Do you suppose that blacks had purchasing power on par with whites?
#56 – Mattocracy-
the criteria are:
Health, responsiveness, fairness in financial contribution, overall goal attainment, health expenditure per capita, performance on level of health, and overall health system performance.
the breakdown for 1997 is here, the last year I found the overall ranking for was 2000. Since then US costs have gone way up as have the number of uninsured, so unless there’s been some gains in other categories or major declines in other countries our ranking has probably sunk a bit from #36 since.
Ugh, the second tag-closing problem I’ve had this thread. Here – http://www.photius.com/rankings/world_health_systems.html
and here
http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html
There’s a good comparison of patient satisfaction and inequities in health care between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States here – http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/21/3/182
and a good article about France’s system, including warts, here – http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_28/b4042070.htm
Still, some 65% of French citizens express satisfaction with their system, compared with 40% of U.S. residents. And France spends just 10.7% of its gross domestic product on health care, while the U.S. lays out 16%, more than any other nation.
the interesting thing to me about racism and the economy is that when the civil rights legislation passed in the 60s, thriving black communities (Kinloch, Mo and East St. Louis, MO for example) started drying up. The blacks could shop in neighboring white communities, but the whites weren’t coming in to the black communities to shop. Some of these black communities are ghost towns now. It’s a bit ironic, I guess.
More very cool, high-res pics from the same site of the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber and F-22A Raptor stealth fighter: http://chamorrobible.org/gpw/gpw-200905.htm and http://chamorrobible.org/gpw/gpw-200907.htm
I came in late to this posting, but reading the comments regarding health care in this thread are really reason to feel good about associating with the people who frequent this site. A real breath of fresh air after a dose of hearing what the delusional mainstream media is spewing forth about the topic.
[...]
Many people might intuitively assume that Southern racism had led to entrenched public segregation long before Southern legislatures made it mandatory. Not so. Separate facilities for blacks and whites were not routine in the South until the early 20th century. Racism there surely was, but as C. Vann Woodward observed in “The Strange Career of Jim Crow,” the idea of separating the races in places of public accommodation initially struck many white Southerners as daft…
[...]
Eventually, of course, the government got its way, as companies surrendered to pressure from lawmakers. In a victory of government regulation over the free market, Jim Crow took hold across the South, where it would cruelly hold sway for the next 60 years.
[...]
The enemies of Jim Crow
[F]or employers who are allowed to discriminate according to standards that may be bigoted or irrational, they are the only ones who bear the costs; for it is their business that will suffer from its irrational rejection of valuable human capital and their competitors’ businesses that will benefit from their more rational use of the workforce. The worst evil of capitalism in the eyes of many — opportunism — thus becomes the wedge that breaks irrational discrimination; and no one was more shrill and self-righteous in their condemnation of capitalistic opportunism than Southern segregationists who didn’t like the way that market forces benefited black workers at the expense of white ones. Thus, in the South, more and more laws were needed to enforce segregation by limiting the free market…
Ethnic Prejudice, Stereotypes, Discrimination, and the Free Market
Well, then, the question becomes whether the moral wrong in question creates an actionable harm. Failure to obtain a job from me should not be an actionable harm. Failure to secure my agreement to sell something to you should not be an actionable harm. For either of these to be actionable harms, you would have to possess some claim on the job or on the property in question before I consent to transact business with you, and you possess none.
You have no obligation to give water to a dying man in the desert either, but if he tries to take it from you, few people are going to shed any tears for you, or come to your defense.
The word “complexion” was obviously a poor poor choice by the pool, but they could well have said “$1900 was not worth a bus full of day camp kids coming in every day and causing a big disturbance.”
Well, but they didn’t say that. They said, basically, somebody get these niggers out of here, we don’t serve their kind.
That’s why it’s racism, and not just concern for abuse of the facilities. If they were really so concerned about the thought of a busful of kids wrecking the pool, why did they originally take the money from the day camp?
Limiting caloric intact will increase your life expectancy by about 20%.
Only if you’re a fruit fly.
I would love to hear about the Constitutional authority of the federal government to provide such to the elderly.
It’s right there at the beginning: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,[1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
:)
The meaning of the word Welfare in the Constitution is different from its current usage. The constitutional meaning of welfare is: 1. health, happiness, or prosperity; well-being. [<ME wel faren, to fare well]
Welfare in today’s context also means organized efforts on the part of public or private organizations to benefit the poor, or simply public assistance. This is not the meaning of the word as used in the Constitution.
Preamble to the U.S. Constitution
I am not interested in Constitutional arguments. The United States is irreparably broken. Health care and Social Security are a huge part of this. Americans have given up on freedom and they will lose their prosperity because of it.
Check out Drudge, now.
Yglesias and his little buddy Klein aren’t idiots, but do share a key characteristic. Neither has any idea how complicated the real world is.
#82 | Chet —
[In response to the following]: “I would love to hear about the Constitutional authority of the federal government to provide such to the elderly.”
Chet replied, “It’s right there at the beginning: “We the People of the United States …”
Using the preamble to justify any federal government act creates a conundrum. If the federal government has unlimited authority to act in the principles of the preamble, then why did the Framers bother with the restrictions of the Articles or the Amendments?
Or are we just finding out now how irrelevant the Articles and Amendments are, and that was just a clever smoke screen to sell the Constitution?
Which did the Framers want — unlimited government or limited government? It’s one or the other — you can’t have both.
I know some Constitutionalists think that the Constitution is a limiting document. I think everyone knows what I think. I agree with Chet. There are no practical limits on the power of the federal government.
Not even the 2nd Amendment.
Make sure those first words read, “We the Sheeple.”
Radley, I fear that your libertarianism is eventually going to bump up against some other things you (and I) value. And you’re too intellectually honest to gloss over the contradictions. I for one am curious to see where it leads you (just as I am curious to see where your intellectual bravery leads me, as my liberalism bumps up against other things that I (and you) value). Still working on the Primer you recommended — I’ll be honest, I’m finding it slow and painful going, and I wish every page that you had written it first. I trust my marginalia wouldn’t be so frustrated and all caps. Best, Marta
Complain all you want. There is no reverse on the Government’s shifter. YOU will get welfare health care (or whatever the fuck you want to call it) and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.
It will suck, it will cause shortages, it will pay massively for all the statists involved, and you many will cheer for it regardless of what it actually does.
Chet #82, in addition to the historical-linguistic point, there’s a logical principle you seem to have overlooked: The purpose given for establishing a set of rules does not authorize every rule that can be imagined to serve the same purpose.
If we agree to budget $500 per year for house-cleaning supplies, and we specified that those supplies are to consist only of mops and brooms and soaps and grease-cutters, none of us is justified in buying a different kind of item with those funds just because it too is, or seems to be, a house-cleaning supply.
The general welfare clause explains why what follows it in the document does so; it’s not a justification for any law that also (to someone’s mind) may serve the same purpose.
A phrase which certainly provided relief to the Founders as they entered retirement, began collecting social security and making Medicare benefit claims all the while rejoicing that they no longer had to file income tax returns.
This will be my last post on racism and the free market. A lot of people are arguing that if black people (or minorities in general I suppose) are turned away that a niche market will pop up and the market will cure all. This is an oversimplified and unrealistic view. Lets say you are a black guy living in a small, rural, mostly white community. Most of these white folks don’t care much for minorities. Now lets say we give them the right to refuse service to anyone, regardless of the reason. This is a small town with only one supermarket, not another one without having to drive another 30 to 60 minutes (there are plenty of places in the US where this is the case). The supermarket owner prefers an all white community, so he bars anyone of color from entering his store. The gas station owner feels the same way, and does likewise. Where does this person go to shop for food, or get gas to get food? Must this person leave his home now, a costly process, just so he can live? Will this person get a fair price for his home if he is forced to move out? Will this person be able to find a reasonable job if he is forced to move? Unfortunately there are places in America where such places exist.
Another problem with allowing discrimination based on race is that it fosters an environment where people find Jim Crow laws acceptable. It would create a far more complex economy, filled with bottlenecks, that would ultimately have an overall stifling effect.
Hamburgler,
I don’t have a problem with avowed racists congregating in one place. In fact, I prefer it that way.
“Will this person be able to find a reasonable job if he is forced to move?” — So he can’t buy a damn thing in this area, but he was able to find a job?
“Unfortunately there are places in America where such places exist.”
Where? I grew up in a small town in the deep South. I’ve seen nothing remotely like what you describe.
Marta,
I assume you’re referring to the pool story above.
But hasn’t that private pool since received a ton of bad publicity? I’d also wager that the camp gets plenty of offers of new places to swim within the next few days (if they haven’t already).
Granted, there was a time in this country when such policies were the rule, not the exception. But it’s important to remember that segregation in the South was enforced by state law. State governments forced private businesses to treat blacks and whites separately, which codified and preserved racism and discrimination. I’m a federalist, except when it comes to state or local governments that violate their citizens’ civil rights. So I have no problem with the federal government overriding state segregation laws via the 14th Amendment (or better yet, the 13th, under the argument that state-enforced segregation was a legacy of slavery). And I don’t think that position is at all inconsistent with libertarianism. I do wish the Supreme Court hadn’t desegregated via the Commerce Clause, which threw the door wide open to all sorts of other federal interference in local matters wholly unrelated to civil rights.
Counterfactuals are difficult–I don’t know if anyone can definitively say that the south would have desegregated completely were segregation not codified into state law. But I think there’s certainly validity to the argument that it would have been much less segregated, and moving toward desegregation, not the other way around. Surely plenty of white business owners would have accepted black patrons and black money if they’d been allowed by law.
But I could even concede that point. Given America’s legacy of race and slavery, I’d have been okay with a Supreme Court that authorized the feds to enforce even private desegregation under the 13th Amendment (which would have limited the federal government’s power to restrict association to issues related to racial discrimination) or under the 14th Amendment’s privileges and immunities clause.
All of that said, generally speaking, I’m still opposed to the state dictating with whom private businesses and organizations can and can’t associate. Particularly today, where there is a high risk of bad publicity and lost revenue for businesses and groups who practice blatant discrimination. Thankfully, there just isn’t much advantage to being a racist asshole anymore, and there’s a whole heck of a lot of downside. And I am opposed to the idea that excluding black people from your club is the same as having, say, men-only or women-only organizations.
Finally, having said all of that, I’d add that allowing private businesses to refuse to serve black people would be very, very, very low on the list of priorities in the Radley-Is-Benevolent-Dictator utopia.
Alex,
The pacific northwest, midwest, and southwest.
Alex: Really? Coming from rural Alabama, I have to say I can think of six or seven towns within 50 miles of me where the stores wouldn’t sell anything to black people unless they were forced to.
They cater to a local population, so they wouldn’t give a damn about bad publicity because there are plenty of white people that would support them, especially if they helped run all the minorities out of town.
People assume I’m completely white and just keep a dark tan from working in the sun, so this isn’t me thinking people are racists. This is having stupid people talk to me because they think obviously ALL white people share their views. They actually come right out and say it, in other words.
Sure, a black person could open a store and compete with them. Well, if someone would sell them the land to put it on, which would never happen. Then the local water board wouldn’t run to them either. If anything broke they’d have to call in someone to fix it from a town or two over. So they’d be paying huge amounts of money to get someone to drive that far. Once you had a store only minorities went to they’d have to deal with sabotage of various sorts (parking lots full of nails, broken windows, etc) by people that preferred they not be there at all. Sure that’s illegal, but the local police would turn a blind eye.
The lost money would be far less important than “getting those people out of our communities” in places like that.
So they wouldn’t be able to buy gas, food, clothes, diapers, etc.
Of course, they could just move.
Letting minorities be run out of town is a lesser evil than telling some guy he has to sell to them. The free market sure is awesome.
JT, I’m from AL also, grew up in LA. Where are you talking about? The Jasper area is pretty backwoods, maybe that stuff goes on there, but I’ve just never seen much of the KKK kind of racism. Sure there’s plenty of white folks that don’t like blacks, but I’ve honestly never been to any gas station or grocery store that wouldn’t sell to blacks if they had the option. When I’m not in the city (or all the time I’m in AL), I wear shit-kickers and chew tobacco. If some store owner, etc. had some real feelings about blacks to let off his chest, I’m as good a candidate as any to hear about it.
Also, Hamburgler said “The pacific northwest, midwest, and southwest.”
This is the shit that annoys me to no end. There’s plenty of white folks in the South that are fed up with blacks and vice versa. But in the end most everyone gets along there. There’s really very little race-based crime, no matter how much the NYT jizzes over stories like Jena (which btw appears to be a hoax at this point). The real racists assholes are in places where there’s very little ethnic diversity, and this goes for “liberals” and “conservatives.” The most racist person I’ve ever met was a Mormon from Utah I went to basic with who had literally met one black family in his life. On the flip side, people like Chance, who thinks there could be a possibility that those firemen exams were racially biased, are just as racist IMHO. And from my experience people that take those views also grew up and live in ethnically homogenous areas.
OTOH, in “the pacific northwest, midwest, and southwest,” I’ve never seen a place like the Hamburgler describes. I’m sure there is somewhere, but do we really need federal legislation to keep the racist scumbags from voluntarily segregating themselves?
[...] Hat Tip to The Agitator. [...]
Alex: Yeah, the most racist person I ever met was a mormon from Utah too.
Clarke County area here…It’s pretty backwards around there.
We actually had the KKK handing out flyers a while back.
Which is fine. I support their freedom of speech. Doubly so since they just embarass themselves in public.
Don’t know if anybody will still be reading this by comment #100, but I’ll throw in my two cents on health care anyway… As a lawyer, my firm and I do a lot of pro bono work. We do this partly because the managing partners think it’s the right thing to do and partly because clients won’t hire us if we don’t. I’ve never understood why such a model couldn’t work in health care as well. I’m assuming many hospitals receive financial support from both corporations and private donors, and I would think many would prefer to support hospitals that allocate x% of their resources to those in need who can’t afford their own medical expenses. Simplistic? Probably. But still something I’ve always wondered about…
Radley,
Well, yes, indirectly I was thinking of the pool story. And I’m just only dipping my toes into a critique of libertarianism, and trying to be cautious, because I still don’t really understand it. Prior to knowing you (as an adult) it felt easy to dismiss; out of my respect for you (which is immense) I feel at least the need to fully understand this thing you care so much about before I dismiss it ;-) (and I’m joking of course — I don’t even want to dismiss libertarianism out-of-hand, and I am being changed for the better by thinking about it, though I feel pretty certain that it will not be something I can fully embrace, once I do understand).
So far (and with the caveat that my understanding is far from complete), where I seem to part ways with libertarians is with the notion that there is some sort of “natural” right to own property that pre-exists human government, and that therefore government’s only role should be to protect property rights (along with, of course, life and liberty, which I’m on board with). I see a whole host of problems with this (property, it strikes me, is not simple, even if it is a natural right; it was, for that very reason, my very favorite class in law school). I’m looking forward to exploring all this with you later (when I’m finished educating myself, okay?) But probably at the heart of my concerns is what appears to me to be a failure of both libertarians and conservatives (a la Sullivan, and I know he leans libertarian) to convincingly incorporate an analysis of slavery and its legacy of institutionalized racism into their political philosophy (also, colonialism and Native American genocide come to mind; also, fossil fuels, but that’s another matter all together). This strikes me as a pretty colossal failure for folks whose organizing principle is liberty. But you clearly think hard about this stuff, and take racism seriously (see above, immense respect and all that), and I just wonder where that’s going to take you — and with you, libertarianism, as you seem to be quite an important and influential voice.
Another point of concern/skepticism is whether most libertarians in fact care much more about property rights than life/liberty rights; it strikes me that even if there is a philosophically coherent argument for a “natural right” to property (and again, I am yet to be convinced), it strikes me that such a right must be a) complicated, and b) subordinate to life and liberty as “natural rights.” (I will happily listen to all opposing arguments; just please remember that I’m a novice at understanding libertarianism, if a smart one and generally a quick study; this is for the benefit of your more ruthless and snarky commentors, not you, of course!) If I am right about that, then it strikes me that most libertarians would generally tack left rather than right, but my admittedly anecdotal observations suggest the opposite is true. Which makes me go hmmmm.
All in all, though, I like having the tables turned, Radley. You’re a good teacher, and I’ve always loved being a student (be warned, though: payback’s a bitch).
Best,
Marta
ps I agree with you entirely re: the commerce clause
pps The next conservative sex scandal you can blame directly on me: I’m getting married a week from today in Iowa (22 years appears to be our limit for living in sin).
@ #83,
I won’t be as nice as the other folks who pointed out the flaws in your statement, because honestly, your argument that the preamble’s clause “the general welfare” justifies anything is just embarrassing.
To answer Cynical’s question, the Document IS most certainly one of limiting powers to the federal government (at least by design). The Federal Congress may only pass laws that “are necessary and proper” and within specifically authorized areas as laid out in Article I, or to effect any other piece of the Constitution. The preamble is legally menaingless, and, by your reading, would create a clearly unlimited authority of the fed Congress to pass any law. This reading is also roundly rejected in practice and in law in that where most bills cite what power this bill is past under (like the commerce clause), no bill, to my knowledge, has ever been passed under the general welfare clause. And when bills have been challenegd for Congressional overstepping, no government lawyer held up that clause in the bill’s defense. Recent results were the Johnson and Lopez decisions striking down federal Violence aginst women and gun-in-school-zone acts, which doubtless could have been supported by the “general welfare” clause were that clause possessing of any legal authority.
Which brings us back to universal healthcare. It is extremely tough to argue, under a constructionist or plain-meaning view that the authority exists to create such an expansive government program that would exclude other private competitors. However, given recent precedent, the tax and spend and commerce clauses can probably be lumped together to do the trick, thus going back to Cynical’s point about a practically unlimited fed, which is pretty much true. However, by any reasonable and certainy libertarian reading of the Document, the authority simply is not there.
Marta Rose:
Your post asks many questions that call for an in-depth response. I will address only one element of it right now: the relationship between property and liberty. [This post will also address JThompson, less directly.]
Let’s shift the argument for a moment, away from employers and shopkeepers and to consumers. This helps clarify the issue, since everyone has experience being a consumer, and only a minority have experience as what we can an “employer” or business owner.
You’re a consumer and you have some money in your pocket and want to buy some milk. How do you make the decision about what milk to buy, and where to go to buy milk? The answer is: any old damn way you want to. Maybe you buy brand A and not brand B because of a newspaper article you read about brand A. Maybe you go to store Y and not store Z because a clerk at store Y was rude to you at some point. Maybe you don’t buy milk at all but buy soy milk because you like it better. The point here is that it’s your money, and it’s going to be your milk, and it’s pretty fundamentally a function of liberty that the decision be yours. You also have to be free to make arbitrary decisions – maybe you just like the cover art on the carton of one brand of milk, and so you buy that brand, and nobody gets to say a damn thing about it or require you to justify your decision-making process.
If, however, your milk purchases [and every other purchase you make in your entire life] was everybody else’s business, and you could be hauled into court every time you bought something and required to justify your purchase or face penalties and fines, you would probably consider this a pretty big imposition on your liberty. This would be true even though what we’re talking about in the end is your property – your money, and the stuff you buy with it.
The right of people to engage in discriminatory hiring or selling or buying is pretty low on my list of priorities, and there are significant reasons for making the eradication of these laws one of the last steps in dismantling the regulatory state. While laws remain in place creating significant barriers to entry for new businesses, I can live with restraining the ability of business owners to use those barriers to impose their racist views on entire communities. But in principle, I view all economic transactions as fundamentally the same, and at bottom people have to be free to make arbitrary and capricious decisions about whether to buy or sell or they aren’t actually free and don’t own either their property or themselves.
The constitutional meaning of welfare is: 1. health, happiness, or prosperity; well-being.
I was asked where the Constitutional authority for the government to provide health care for seniors lay. As you say, the Constitutional definition of “welfare” includes health; the Preamble to the Constitution therefore establishes that the very purpose of the Federal government is, among other things, to take necessary steps in regards to the health not only of seniors but of all American citizens.
Or are we just finding out now how irrelevant the Articles and Amendments are, and that was just a clever smoke screen to sell the Constitution?
Uh, right. That’s exactly correct, you’ve been had by a statist scam 230 years in the making. All us dirty hippie liberals built a time machine, put on powdered wigs, and betrayed libertarianism right there in the US Constitution.
Now that we’ve established that the very founding principles of our country are anathema to libertarians, could you all please move? I’m sure you could find another country more to your liking, with much less government intervention in day-to-day affairs, like Nigeria.
I won’t be as nice as the other folks who pointed out the flaws in your statement, because honestly, your argument that the preamble’s clause “the general welfare” justifies anything is just embarrassing.
I didn’t say it justified anything. I said it justified Medicare, and obviously it does. Further, Medicare is justified by the government’s pretty broad power to, you know, buy things and hire people. If it’s ok for the government to buy tanks and hire soldiers – an authority also granted by the Preamble – then it’s certainly ok for the government to buy needles and hire doctors.
Thanks Fluffy, but that much I get. I think I’m having a conversation with Radley that isn’t actually directly related to this comment thread. Probably I should have taken it off-line; sorry.
“JT, I’m from AL also, grew up in LA. Where are you talking about? The Jasper area is pretty backwoods, maybe that stuff goes on there, but I’ve just never seen much of the KKK kind of racism.”
Then you aren’t looking very hard. I saw racist shit all the time growing up in the deep south. AL, GA, FL, SC, NC, VA. I’ve lived and worked all over the south, and some places are okay, some are horrible, but it ain’t no wonderland of post-racial harmony. I will concede that the worst racists I’ve ever met tend to be from suburban areas rather than backwoods or the city. Usually deep country folk have more practical worries than trying to oppress the guy down the street.
#106 | Chet
I don’t understand what you wrote. Please explain.
I feel most people missed the point on the camp kids at the private pool. The fact that they took the $1900.00 is like signing a contract, done deal. The time to ask how many and what color is before taking the money.
I think this sums it up quite nicely. The article says, “The Valley Swim Club is a private club that advertises open membership.” They took the money and it’s time to deliver on the promise. Failure to do so should incur some penalty.
Personally, I’m with others on here who don’t believe that it’s a government responsibility to mandate who private businesses must serve. I’m sure there are no end the apocalyptic theories of what would happen if civil rights law were limited only to government and government subsidized enterprises, but I’m not a big fan of using law to mold culture or do I think we should dispense with the concept of freedom of association simply because there are assholes out there. Culture has a way of changing on its own and government invariably follows in its path. I don’t think there’s any doubt that cultural shift might be accelerated with laws, but what starts out as an exception, eventually becomes the rule. Next thing you know, private businesses are declared to be “places of public accommodation” and government has become the senior partner in every business.
Chet you continue to embarrass yourself.
You ignored basically all of my points, might this be because they are not disputable amongst reasonable minds. You misunderstand my use of the word “anything” as wll (not your fault). What I mean was that the preamble justifies absolutely nothing, so to say that here is a single thing (anyhing) that it justifies is wrong. I.e. “The fed can do X because the preamble says….” is the beginning of a sentence hat is ALWAYS incorrect.
The Constitution is anathema to libertarianism? Holy christ dude that is insanity! COnsiderig you’ve revealed yourself as a constitutional know-nothing, how exactly would you support that view? Here’s a very simple question: according to the design of the Document, is the federal government one of limited authority or general authority? Does the Document specifically list areas under which the Fed can pass egislation? If so, why does it do this? I this a list of guidelines or of strict rules allowing for the triking down of a bill that goes outside of these areas?
Is the Bill of Rights be applied tody in a manner that is consistent with its original intent? Do libertarians support and hold an expansive view of the BoR? Was the framers; deeply-held view that power had to spread out and checked at all times to avoid abuse, corruptions and infringemens on liberty, along with all of their writings about war and security being bullsit reasons to take away liberty remind you of anyone? Lastly, can you honestly type with a straightface that Thomas Jefferson was not a raging libertarian?
Of course nowadays the government can spend money on just about anything it wants with no real lmits, so this argument is really about whether that is a peversion of the actual design of our constitution, not whether it can’t happen in reality.
“Racial discrimination by businesses does not make economic sense–you lose money when you refuse to serve customers based on their race. Some of it will happen of course, because people aren’t always rational.”
Hatred and bigotry trumps all. Someone who will refuse to serve someone because of their race or refuse to hire someone due to their race (or gender/sex) doesn’t care about economics more than keeping “those people” over “there”. This is why nasties such as racism and sexism thrived for so long and quite honestly, continue to. In most parts of the country, it’s subtle and more difficult to prove and people have far too easy a time to wiggle out of certain accusations.
aspasia: i have to agree, it strikes me as fairly naive, and historically inaccurate to think the market would take care of racism if government would just get out of the way. the market may be a powerful force, but structural violence is too.
I think I speak for at least several of us when I say I wish I’d had a teacher like Marta.
Congratulations on your wedding, Marta. May it bring you all the joy that mine has brought me.
That’s exactly correct, you’ve been had by a statist scam 230 years in the making.
Well, to a certain extent, this is borne out by the historical record.
Remember, the Constitution was a compromise between many different factions – regional, economic, political.
One of those faction divisions was between the federalists, who wanted a strong federal government, and the antifederalists, who did not.
The entire reason the first 10 amendments were added was as a compromise between these two groups. The antifederalists intended to block the ratification of the Constitution. The federalists traded them the Bill of Rights in return for their going along with ratification. The political deal was supposed to be: “You give us the Constitution, we give you these amendments, which will function as absolute limits on federal power.”
Unfortunately, this is not the way it has worked out in practice. Over time, the Bill of Rights has become a series of suggestions, which can be overlooked if the state feels it has a “compelling interest” in doing so. This “evolution” of the meaning of the Constitution has the effect of making the original political deal for its passage into a scam. The federalists scammed the antifederalists by promising them something that turned out to be a lie. That sounds like a scam to me, I don’t know about you.
What I mean was that the preamble justifies absolutely nothing, so to say that here is a single thing (anyhing) that it justifies is wrong.
That’s nonsense. You’re saying that the Preamble is somehow a portion of the Constitutuion that was ratified, but nonetheless has no force in law. Absurd.
The Constitution is anathema to libertarianism? Holy christ dude that is insanity!
Well, take it up with your libertarian peers, they’re the one saying that the US Constitution is a statist document of oppression, or whatever. I’m simply taking them at their word. Who am I to tell libertarians what is or isn’t consistent with their philosophy?
Lastly, can you honestly type with a straightface that Thomas Jefferson was not a raging libertarian?
Yes, since he never said he was one. (That’s in full straight face.) Trying to appropriate historical figures is a pretty last-ditch effort to put a respectable face on an unrespectable movement. But what on Earth does Thomas Jefferson have to do with health care?
Still in the dark, Chet. Perhaps you could have another go at it?