Government

Grand Rounds

This entry was posted in Drug Laws Economics Education Government Libertarianism Regulation Taxation on by

isemmelweis finds the health care industry to be the lone victem of special interest corporate-government collusion:

In all other economic sectors free people drive production, and good things happen quickly. In response to the Atkins craze, sodas and even beer cut out the carbs to meet the wants of a fit society. But in healthcare, rather than serve ordinary citizens, producers court the people in power: big insurers, government officials, and academics.
….
So who�s navigating this ship? While it may be enormous fun for managers, officials, and scholars to control how sick people get medicine, it would be much better if free people chose for themselves.
Yes, it should be much better but isemmelweis is mistaken to think that this problem is restricted to health care, e.g., consider communications and the FCC, agriculture, and education to name just a few areas. We would live in a much healthier world, physically and economically, if this phenomenon did not permeate both the American and the world economy.
There is a lot of interesting reading from the medical blogosphere at Chronicles of a Medical Madhouse which is hosting Grand Rounds XV.

This is what the US is fighting for???

This entry was posted in Constitution Domestic Terrorism Government Libertarianism War on Terrorism on by

The Bush administration is drawing up a long-term plan for al-Qa’eda suspects at Guantanamo Bay, including building a prison where they could be held for the rest of their lives without ever appearing in a court of law.

This makes me more than nauseous so I’ll let Zombyboy speak for me:
The plan by the Bush administration to jail al-Qa’eda suspects for life without ever submitting them to a court is wrong. Wrong wrong wrong.
I have no doubt that these are Bad People who have done Bad Things and harbor nothing but Ill Intent toward the people of the West. I understand that the last thing we want is to have these people back in the world plotting the next attack against the citizens of–well, anywhere from New York to London, Paris, or Rome, for instance. I even realize that the people who are drawing up this plan believe that the actions they take will help protect the rest of the world.
While the plan may be protected legally inasmuch as the terrorists are not protected by the Geneva Convention, the plan isn’t a moral one
Read the rest.

The Threat to Freedom

This entry was posted in Capitalism Constitution Economics Government Libertarianism US Politics on by

Lew Rockwell gets it close to right:

What is the most pressing and urgent threat to freedom that we face in our time? It is not from the left. If anything, the left has been solid on civil liberties and has been crucial in drawing attention to the lies and abuses of the Bush administration. No, today, the clear and present danger to freedom comes from the right side of the ideological spectrum, those people who are pleased to preserve most of free enterprise but favor top-down management of society, culture, family, and school, and seek to use a messianic and belligerent nationalism to impose their vision of politics on the world.
The bit he misses is that these folks are not interested in free enterprise and like much of the rest of their rhetoric think doublespeak. When they say free enterprise or free market you should interpret it as we have found another way to protect our corporate sponsers from the market.
Via Stephen Horowitz at Power and Liberty.

Going in Circles

This entry was posted in Constitution Government Libertarianism on by

Our local transportation folks are excited about traffic circles. I have not been as thrilled. The first one installed creates backups in a direction that did not have backups before and does not eliminate the backups on the side street that previously had them.
It may be that I have not been thinking about this in the right way:

The circle is remarkable for what it doesn’t contain: signs or signals telling drivers how fast to go, who has the right-of-way, or how to behave. There are no lane markers or curbs separating street and sidewalk, so it’s unclear exactly where the car zone ends and the pedestrian zone begins. To an approaching driver, the intersection is utterly ambiguous – and that’s the point.
Monderman and I stand in silence by the side of the road a few minutes, watching the stream of motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians make their way through the circle, a giant concrete mixing bowl of transport. Somehow it all works. The drivers slow to gauge the intentions of crossing bicyclists and walkers. Negotiations over right-of-way are made through fleeting eye contact. Remarkably, traffic moves smoothly around the circle with hardly a brake screeching, horn honking, or obscene gesture. “I love it!” Monderman says at last. “Pedestrians and cyclists used to avoid this place, but now, as you see, the cars look out for the cyclists, the cyclists look out for the pedestrians, and everyone looks out for each other. You can’t expect tr
This makes me reconsider my dislike for our local traffic circle. It seems to make sense to eliminate things like stop signs and traffic lights so that users can make decisions based on the existing local context. Perhaps we will see more of this in other areas of government activity.
Via Marginal Revolution.

Federalism?

This entry was posted in Capitalism Constitution Drug Laws Federal Government Government Libertarianism on by

Jonah Goldberg thinks federalism is a good thing and rues the apparent abandonment of the concept by bush and other conservatives:

The virtue of a federalist, republican form of government is that the more you push these decisions down to the level where people actually have to live with their consequences, the more likely it is they will be a) involved and interested in the decision-making process, and b) happy with the result. Federalism is also morally superior because it requires the consent of the governed at the most basic level.
Goldberg, though, believes the “most basic level” is the individual state when, in fact, state level legislation exhibits the same problems as federal legislation, e.g., it can not properly take into account the local1 context and, as above, legislators at all levels are disconnected from the consequences of their decisions, their feedback loops are broken, the have likely been captured by moneyed interests, and their citizens are poorly served.
It is time for us, the citizens, to eliminate the federal, state, and, perhaps, city monopolies on creating law and implement federalism carried to a more appropriate level, a polycentric government structure.
Via Running Scared.
1At the level where human interactions take place.