Unfairness

“He will get the best care possible.” - Katie Couric about Kennedy’s cancer

I’m not saying Kennedy doesn’t deserve the best care possible; but here’s a question, why does he, more than anyone else, deserve the best care possible? Because he is a well-known senator?

I have a friend who is undergoing tests soon to see if she has a fast-moving terminal form of cancer. This friend is kind, caring, loyal, and very deserving of quality care.

Kennedy will get the best possible care because he will pay for it. Either with the superb insurance plans covering members of government which they vote for themselves, or because of the relatively limitless extent of his financial ability or those who will donate to his medical bills.

Katie Couric uses her “Notebook” session to point out that Kennedy has fought hard for making the same care that is available to him available to every American (legal or not). The problem with this is one perhaps best summed up by Thomas Sowell in his recent series of articles titled “Too “Complex”?” (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3): It’s economics that provide the true and lasting solutions, but economics doesn’t bleed, and politics follows blood.

This friend of mine is bright and sweet, she’s young and incredibly skilled. If anyone deserves a future, she does. She’s articulate and thoughtful, her life is well examined. She’s tenacious and self-reliant, taking high loads of classes at a tough school while working to pay the bills.

She’d be an preeminent poster child for any socialized medicine program.

With the socialized medicine Senator Kennedy has fought for being such a good thing, why have we not gone for it already? After all, it’s been tried elsewhere, it must have been successful, right?

Well, most readers know how successful it has been. Failure.

If socialized medicine, such as that promoted by Senators Kennedy and Clinton, were the reality in America, it would be hell.

As it is, my friend is able to fly to across the country on a few days notice, receive a biopsy, get the results back within a matter of hours, and have a reliable diagnosis presented to her.

It costs money, but with friends paying for her airline ticket, and her doctor asking a colleague for a favor, she can get her procedure done in time to participate in an international internship if the prognosis is good.

If there were socialized medicine here in the US, she would be shunted into a line, put on a waiting list, told to wait her turn.

In a system with little or no incentive either to self-regulate our medical needs or limit considered options to necessary procedures, there would be bloated numbers of people seeking medical help for slight and psychosomatic symptoms.

With the fast-moving nature of the cancer my friend may be suffering from, there is little chance she’d even make it in for an exam, let alone a biopsy, before she died.

May Senator Kennedy enjoy the benefits of a capitalistic medical system, and may his efforts to deny that benefit to the rest of us perish.

**Written by both American Texan and Matthew**

Kennedy Cancer

I do not believe God can generally be termed retributive to those of us He allows to continue on this earth. Instead, Grace and Mercy are His hallmarks as He seeks to draw us to Himself, giving us ample and sufficient evidence for His existence, glory, and purpose.

God in His sovereignty allowing Senator Kennedy is not an act of justice or punishment. It is another likely completely misunderstood example of God’s sovereignty working in our world to cause us either to draw near to Him or to condemn ourselves with the hardening of our own hearts.

I do not believe Senator Kennedy is a man of honor. I do not believe he is a man of courage. Nor of conviction, nor of morals.

But he is a man.

And in his humanity, I grieve for him, for his family, and for others who are hurt by this new struggle he is facing.

Now, if only Katie Couric were able to stop herself from being quite so thrilled at this opportunity for political grandstanding on behalf of this fixture of the Senate.

Numb3rs Blackface

Anybody remember blackface? Considered to both be the advent of black culture growing in the entertainment industry and an evidence of racism based on exaggerated racial stereotypes. In its ugly form, blackface was white people laughing at white people acting like white people thought black people acted.

Courtesy of the CBS Website, I’ve been watching Numb3rs for the past few weeks and find it an enjoyable show. It combines some of the crime drama of CSI with some different forms of character development all arranged around some seriously stretched applications of mathematical models to extremely complex systems which in reality would require super-computers hundreds of years to compute, but with Charles Epps brain, can strung together into accurate models in matters of minutes.

Reality-stretching aside, I’ve enjoyed the show for the most part.

In the season finale “When Worlds Collide” however, the show tries to be political and shows that blackface is still alive an well in America.

The show’s tag was intriguing, to say the least:

A Pakistani non-profit group is suspected to have ties to Jihadist groups and is on the FBI’s terrorist watch.

It was a decent show for the most part, rife with moral quandary, suspense, relational tensions, etc. But as the plot moved along and it became clear who the bad guy was and what his relationship was with the rest of the members of the involved groups, I was rather disturbed.

Xenophobia

A typical xenophobic perspective of other cultures, and one based in sad reality across the world, is that other cultures see themselves the same way we do.

If you don’t know many people of a particular ethnicity, it is normal for you to find it difficult to differentiate recognizable differences and unique characteristics between individual members of that group.

The standard “they all look the same” is real and normal and definitely an indicator of the perceivers lack of familiarity with the perceived.

Blackface

The writers of Numb3rs had resorted to the crudest of blackface to create their villain. The bad guy ends up being an opportunistic former member of the IRA terrorist groups seeking money and markets for this illicit weapons trade.

Using face paint and a beard reminiscent of British military officers in the far east of the last century, he transformed himself into a swarthy quasi-pseudo-Pakistani.

The assumptions were:

• The members of the organization would not recognize this impostor as not being authentically a member of his supposed race.
• The members of this organization would not recognize this impostor for his lack of connection to their group through relationships.
• White people can pretend convincingly to be other races through extensive makeup and acting and survive extended contact while not being recognized.

Individually, these may be true in certain cases, and with dedication and a good makeup crew, they could indeed be accomplished. But the circumstances of the case where such that such foresight did not likely occur.

Just as in your race you are most able to recognize by look, action, and vocabulary, those who belong and those who don’t, and even more so in those groups you are involved in and even more so when those groups are primarily of one race.

So too, in the story premise, the writers of Numb3rs, in an attempt to bring the far-fetched possibility that we’re not really fighting against Muslims: after all, they’re a religion of peace, eh? But against opportunistic old-school European terrorists such as the IRA.

I know they’re not saying “all” such suspect charities are not funneling money to terrorists. I know the government in it’s dealings with Muslims right now is treading a thin line, and most likely, more often than not, abusing it’s responsibility and prerogative in it’s dealings with the same.

But our primary enemy right now, not of our own creation, but born of sheer necessity and self-preservation, is Muslim-based Islamo-Facist ideology and it’s supporters, both active and passive.

‘Big Oil’, Big Good

Cal Thomas, In Defense Of ‘Big Oil’:

Where is it written that the cost for a product or service should be frozen in place and in time, never to rise again, or to rise at a pace commensurate with our incomes? People who think this way know little to nothing about supply and demand and less than nothing about the profit motive. That’s because at least three generations have been raised on the notion of entitlement, and when one feels entitled to something, one believes someone else should pay.

McCain On The Judiciary, More Reasons To Vote

I like this part of him, and for this reason we conservatives ought to do what we must to quell our gag reflexes and vote McCain into office.

In a speech on his philosophy and standards regarding the Supreme Court of the United States, John McCain specifically referenced Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr, and the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist as epitomes of those he’d choose.

He called them:

“jurists of the highest caliber who know their own minds, and know the law, and know the difference.”

What a concept: “know their minds, know the law, and know the difference”.

A liberal sees their mind as the law. If man is the chief end of himself, he is his own highest law. If that man is one of authority and power, his mind is the law of those he rules.

Whim and feeling have greater weight than principle and immutable law.

Rush Limbaugh, in a “Pearl of Wisdom” included in his latest Show Notes email explained the how the liberal ideal actual creates dystopia instead of the utopia they desire:

Liberals stand up for principles, but they never stand up for people. People always suffer when liberalism succeeds — and when people are suffering, I don’t think you can shout the warning too loud that it needs to stop.

With the whim and feeling of liberalism leading us by our noses, we cry “Foul!” when shown stories like this one from Indiana last night titled “Indiana’s primary turnout high, despite photo ID law“:

About 12 elderly Roman Catholic nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place because they didn’t have state or federal identification bearing a photograph.

Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow members of Saint Mary’s Convent in South Bend, even though they had been told earlier that they would need to get such an ID to vote.

“One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, `I don’t want to go do that,’” McGuire said. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drive.

Elsewhere across the pivotal state, voting appeared to run smoothly, despite the fears of some elections experts that the photo ID law could cause confusion at the polls.

The money line is at the end of a picture description in the sidebar of the story:

McGuire said most of the nuns were in their 80s or 90s, and the other nuns had spoken with them frequently about the need to get out to a Bureau of Motor Vehicle branch for their free ID.

A practical and normal person led, not by whim and feeling, but by a reasonable balance of justice and mercy would see those old ladies and think “they were warned, others offered to help, there was no fee, they knew better”.

Instead, with the leading title, we are coerced into thinking how mean and ugly those conservative leaders in the Indiana State House who had it out to get these poor old ladies who just wanted their voice to be heard *sob*.

Come on people, do we expect nothing from anybody or anything except the government?

People are capable. People have will and ability. People are free moral agents, with choice and consequence set before them.

The creeping liberal ideology seeks to devalue individuality by removing all force of will from individual people. By passing the place of moral agent from an individual to a group they steal all originality and identity.

And changing the government is not the only answer.

It is more important to work in individual people’s lives, showing them the increased labor of individuality is worth while for the increased liberty it provides.

Samuel Adams put it this way:

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.

The Sun Is Shining

Scientists are now saying global warming is paused, for as long as 10 years.

They just really can’t let go of the power of fear that has been wielded over fearful people for far too long.

Reading the comments to this article, I was pleasantly surprised that clear-headed and free-thinking individuals seemed to dominate the conversation decrying the repressive and power-grubbing aims of politically motivated science.

London Telegraph: Global Warming May ‘Stop’ - Scientists Predict

The Supreme Court thinks it’s just fine to require people to prove who they are when they vote. There is no significant disenfranchisement which would offset the benefits and necessity of such minor and completely acceptable requirements.

Understandably there are some who are very sure they’ll be disenfranchised. They should just remember to take their wallets with them as they head out to vote.

And Larry Kudlow says this recession was rather… um.. recessive. And that bodes well for conservatives.

This election is meaningful as ever. Even if we don’t have the perfect guy (busy blaming Michael Medved and my friend Jay) we have much more than just a man in the office we’re fighting for.

Obama The Racist And Government (In)Ability

Heather MacDonald in the Wall Street Journal:

Some in Mr. Wright’s crew of charlatans have already had their moments in the spotlight; others are less well known. They form part of the tragic academic project of justifying self-defeating underclass behavior as “authentically black.”

Obama is coming out hard against the man he previously dismissed with “Oh, him? He’s just crazy sometimes. But he doesn’t mean any harm…”

The wise saying that one’s walk talks louder than their talk talks is bringing all Obama’s chickens home to roost.

He spent 20 years listening to this vitriol and hatred spewing against the very nation which has blessed him, his ungrateful and narcissistic wife, and his children. He chose to allow this man to be a confidant and counselor. He exposed his children to a hate-monger.

And we trust him to make good and sound judgments for our entire nation?

Moving on to other news:

I’ve never much cared for Newt since his affair. A man who cannot love his wife is a man I cannot trust.

But this is against his philosophy and all the good things he has stood for:

This is mostly right:

“If enough of us demand action from our leaders…”

After all, it is our leaders who have not allowed us to harness the natural resources so plentiful in our land.

This is all wrong:

“…we can spark the innovation we need.”

Thomas Edison did not ask government to invent a light bulb. He did it himself.

Many liberals are claiming now that the “deregulated” energy companies need government oversight to ensure they are innovating enough and not gouging their customers.

If they were indeed deregulated there would not be an issue. It is the fact that the energy industry has to ask permission of the government before their allowed to breathe, let alone innovate. A deregulated energy industry would be drilling in ANWR right now, without harming animal populations (because who wants the backlash from that). We would have been building Nuclear power plants by the dozens and they’d be efficient and reliable and safe, the way they have been.

Instead we’re stuck with too little growth and subsequently higher and higher costs for energy.

Scoop your brains back into your skull Newt. Government is never the answer.

Open Lines

On government responsibility and prerogative and power:

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
~P.J. O’Rourke

“If the Internet has taught us anything, it’s that it’s pretty presumptuous to predict what the future will be. We should be very, very cautious about imposing regulations based on what we think competitors will do in the future and how we think consumers will respond based on what we think competitors will do.”
~Senator John Sununu, (R) New Hampshire

Unlike many tech-savvy people I know, I’m completely against government-mandated “Network Neutrality”.

Government is not a cure, it is a necessary evil in most situations, and a tolerable necessity in some very few.

Defining the responsibilities of private organizations is not now, has never been, and will never be, a role assumed by good government.

The market will define the needs and services worth offering.

Government mandated contractual obligations between service providers and governments have birthed the monopoly-style market of internet and communication services currently existing in America.

Further government regulation is not the solution.

Deregulation and government withdrawal from oversight and manipulation of the service providers is the only and best solution.

More Important Things

There are methods of changing our worlds so much more effective and therefore more important than government.

In America we have the ability to guide our government in ways still unequaled around even the free world. So our involvement in government is a good thing.

But it is our involvement in government, and not it’s inverse, and more natural state, government’s involvement in our lives, that is the correct, proper and more important of the two choices.

Further, beyond government is the heart of man.

Government has not the ability to lift the heart of man the way that forgiveness, salvation, and redemption do.

The more important thing is our work in individual lives and in groups, drawing them to Christ and His salvation.

Only as individual lives and communities are changed from the inside out will effective and true change come about in the rest of world.

Government Is Not The Solution

Watching this news report regarding a real problem, the issue of blind people not being able to hear the quiet hybrid and electric cars to know to avoid them, I was both dismayed and heartened.

Near the end of the report the reported says with apparent relief “the government is going to study this, we have nothing to fear” (quoted loosely), and the automakers response: don’t bother, we already know it’s an issue and we’ll fix it ourselves.

Lawmakers are not engineers or usability experts or researchers or anything even remotely related to that.

They are usually those too stupid to actually succeed at life by their own merit and yet unusually skilled at convincing other dupes of their innate superiority and a seriously inaccurate view of their own self-worth and self-ability. A terrible combination.

So as the lawmakers are spending time, lots of time, subpoenaing testimony by experts and every snake-oil salesman who catches their eyes, those with something to actually do (say, fix the problem by putting proximity sensors and and AI which senses intersections and pedestrians and putting an automatic, low-volume, low-frequency horn which will not disturb other drivers but merely warn pedestrians) will be unable to do so as their hands will be tied and their time sucked away by the zombies we keep electing to office.

Anybody catch my drift here? Or the *slight* bit of vitriol coursing through my veins?

Government is not the solution, and it should keeps its mangling and sticky claws out of most everything.