Libertarianism

Plan B

This entry was posted in Business US Capitalism Constitution Economics Federal Government Health Care Libertarianism US Politics on by

For the FDA it appears that ‘B’ stands for babies. Why else would the FDA ignore the 23-4 vote of its scientific advisory panel and continue to withhold the morning after drug ‘Plan B’ from the over the counter retail market?
Well, perhaps babies and, as Mark Kleiman suggests, politics:

I’m prepared to bet that the FDA will eventually do the right thing. But how many unwanted pregnancies, leading to how many abortions, will result from this obviously political decision?

Yep, politics, and one more example of why such decisions should not be in the hands of political hacks.
Mark also says:

Once again, we can expect a deafening silence from the libertarians, whose sincerity about personal liberty I keep doing my level best not to doubt.

I don’t know if there will be a deafening silence or not. However, I suspect that most real libertarians not only would object to this decision but also argue that the FDA should not have any say in the matter at all, that it should not even exist as a government function.

What’s a Conservative to Do?

This entry was posted in bush Democracy Election 2004 Federal Government kerry Libertarianism on by

For a moment never mind that I’m not a conservative.
A few minutes ago I was thinking about what appears to be the upcoming bush-kerry competition. First, I think bush is a total disaster (and thought much the same of his predecessor). His potential opponent, depending on which aspects of his voting record you review, looks like a bush clone on Iraq or only a bit left of bush when it comes to spending.
So I was thinking that since things happen best in DC when they happen least that the optimal result this time around will be a kerry win along with a few more repuglicans in both the house and senate. About 1 minute later I happened on to Chris Lawrence’s post linked below which is in response to Steven Taylor who has some thoughts on my opening question and reminds folks:

In short, repeat after me: �I will never get exactly what I want all the time from democratic government.�
The only government in which one gets everything one wants is a government in which one is the absolute dictator. Those jobs are hard to come by.

and then points out:

To put it in simple terms: if one is unhappy with aspects of Bush’s administration, this shouldn’t be a surprise. However, the only serious alternative, it would seem, is Kerry.
And recall that all the conservatives who were upset with Bush I’s breaking of the “read my lips pledge” and who said that “it can’t get any worse” helped led to eight years of Bill Clinton.

To which Chris Lawrence replies:

On the other hand, if you�re a conservative�not necessarily a Republican, mind you�a spell of divided government might well be desirable.
…given that Congress is essentially a lock to remain in Republican hands for the forseeable future,* if you�re not much of a social conservative and you make under $200k it�s hard to see what you�d lose under a Kerry (or Edwards) administration.

This is probably good advice for conservatives as well as those who are orthogonal to the demublicans.

The Medical Care Market

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

As Kevin Drum notes the US medical care market is not a free one:

The United States really doesn’t have a free market in healthcare at all; in fact, it’s just a bizarre melange of jury rigged policies that seem to provide the worst of all worlds. We don’t get the universal coverage and bargaining power of a single-payer system, but we also don’t have the competitiveness and price pressure of a true free market system.

Kevin then goes on to ask:

So what, then, is the big problem with simply trying to rationalize the system?

By which he means implement a federal single payer system or more specifically universal health care. And he then argues:

In fact, if the system were well designed � never a betting proposition, I admit � overall costs might even be a little less.

Well, he is right if congress is going to design it you don’t want to bet on it being rational or anywhere close to efficient.
I had actually thought for an irrational moment that when he suggested “simply trying to rationalize the system” that he might have really meant what he was saying and been about to suggest beginning to move down the long road to a free market for medical care. Oh well.

Search Wars

This entry was posted in Capitalism Economics Information Internet Libertarianism Marketing on by

Buried deep in this NYT article is this:

And Google has embarked on an ambitious secret effort known as Project Ocean, according to a person involved with the operation. With the cooperation of Stanford University, the company now plans to digitize the entire collection of the vast Stanford Library published before 1923, which is no longer limited by copyright restrictions. The project could add millions of digitized books that would be available exclusively via Google.

This is really good stuff but, since copyright protection has lapsed on these books, I wonder why they would be available exclusievely via Google.
Will Wilkenson is ‘jacked’ about this and also notes that:

This is, by the way, what Microsoft is really good for. It puts the fear of Jesus in the Googles of the world, and makes ’em hustle to make us happy. So what I’m really hoping for is that Microsoft comes close in the search war, and succeeds in creating a superfast integrated search in Windows that allows me to search my own measly 30gb hard drive at something close to the speed that Google manages to search the whole goddam internet, but falls short in the end because of all the glorious innovations the Google geniuses lay at our feet in order to keep us from straying.

Things should be pretty exciting in this space over the next several years.
Via Tyler Cowan at Marginal Revolution.

FCC headed in Wrong Direction

This entry was posted in Capitalism Culture Democracy Journalism Libertarianism on by

Atrios states:

Some day our country is going to have to take a long hard look at itself and wonder why it tolerates massive amounts of violence on TV, but a single Boob is capable of driving us collectively insane.

And Jaquandor asks the same quesion this way:

why are we so incredibly tolerant of things in our popular culture like bullets shredding bodies, limbs being severed, and massive explosions killing hundreds — and yet so incredibly scandalized by a wide-angled shot, lasting for mere seconds, of a female breast whose nipple isn’t even exposed?

The FCC, to the extent it should do anything at all, would do well to ‘take a long hard look’ at this issue.