Category Archives: National Politics

2010 Election, National Politics

Obamacare will make the problems worse

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Our healthcare system has a few problems.

It’s not in crisis, but there are some areas we could improve.

There are a number of people without health insurance, perhaps as many as 47 million, or 16% of the US population. It’s not clear whether that can be reduced to zero, or even if it should. Like the unemployment rate, the mobility of American workers will inevitably result in a bit of “friction” in the system.

There is some percentage of the US population which makes a conscious choice NOT to purchase healthcare. That number might be as high as 5%.

However, one of the most obnoxious elements of the healthcare bill now pending in congress has been the proposal to stigmatize, penalize, and forcibly enroll individuals who choose not to buy health insurance.

There’s been a charge that parts of the system are characterized by greed. There are for-profit healthcare providers, and for-profit health insurance companies, and they do seek to make a profit. This is not evil. The proper check on greed is competition, not government regulation.

In fact, it is impossible to eliminate greed by regulation. You can only temper, harness, channel, and control greed by creating a market in which there are incentives for efficiency. In short, the game must be structured so that greed impels competitors to seek to lower costs so they can increase their market share.

President Obama and the Democrats have set out to do just the opposite. They are about to replace a competitive market with a government-monopoly bureaucratic system.

The problems with the health care system are the result of too little competition, too much government regulation, and a structure that lets health care consumers spend other people’s money.

The solution proposed by the President will reduce competition, add government regulation, and allow health care consumers to tap and spend the resources of the federal government rather than their own.

It will make things worse, far worse, if it is adopted.

And the American people are beginning to realize it. Let us hope that Congress figures it out as well before they enact a system that would be a huge mistake that would likely wreck both our economy and the federal budget.

National Politics

George Orwell would have been a blogger

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In 1948, Orwell wrote the introduction to a historical collection of British Pamphlets. He liked the pamphlet. He admits that most of them were rubbish, but he clearly admires them, finds them incendiary, and the perfect symbol of the individual rebelling against the bureaucratic machinery. Everything he says about pamphlets, it strikes me, is equally applicable to blogging. Thus, I offer this paraphrase of Orwell:

The blog is a one-man show. One has com­plete freedom of expression, including, if one chooses, the freedom to be scurrilous, abusive and seditious; or, on the other hand, to be more detailed, serious and ‘highbrow’ than is ever possible in a newspaper or in most kinds of periodical.

At the same time, since the blog-post is always short, it can be produced much more quickly than a book, and in principle, at any rate, can reach a bigger public. Above all, the blog does not have to follow any prescribed pattern. It can be in prose or in verse, it can consist largely of maps or statistics or quotations, it can take the form of a story, a fable, a letter, an essay, a dia­logue or apiece of ‘reportage’. All that is required of it is that it shall be topical, polemical and short.

The pamphlet for Orwell (and the blog for us) are also a way of breaking the conspiracy of silence against unpopular ideas:

It might be argued that in England [or the United States!], with its free and reasonably varied press, there is not much scope for the blogger; but this will not be endorsed by anyone who has ever tried to get a bearing for a genuinely un­popular cause. Certainly the British press has juridical freedom, which is not a sham but a very real blessing, and in the modern world an increasingly rare one. But it is not true that the British press adequately represents all shades of opinion. Nearly always it is safe to put one’s political opinions on paper, but to get them into print, and still more to get them to a big public, is not so easy.

Because of the way in which newspapers are owned and operated, not only can minority opinions–and even majority opinions, when thy are not backed by some influential group–go almost unheard, but events of the utmost importance can pass unnoticed or can reach the public only in some shrunken and distorted form. At any given moment there is a sort of all-prevailing orthodoxy, a general tacit agreement not to discuss some large and uncomfortable fact.

Quotations from British Pamphleteers, edited by George Orwell, Reginald Reynolds; A. Wingate, 1948. 266 pgs.

2010 Election, National Politics

Why are the town hall meetings so hot?

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There are at least three reasons:

  1. This is a manufactured crisis.
  2. Voters know they are being lied to.
  3. Voters know they were being ignored.

1. This is a manufactured crisis. Life expectancy is at an all-time high. Infant mortality is at an all-time low. The very small differences in infant mortality between us and certain Scandinavian countries may have more to do with the way we practice obstetrics than anything else. Defensive medicine, doctor convenience, and patient convenience have made the number of late pre-term births (between 34 and 38 weeks) skyrocket in the US. We need to change the way doctors practice medicine, especially the way they attend pregnancy. Adopting a national healthcare system will make these stats far WORSE, not better.

There was no crisis in healthcare. There are some problems. There are a few things that could be improved. We do need tort reform. We need greater portability. We need high-risk pools, and provisions for those with pre-existing conditions. But even taken collectively, these do not amount to a crisis. Democrats have talked themselves into believing that this is their issue and that delivering on national healthcare reform will make the grateful voters keep them in office for decades into the future. Dreams die hard.

2. Voters know they are being lied to. The President keeps asserting that he does not want a national health care system – while his advisors and those who crafted the bill have been candid that they INTEND to create a national health care system. Candidate Obama was candid a year ago in admitting that he favored a government-run, single-payer system. When this is pointed out, and the video of Obama stating his position is played, critics of the health care reform bill are accused of lying and distorting the president’s position. Note to the spin doctors: This only increases the outrage of voters. You’re not only lying to us, when we point it out, you accuse US of lying. And you’re puzzled why we’re angry?

3. Voters know they were being ignored. If Obama & Pelosi & Reid had gotten their way, there would have been NO opportunity for townhall meetings. Obama wanted this done by August 1st. Pelosi & Reid wanted this done by August 1st. They were ignoring the voters. They wish we would sit down, shut up, and let the central planners implement the most massive transformation of the American economy imaginable. We know what they were trying to do.

And now, the Democrats display a bit of faux outrage because they are being shouted at in a townhall meeting? And they’re puzzled because we’re angry?

Democrats who want to have a prayer of retaining their seat in congress will have to make a decision to buck their party leadership and the steamroller now. Those who don’t will face voters who are even ANGRIER in November, 2010.

PS: Here’s a link to the full-text of the bill (H.R.3200) online at the official US Government website, thomas.gov. The page I’m linking to has divided the bill up into sections with links that let you jump to a particular section without downloading the full 1,017 page .pdf file. Though I recommend that step to everyone as well. READ THE BILL.

National Politics

John C. Beale honored by his friends

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beale_20090606184345_320_240John C. Beale, age 39, husband, father, and member of the Georgia National Guard was killed in Afghanistan on June 4th, 2009. He was a Staff Sergeant with the 1st Battalion, 108th Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition Squadron, 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team. He is survived by his wife and by a 12-year-old son and an 8-year-old daughter.

His friends and neighbors in Georgia turned out to honor him when he returned. His coffin arrived at the airport in Peachtree City, Georgia on Thursday, June 11 and was taken by motorcade to a funeral home in his hometown of McDonough. Word had traveled rapidly through the Georgia communities and they turned out in large numbers to line the route of the motorcade to honor a fallen soldier.

Traveling in the motorcade was state Rep. Steve Davis, who put together this video of the crowds that lined the route. There is something very significant in seeing the outpouring of support and respect here.

You can join in honoring this serviceman’s sacrifice by watching the video. It runs 12 and a half minutes.

More stories here:

Crowds line route to honor fallen soldier

Fox News – Interview with John Beale’s family

Rep. Steve Davis’ blog

In Memory of the Fallen – from SMSgt Rex Temple

Homeschooling, National Politics

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

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unIt’s in the news again.

Created in 1989, the Convention (often abbreviated as the “CRC”) has a number of laudable goals and features. It has been ratified by 193 countries around the world. The only two UN member states which have NOT ratified it are Somalia and the United States (which proponents of the treaty often cite as something that should be embarrassing to the United States).

There is much in this treaty which is admirable and non-controversial. There are some parts of it which are simply innocuous. And there are some parts of it which pro-family and pro-homeschooling advocates in the United States find objectionable.

But why all the hubbub over a UN Convention? Isn’t this simply a non-binding statement of principles?

For many countries, that might be the case (and probably explains why many of the 193 have ratified – for them, ratification has no practical effect on their own laws and practices).

But the effect of ratifying a treaty in the United States is different, because of Article VI of the US Constitution and the 14th Amendment.

Article VI (often called the “Supremacy Clause”) states, in part:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

The Supremacy Clause makes all treaties ratified by the US Senate binding in all Federal AND in all State courts. Which means that the United States Senate should be very careful when it votes to ratify a treaty. It also helps explain why the ratification of a treaty requires a 2/3 vote of the Senate – Treaty ratification is akin to amending the Constitution, and comes close to it in its wide-reaching consequences and significance.

Non-Controversial Sections of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child include the prohibitions on kidnapping, child labor, child prostitution, and using children as soldiers. Ironically, the United States HAS signed and ratified both of the optional protocols which have been appended to the CRC: one on the use of children in military conflicts and one which prohibits child pornography.

Children’s “Rights” are the issue, and whether those rights may be asserted against parents

The problematic parts of the CRC are in articles 13-17 which enumerate children’s rights which all parties to the CRC agree to recognize. These rights are described in legal language which is at times ambiguous, perhaps deliberately so. They include the right to freedom of expression, the right to receive information, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of association and peaceful assembly, a right to personal privacy and a right to access mass media. And here is where the issues arise. It would be one thing to assert that a child has these enumerated rights and that children must be protected from any attempt by the state to interfere with them. But the CRC leaves open and unresolved whether a child has these rights and can appeal to the state to prevent any of these rights from being abridged by parents. Given the Constitutional status afforded treaties and the social activism of parts of the legal community, it is quite probable that these rights would be raised in legal proceedings against parents by advocates acting in the name of children. If the CRC intended to protect children from any abridging of these rights by the State (but not by parents), then it should have said so. Because it does not limit its applicability to actions against the states, in the US Courts, it would inevitably be invoked in cases of conflicts between parents and children, with the result that parental authority would be eviscerated and children would be free to make dangerous and/or inappropriate choices, with parents forbidden from interfering. To take but one example, if parents decided to enroll a child in a religious school, the child could object and bring action citing the CRC and veto the parents’ decision.

Ratification of the treaty would provide the basis for the state to intervene in parenting decisions regarding education, media, and friends. It would radically undermine the rights of parents to direct the care, upbringing and education of their children.

Outlawing corporal punishment

The CRC has been repeatedly interpreted by the UN, by its committees, and in other judicial settings as requiring ratifying governments to “prohibit all forms of violence, including corporal punishment, in the upbringing of children.”

For some, this is simply one more reason to support ratification. But the overwhelming majority of parents in the US believe that corporal punishment by parents is a legitimate form of discipline. In any event, the definition of child abuse and neglect is currently made by state law, interpreted by state courts. Ratification of the CRC would, in effect, be the enactment of a federal ban on corporal punishment. No matter how you feel about the issue, federalizing it will have terrible consequences for families.

The CRC also establishes a UN committee and requires ratifying states to submit a report on implementation of the CRC within two years and every five years thereafter. The Committee may request additional information, review, and comment on States’ reports, but it does not appear to have any enforcement authority. I view the Committee as, at worst, an annoyance. Various states have already received chiding comments from the Committee, but they have little practical effect, other than in the court of public opinion (which is to say hardly at all). Of far greater concern is potential enforcement actions of the US federal courts, acting with the authorization of the US Constitution’s attribution of legal authority to all ratified treaties.

Read the Convention for yourself

Here’s a link to the full text of the Convention (at the UN web site): http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/k2crc.htm

I would encourage everyone interested to read the text for themselves, paying particular attention to articles 13-17.

There is also an interesting article in the Emory International Law Review by Prof. David M. Smolin of the Cumberland Law School, which identifies the issues pretty clearly. Prof. Smolin believes the objections to Articles 13-17 could be overcome by the adoption of “reservations” by the US Senate, and argues that the treaty is not self-executing and therefore should not cause concern. The treaty is NOT self-executing, but the US Constitution spells out the mechanism by which treaties become supreme law which must be followed by all federal and state judges. I think Prof. Smolin has missed this point.

Further Reading:

U.N. Fairy Tales About Children, Kay S. Hymowitz,
City Journal

Abandoning Children to Their Rights, Bruce C. Hafen and Jonathan O. Hafen, First Things

HSLDA has a series of articles, all linked from this page: http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/Issues/U/United_Nations.asp

ParentalRights.org also has a well documented and footnoted article, 20 Things you Need to Know about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child