Re: Health Care Nanny-State to the Nth Degree

Steven Fowler wrote:

Tim,
How can you put people and their intentions into such neat little boxes
and give them such nasty names? The world is not as black and white,
nor is the future as predetermined as your fantasy world has led you to

My "fantasy world" is based on considerable reading of history,
current events, analysis of population trends, living and
working in Europe from time to time, and having a long family
history with *direct* experience of what happens in socialist
paradises. The world may not be black and white exclusively,
but Evil Ideas yield Evil Results. There are no counterexamples.

> believe. The broad brush that you use to paint your reality is pretty
> frightning.

I sure hope so because that future is coming like gangbusters. You
better be terrified because ignoring it now means Really Bad Things not
so far down the road. You can get irritated with me for daring to say
so, but Reality is what it is independent of how you (or I) feel about
it. My analysis is likely not right in every small detail, but it is
almost surely right at the "broad brush" level unless/until we change
our ways in the West.

You cannot avoid the math. Spain has a birth rate of 1.1. This
is a disaster because population, like say interest rates, is
a *compounding* problem. That ".9 person" they are short
of replacing themselves on average translates into less than
two generations before indigenous Spainards are a distinct minority
in their own country. Again, be as outraged as you like, but
Reality is what it is.

If you have $3, you can read all the details for yourself:

http://www.newcriterion.com/archives/24/01/its-the-demography/

Perhaps getting annoyed with me would be better substituted
with a familiarization with the actual facts of the matter.

The assumptions of your arguments are subjective at best.
For example, you wrote "Free Markets - having given us all more and
better in less time than any time in human history - have been in
steady decline from FDR forward." Oh yeah? In medicine? Technology?
Science? Health? Business opportunities? The stock market? Civil
rights? All caused by the Drooling Do Gooders.

It is measurably and objectively true that there is less personal
Liberty, a reduction in local/states rights, and an ascendance of
Federal power today than in the pre-FDR time. To be fair, the
roots of this were put in place at the time of the post-Civil
War Reconstruction and got their first real push when TR decided
to concoct an excuse to go to war with Spain. Here are just
a few examples:

1) In 1900 or so, drugs like cocaine and marijuana were freely
available to any citizen walking into a drugstore. Certainly,
people didn't get thrown in jail for having "illegal drugs".
Prisons were for violent criminals and thieves and there
was plenty of room for them. Now we have among the highest
incarceration rates in the Western/developed world while
the Drooling Do-Gooders try to stop people from private
chemical recreation which ought not to be any business
of the Federal government. SWAT teams break down doors,
shoot innocent citizens, and generally act more like
military than civil peace officeers. It doesn't affect you,
right? Think again. Your son has a party at your house and
someone leaves a bag of reefer sitting on the counter.
Say it's a BIG bag - a whole pound. The police show
up because a neighbor complains. They seize the dope
and implicate your *house* as a criminal. They can (and do)
seize non-human assets that are legally declared to be
"criminals" all in the name of the Drug Free Society.
You lose your house/car/boat/airplane (all real examples).

2) Free Speech was taken more and less seriously throughout
US history. But only recently has the abomination of
"hate speech" constituted a crime. That is, it is now
illegal to "say mean things" even when there is no threat
or physical force involved. The government is now a censor
and you can go to jail for saying the "wrong" thing.

3) Most of US history ignored personal ownership of weapons - it
was just assumed. The only exception was for convicted felons
who were not legally permitted to possess them. Moreover,
*carrying* those weapons was unremarkable in most of US history.
Even though this right is explicitly affirmed in the Bill Of Rights,
guns are now regulated beyond anything any Framer would have
comprehended. I get more Federal scrutiny at the local gun
store than the average illegal immigrant gets swimming across the
Rio Grande.

4) Civil and criminal law was presumed to be primarily a local/State
matter. Our forebears even went so far as to pass Posse Comitatus
to make sure that Federal troops did not stick their beaks into
domestic civil legal matters. Now we have bagsful of Federal
law, and various flavors of Federal para-military agencies
(the DEA and BATF leap to mind) operating all over the country.

5) You may have noticed that you can't smoke where you like
any more. You may have noticed that a business - with a
*private* owner of property - is no longer entitled to
decide what lawful activities they will permit in their
establishment.

I could go on for days, but you get the drift..

Note that I said that the *free market* action was in decline,
not individual areas of human action like medicine, science, and
technology. Inarguably, we have more and better medicine today
than ever, but we also have incredibly intrusive Federal regulation
of those very same markets that prevents the ordinary action of
supply, demand, and competition from fully doing their job to
keep medical costs low and quality high.

Technology? Better than ever, no question. But you may have noticed
the Federal government of the US (and then the EU) going after
Microsoft on utterly bogus "monopoly" charges. What an (immoral)
joke. Microsoft's only sins were: a) Being too successful and
b) Not using their money to bribe politicians by means of a lobbyist.
(In actual fact, all lasting monoplies in history only existed
by means of coercive threat or force - the most notable examples
of this were the Public Utilities and Airlines that *the government*
kept in place as monopolies.)

You may (or may not) realize that three Very Bad Things are happening
all at once - as a direct result of the Drooling Do-Gooders from
FDR forward:

1) The cost of government is going up and over *50%* of it is
so-called "Entitlements" (aka Do Gooding At The Point Of A Gun).
Some analyses are even more frightening here because, at least
in some years, government spending grows *faster* than the
overall GDP of the nation.

2) The number of people retiring is going up rapidly and the
number of people left in the workforce is declining
because of the Baby Boom demographic bump.

3) The debt of the nation is growing - the largest force here
is Entitlements.

Now, a nation that has huge social service committments, a declining
workforce, and gathering debt has only several possible futures:

1) That workforce becomes so productive, it produces
higher and higher per capita wealth and 1-3 above effectively
don't matter. That's the best possible but also the least
likely outcome. The overweening intrusion of the government
in market dynamics (via regulation and high taxation) makes
this scenario unlikely.

2) A stiff increase in taxation to those who are working.
This is likely and will be deadly. Higher taxation *slows*
market growth as a general matter.

3) Real belt tightening and reduction in social services.
'Never gonna happen. The Baby Boomers, having voted themselves
benefits they never paid for (like the Drug Benefit) will NEVER
give up what is "theirs". They've hired their theives and
now they want their loot.

4) Inflate the currency, thereby paying off old debt with new
weaker dollars. Quite likely. This will just kill retirees
and other people on fixed incomes.

5) Go to war. It's happend many times in history and don't
kid yourself that we're above all that. And I'm not
talking about Iraq here either. I mean a full-scale
knock down drag out with the Enemy Of The Moment. China?
India? Large scale war cranks up an economy - or at least
the last big one did. I hope it never comes to this, but
it is well within the realm of possibility.

So, because the Drooling Do-Gooders decided that it was OK to
steal from one citizen and give it to another so long as we
called it a "Program To Help People", our children get to
look at one of two likely scenarios in the next 30 years:
A massive decline in their quality of life OR going to war.

All this, mind you, because no one involved in this whole
process wanted to face the greatest Reality of all: Money
does not obey Congress. You cannot make promises of social
programs, fail consistently to fund them as you go, and then
expect to pay it off "down the line". We are reaching a
very unpleasant Day Of Reckoning.

And the US is in the best position of all the Western nations. We have
an almost perfect birth replacement rate, a great deal of natural and
financial wealth, and one of the most productive workforces on the
planet ... and we're still in trouble. Imagine what's going to happen
in, say, Germany: The average worker does so only 35 hours a week
(compared to something like 43 or 45 for the US). He has HUGE social
service expectations. He has a double whammy of government regulation
fiddling with his economy (the German bureaucrats and the EU fiddlers).
He has a (considerably) less than replacement birthrate in his nation.



I really hope I'm wrong and you're being peeved at me is entirely
justified. But I don't think I am. The chances of the next generation of
workers being able to amp up their productivity sufficiently to overcome
the stupidity of their elders is slim.



I guess this helps you
deal with life and the fact that the world is not exactly as you wish
it were. You know the world is not the way any of us would have it if
we could have our own way. Everyone has to deal with that, not just
you.

Right. But the Drooling Do-Gooder in combination with a
lazy/selfish population are causing decisions that are deadly to
my future and future generations. This is not some abstract
style debate in a college dorm room. These matters are fundamental
to our and our childrens' future. I'm sorry they upset you so,
but you need to rent a clue here. The demographic and economic
data is compelling. Unless we change our ways and get off the
addiction to government wealth redistribution, there is going to
be hell to pay and it's coming *soon*. If that annoys you - good.
Perhaps it will motivate you and others to spend some time
critically examining your nation while there's still time to do
something.


Back on topic, this will be an experiment. That's one of the great
things about a state taking on this problem. We could have 50 states
doing 50 experiments. If it fails, we can scrap it. If it works,
other states might take it on. Sit back and watch before you predict
the end of the world as we know it.

Steven


You're kidding yourself. Long before this becomes a 50 state
experiment, the various Droolers will see to it that they scare
the foolish public into Federalizing it.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk tundra@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
.

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