Libertarianism

Voting

This entry was posted in Constitution Election 2004 Government Libertarianism on by

I voted in the US election via absentee ballot over a week ago and have been delightedly ignoring all the campaign BS ever since.
I have encouraged many others to vote however I do not fault some of the non-voters. The past several days have produced a challenging debate between voting and non-voting libertarians at Catallarchy. No matter your current leaning, today is a good day to read through and deliberate about the points raised in this discussion.
My take: even with all the faults of the current system your votes can make some small positive difference for the immediate future. I fully expect whoever wins to provide ample material for sharp discussion and dark humor.
This periodic voting is, though, a relatively small part of the ongoing discussion. Real long term change requires that discussion leads to regular action not simply a yes or no, him or her, every two or four years. Let’s start looking for actions that can be done daily, weekly, monthly to move us toward a free and peaceful world.

Zombie Medicine

This entry was posted in Capitalism Constitution Economics Health Care Libertarianism on by

This morning, sitting in a waiting room, I read about the sleepless residents who provide sleep deprived health care patient sitting. Well, I said to myself, I’ll have to blog about this later. I couldn’t believe that supposedly intelligent people would have to perform a study to figure out things like:

Young doctors make far fewer mistakes when their hours are restricted to let them get enough sleep, according to the first study to directly examine the issue.
The study of 24 student doctors caring for seriously ill patients in a hospital found that those who were restricted to working no more than 16 hours without a break made about one-third fewer serious errors that could harm patients.
Anyone who has pulled an all nighter knows this.
David Leach, Executive Director of the group that oversees medical residency hides from the obvious:
“I cannot emphasize enough that this situation is more complicated than just one variable. I don’t know if it’s as simple as reducing hours,” Leach said. “We could end up doing more harm than good.”
From this quote I was going to jump into a diatribe about just who was going to be harmed the most. But, heck, Megan McCardle and Jonathan Wilde are already all over this.
Perhaps a series of tort awards based on malpractice due to resident’s poor work conditions will bring a more rapid change. Is this another reason that the medical profession wants tort limits: to protect their government sponsored monopoly. Because, to cut back on resident’s hours the medical education system will have to produce more residents which ultimately means more doctors serving patients.
NB: I do wish that Megan would cross post her Instapundit guest posts at Asymetrical Information. Her stuff is really too good for Instapundit and it does kind of irk me to have to go there to find her material.

Incarcerating the People

This entry was posted in Constitution Domestic Terrorism Drug Laws Law Enforcement Libertarianism US Politics on by

Undeterred by the success of the war on drugs which led to the arrest of 951,027 people in 2003 with no apparent reduction in drug use or availibility congress and the executive branch stay the course:

President Bush signed a law on Friday banning certain steroid-like drugs, used by some athletes as performance enhancers.
The new law adds 18 substances to the list of banned anabolic steroids,
Ignoring reality senator biden exclaims:
“This new law sends a strong message about andro and other steroid precursors. We are calling them what they really are: drugs, performance enhancing drugs,” the Democrat from Delaware said.
I suspect folks who want to use this stuff will pay just about as much attention to these federal laws as any other drug user.
As Doctor Recommended notes:
It is one thing for a league, competition, team, venue, etc. to ban a set of drugs (such as the Olympics or MLB), as these are organizations that you voluntarily join and can leave if so desired, but the State is an entity which you are required to submit to (i.e., you are not given the opportunity to leave or say �no� � you must comply or else�).
If you want people to respect the law then you must write into law only what is just, necessary, and proper.

Impending Draft?

This entry was posted in Conscription Constitution Domestic Terrorism Libertarianism on by

If recruiting doesn’t meet the needs then expect a push for a draft no matter what the candidates say today:

Compounding the difficulty of recruiting, Nunes said, is the fact that seven out of 10 people who walk through the front door of a recruiting office aren’t qualified for the military, for reasons ranging from criminal history to an inappropriate tattoo. The goal is to enlist at least one of the remaining three.
Colleges are the competition
Who knows which tattoos are inappropriate enough to keep you out? Seems this might be useful information to a lot folks in case a draft does come around.
Update: Mark Kleiman posts Yes, Virginia, there could be a draft.