But, But, John Mackey Is Nice To Bunny Rabbits.
Badley Whacko pipes up, for a second time, on John Mackey’s GaltCare proposal over at Reason magazine’s blog. Mackey gives money to Reason, so it’s not surprising that Badley, er, Radley, a “Senior Editor” at the magazine, rolls over on his back, sticks his paws in the air, wags his tail madly and asks Mackey to give him a big old belly rub. Radley also takes a swipe at Sadly, No!, presumably still stinging from our having pointed out that his glam shot for the Cato Institute and for Reason Magazine pretty much looks like a publicity still from “Shaun of the Dead.”
I guess the outrage here is that [Mackey] actually had the temerity to express his opinions in public. … [T]he consensus lefty position seems to be that CEOs should just shut up, even if advocating, as Mackey did, some ideas they’ve tested at their own companies and found to work.
Just in case you had forgotten that a libertarian is simply a Republican who does drugs, Radley drags out the tired old right-wing saw about how liberal criticism of lunatic right-wing ideas is an attempt to silence the right wing. Listen, Radley, old chum, when liberals start showing up at political rallies with semi-automatic assault weapons and pistols strapped to their pants and shoulders, then we’ll talk about who is trying to silence whom.
Nor is Radley even close to right when he says the Mackey was advocating ideas he had tested at his own company. Only one of the points in Mackey’s GaltCare proposal was something he’d tried, which was having the company pay less and the employees pay more for their health care. Needless to say, regardless of whether that idea works from an employee’s point if view, from Mackey’s point of view it was the best thing to happen to his company since he discovered you could actually sell lettuce at $14.99 per pound and get away with it.
But his other ideas were not things he tested. He hadn’t tested the pass-the-hat plan for his own uninsured employees, even though they are about 15 percent of his own workforce. Other of his ideas were ones he couldn’t even test himself, like his proposal to deregulate the insurance industry and let them exclude coverage of whoever-the-fuck they wanted to exclude. (Buh-bye COBRA.) See what I mean about libertarians simply being right-wingers on crack?
Whole Foods is unfailingly listed among the most employee-friendly, environmentally-conscious, animal-friendly, and generally socially conscientious companies in the country. Remember, this is the same company that nearly cracked the subtitle of Jonah Goldberg’s book as an example of liberal fascism. The left’s tantrum in reaction to Mackey’s op-ed implies his health care ideas are so offensive, they make all that “good corporate citizen” stuff obsolete.
It’s hard to believe that Balko thinks that because Whole Foods doesn’t test its shampoos on bunny rabbits (which is a better deal than it gives, say, cows and chickens, both of which would be delighted to exchange the beauty parlor for the abbatoir), Mackey should be given a pass for saying that the way to handle uninsured Americans is a tax-form tick-off for charitable contributions to pay for their cancer treatments. Unless, of course, in Balko’s looney-tunes universe bunny rabbits count more than sick people.
And WTF is this nonsense about Jonah and his book? Because Jonah doesn’t (or at least didn’t) like Whole Foods, liberals are supposed to like Whole Foods no matter what crazy shit its CEO says? I’m sorry, but it’s not really the liberals who judge their ideas based on how much they annoy conservatives.
I think we can now say that Reason is even more oxymoronically titled than “The American Thinker.”
Postscript: All Randroids and Reaganatics start any discussion of health care reform, and Radley is no exception, with a hushed and reverential invocation of the free market followed by a deep genuflection and a solemn kiss of the ring on the “invisible hand” of the market. Neither group appears to have any awareness that it was the failure of the free market with respect to elder health care that was both the policy and politics behind the adoption of Medicare.
The elderly are a high risk population that require substantially more health care than younger populations. Free-market insurers are unwilling to insure these populations at all or to insure them only at premiums that equal or exceed the anticipated cost of care. As a result, prior to the adoption of Medicare, fewer than half of retirees had any health insurance.* So the government had little choice but to take over or, eek!, “socialize” the task of providing a program that would reimburse the elderly for health care costs.
If we really want to talk about who wants to kill Grandma, it’s not the people advocating government reimbursement of Grandma’s medical expenses. It’s the tiresome and tireless free market idealogues who, if given their way, would offer nothing but an “invisible hand,” this time carrying a knife, to handle Grandma’s needs for medical care.
*Jonathan Oberlander, The Political Life of Medicare, at 23.
Plus, silly, silly name.
Simply not possible to point that out too many times, methinks.
Balko/ Sadly throwdown?
This weekend on Pay-Per View!!
I’m sorry, but I’m voting for the undead. They’ve got less to lose.
Now wait – is he talking about the real John Mackey or about (one of) the pseudonyms he inhabited (“I like Mackey’s haircut. I think he looks cute!”) on the interducks?
PeeJ, is there some background to this I’m not aware of ? It sounds good so far…
I think Badly is defending Mackey because of his CEO title, rather than the left attacking him because of it. Mackey had some terrible ideas about healthcare and wants a free pass from judgment because of his business and status. It ain’t happening.
The school counselor at South Park?
MmmmKay.
Well done Tintin.
From Woot.com blog (sry bout the cutnpaste):
What’s Robert Novak Up To These Days?
Laffs by Scott Lydon & Jason Toon on August 20, 2009 at 11:20 AM
* Initiating legal proceedings to establish ownership of the nickname “The Prince of Darkness”
* Trying to get an off-the-record lunch with the Devil
* Complaining that he should be drowning in the VIP bile pit
* Wondering why he can’t find his friend Jack Kemp
* Having a jacket tailored to fit over his leathery, bat-like wings
* Failing to get Catherine the Great’s phone number
* Outing the demon Belphegor as a spy working for Heaven
* Getting everything ready for his roommate, Lou Dobbs
* Asking where a damned man can get a damned whiskey in this town
* Making everybody wonder why the new guy is such a jerk
Well I’m glad for a new thread. I was running out of BOMBASTic acronyms. And I totally agree with the substance here, that Balko and Mackey are both as wrong about Health Care as Investors Business Daily and their Stephen Hawking killing NHS.
Just this minor quibble
First, eeuuuwww. Second, isn’t it reasonable that Mackey would support a publication that shares his views, and that Balko would work at a publication that shares his views, and that they would honestly agree with this ridiculously stupid theory without either of them having to be sellouts (merely full of offensively and immorally wrong wingnuttiness)? Thirdly, PENIS.
Sadly, No! declared it Simply Loathesome!
He really didn’t read much of that post, did he?
Oh, and he thinks Matt Ygelisas is a lefty. Now, I occasionaly read Yglesias, and he sometimes has good things to say, but he’s always been a pretty squishy centrist-liberal kind of guy. Methinks the Overton Window needs some refurbishing – maybe some double-paned glass or something.
Oh, this is a threadjack, very early in the thread, but has anyone brought up the whole Tom Ridge thing yet?
Shocked, etc.
Gah, second link FAIL!
From the WSJ (sub req.)
See also.
First, eeuuuwww. Second, isn’t it reasonable that Mackey would support a publication that shares his views, and that Balko would work at a publication that shares his views, and that they would honestly agree with this ridiculously stupid theory without either of them having to be sellouts (merely full of offensively and immorally wrong wingnuttiness)?
Maybe, but then he castigates Yglesias for calling Mackey an idiot for alienating his customers:
Just a hunch, but I’m guessing that in this “nice world” Yglesias speaks of, a company like Walmart would still be permitted give organizations like Think Progress $500,000-$1 million to help push an employer health insurance mandate, and Matthew Yglesias would still put up blog posts praising the company for its leadership.
Goose, meet gander.
Just in case you had forgotten that a libertarian is simply a Republican who does drugs, Radley drags out the tired old right-wing saw about how liberal criticism of lunatic right-wing ideas is an attempt to silence the right wing.
Actually, I think he’s saying that all Mackey did was publish an op-ed, therefore it’s fair to conclude that the people who immediately react with knee-jerk cries for a boycott aren’t really interested in “criticism”, just getting people who say things they don’t like to shut up. Not to mention that Whole Foods does a lot more than just refuse to “test shampoos on bunny rabbits.” Intellectual honesty much?
Gotta say, he sounds a lot more reasonable than you do. But hey, never mind me — keep on flailing ineffectually with those boycotts, they’re bound to accomplish something important one of these days.
But, PeeJ, it almost sounds like Mackey was trying to, um, guide the invisible hand of the market to do something that it would’nt otherwise do, and benefit Mackey’s company in the process! Isn’t that against the Credo of Libertarianism?
Randy Mulkey is a failed anagram for Radley Balko.
“…this is the same company that nearly cracked the subtitle of Jonah Goldberg’s book as an example of liberal fascism.”
Isn’t this just more evidence that Jonah is clueless?
Randy Mulkey said,
Thanks for your concern.
But you know what? It’s a free country. John Mackey can say whatever he wants, because, as your link to IOZ notes, “it is every private American’s right to hold crackpot opinions and to write about them in the Journal.”
But I happen to think health care reform is an important issue. And if the owner of an incredibly expensive grocery store pisses me off by trying to use his power and influence, as a rich corporatist, to advocate for bullshit measures that will do nothing to actually help the situation (“In fact, as a national solution, HSAs and high-deductible plans make no sense at all, since they fuck the distribution of resources by removing everyone young and healthy from the risk pool.”), then I am free to take my business elsewhere. All his other good works are pretty much irrelevant, because I’m not a “knee-jerk” lefty who should somehow bow down to this great man because he is kind to Somali refugees and pays his employees well (while refusing to let unions in).
I’m not telling anyone to “shut up,” but at the same time I’m not going to reward someone for being part of the problem, instead of the solution.
Randy Mulkey is a failed anagram for Radley Balko.
Or another John Mackey sockpuppet.
Funny comment at Reason:
I suppose there might be a way in which calling someone a thin-skinned motherfucker is evidence of the rarity of thin-skinned motherfuckers.
I suppose there might be a way in which calling someone a thin-skinned motherfucker is evidence of the rarity of thin-skinned motherfuckers.
I’d imagine one would have to have a pretty thick skin to face the approbation engendered by fucking one’s own mother.
But I heard that Rackly Barko is against jailing the innocent. So, you know, something
All his other good works are pretty much irrelevant, because I’m not a “knee-jerk” lefty who should somehow bow down to this great man because he is kind to Somali refugees and pays his employees well (while refusing to let unions in).
This.
The only reason I’m not boycotting Mackey’s store is that I stopped being able to afford to shop there years ago anyway.
I’m sorry, what was that?
Actually, libs, I think he’s saying that all Mackey did was publish an op-ed, therefore it’s fair to conclude that the people who immediately react with knee-jerk cries for a boycott aren’t really interested in “criticism”, just getting people who say things they don’t like to shut up, because you liberals are running scared at Obama’s failures. Bookmark this, libs: Whole Foods does a lot more than just refuse to “test shampoos on bunny rabbits.” Intellectual honesty much?
Gotta say, he sounds a lot more reasonable than you do. But hey, never mind me — keep on flailing ineffectually with those boycotts, they’re bound to accomplish something important one of these days. You’ll wonder how the hell I was able to call this.
The only reason I’m not boycotting Mackey’s store is that I stopped being able to afford to shop there years ago anyway.
Same here. I go to my local farmer’s market for produce, Trader Joe’s for meat, poultry and fish, and Safeway for everything else (love the buy one, get one freebies). Most of what Mackey sells is overpriced crap.
“based on your experiences, in health care with agitation.”
I have no experience with health care in agitation, but I am familiar with the spin cycle and the pre-soak.
it’s fair to conclude that the people who immediately react with knee-jerk cries for a boycott aren’t really interested in “criticism”, just getting people who say things they don’t like to shut up.
He has a right to speak his mind, they have a right to shop wherever the fuck they want for whatever reason they want. It’s not like folks haven’t been vocally critical as well.
From WaPo’s article on the boycott:
Whole Foods spokeswoman Libba Letton said that Mackey was expressing personal opinions in the op-ed and that the company has no official position on the issue.
Wherever did people get the idea that Whole Foods was behind this?
Mackey was unavailable for an interview, but on his blog he blamed the column’s headline — “The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare” — for sparking some of the furor.
Oh. Damn you, Wall Street Journal headline writers! Why do you hate America?
therefore it’s fair to conclude that the people who immediately react with knee-jerk cries for a boycott aren’t really interested in “criticism”
Unless the boycott is their form of criticism — but you went ahead and assumed how countless thousands of total strangers reacted, and you sounded so confident doing it, so you’re probably right.
Intellectual honesty much?
Completely miss the point of the argument much?
But sure, keep ineffectually flailing away at semantics, blah blah blah…
I take it that “Reason” magazine is sort of like a chocolate “martini?” Like, literally, someone went out of their way to come up with the one name for something that, by definition, it can’t logically be called?
If we really want to talk about who wants to kill Grandma, it’s not the people advocating government reimbursement of Grandma’s medical expenses. It’s the tiresome and tireless free market idealogues who, if given their way, would offer nothing but an “invisible hand,” this time carrying a knife, to handle Grandma’s needs for medical care.
Funny you should mention that.
Like, literally, someone went out of their way to come up with the one name for something that, by definition, it can’t logically be called?
Yes, it’s name selection in the mold of our pet troll The Truth, or that dipshit Wisdom who posts over at John Cole’s place.
Neither group appears to have any awareness that it was the failure of the free market with respect to elder health care that was both the policy and politics behind the adoption of Medicare.
Nor do they seem to wonder why the market hasn’t already fixed the problems with healthcare. Of course, “let insurance companies do what they want, markets should be freeeeee!” won’t ever solve the problem of getting adequate, non-bankrupting care to those who are un- or under-insured because of recission, pre-existing conditions, maxed-out caps, i.e. general lack of monster profitability to insurers, because it can’t.
keep on flailing ineffectually with those boycotts, they’re bound to accomplish something important one of these days
I don’t know where you get the idea that anyone here is promoting a boycott or anything else, but you & your kind (scum) may just be squawking out of the other side of your mouth when I start “boycotting” Whole Foods by picketing in front of the store w/ a hog-leg strapped to my thigh (Oooh, sexy!) & a semi-auto rifle strapped to my back.
We’ll see how many glibertarian “counter-boycotters” want to cross my picket line.
(If you pick it, it’ll never heal.)
I’d like to take a minute here to give a great big gem-encrusted Fuck You to WordPress. Apparently, thanks to Troofie’s repeated turdlings around here, now WP thinks that meself posting via my handydandy Go Go Gadget Sidekick Smartphone is “anonymous proxy” and blocks me.
Giant Peanut butter and Shit sandwich to you, WP.
As a Canadian watching the health care, um, thingie taking place down in the land of the boisterous, the armed and the weird, I just can’t help but think that the most powerful nation on earth is out of its collective fucking mind. Seriously, anyone that gets up on their hind legs and says that ensuring decent health care for every man, woman and child is a Nazi policy deserves not a dressing down by Barney Frank, they deserve to be punted. It baffles me that there are that many truly misinformed people that are even capable of dressing themselves without first donning protective gear.
Earlier this summer I had some health issues, I called the doctor’s office, got an appointment, got on the bus and was seen to straight away. I took my prescription and paid a fraction of what freedom and liberty indicates you dupes let yourselves be gouged for and was on my way home. My bill, besides the prescription? Bus fare. You know what the biggest problem with Canada’s health care system is, frickin’ American companies poaching personnel. The greed based system pays better.
I don’t get it, I really don’t. How on earth can people be so angry and stupid that they make such barbaric asses out of themselves to protect a failed system that leaves one and a half times Canada’s entire population with no coverage? Wanna guess why foreigners think of Americans as dangerous buffoons? You actually have people on national TV defending the availability of assault rifles to borderline retards and allowing them to attend political rallies and mass gatherings. When did America get the idea they were in any way more civilized than Libya? That isn’t freedom, it isn’t liberty, it is flat out stupid. There’s no shortage of weapons up here but at least we have the good sense to recognize that there are reasonable limits to their ownership. Waving a flag and demanding a street sweeper will get you nothing but the disgusted looks you deserve.
For all of the brilliance and vigour that makes up the real heart of the American spirit at its best, it is the dumbest and ugliest part of the American experience piloting the ship of state. Up here, we take it for granted that the vast majority of folk we encounter in a day are not armed with killing sticks. We take it for granted that a medical problem won’t cost us our house, our family and our future. Single payer, socialized medicine is the only sensible choice in a decent and mature nation.
Single payer, socialized medicine is the only sensible choice in a decent and mature nation.
See, there’s the problem, right there.
But hey, never mind me — keep on flailing ineffectually with those boycotts, they’re bound to accomplish something important one of these days.
Weren’t you guys the ones boycotting France a few years back because they didn’t want to help us bomb the fuck out of Iraq?
What’s the matter? Can’t talk with freedom fries in your mouth?
psa said …
I think what happened is that the left was very effective 40–60 years ago at building good institutions to ensure general health and welfare. Then people just expected all of these things to happen by magic, the way a child expects dinner to arrive. Now you have people not piloting the ship of state, but ripping up the deck planks and yelling at the people politely telling them to stop.
It isn’t to say everyone is clueless. I’m glad you acknowledge this. America is a big place with lots of ideas. But the deliberate dumbness out there now really stings. Moreover, those on the right who are stoking it have lost all sight of the fact that failure of the big systems that keep the ship of state afloat is possible. It’s just a game to them.
Shame.
Radley Balko’s work on the Drug War and the use of paramilitary policing is really, really good. I mean really good. And he has done a lot to highlight police brutality against minorities in the Drug War’s name and probably as much as anyone to get an innocent man off death row (Cory Maye).
And he was censored by FOX News for calling out the Republicans.
I was happy admiring this stuff and pretending that he didn’t have the views on health care that he obviously does. Don’t spoil your record, Radley!
This. I keep waiting for someone to explain why we should trust the “free” market to solve the health insurance problem when it has failed to do so continuously. And yet they maintain it’s the greatest healthCARE system in the world.
Moreover, those on the right who are stoking it have lost all sight of the fact that failure of the big systems that keep the ship of state afloat is possible. It’s just a game to them.
It started with St. Ronnie, who dressed up resentment with a smiley face and convinced enough people that it wasn’t the corporatists who were keeping them down, it was the welfare queens, the liberals, and the hippies. Ever since we have been on a downward spiral…even Clinton had to triangulate, because the zombie lies (no offense, zrm) had taken hold so firmly, and even after eight years of Republican/conservative misrule, we have a new president who still talks about bipartisanship as if it’s a positive, or even possible, way of governing.
And yet they maintain it’s the greatest healthCARE system in the world.
And Jackie Gleason used to say, “Miami Beach audience are the greatest audiences in the world!”
You just have to form the words with your mouth. You don’t have to mean them.
‘Radley Balko’? ‘Badly Whacko’? No, I think you mean Grimly Feendish, The Rottenest Crook in the World.
MICHELLE OBAMA’S MOTHER IS PERFORMING VOODOO RITES IN THE WHITE HOUSE AND ALL YOU LIE-BRALS WANT TO TALK ABOUT IS HEALTH CARE??? CHENEY NEVER HAD VOODOO RITES WHEN HE WAS PRESIDENT, YET YOU COMMIES EQUATED HIM WITH GROVER CLEVELAND!!! WELL OBAMA IS HITLER!!!
Cheney’s rites were good, clean Anglo Alistair Crowley sex majick, thank you very much.
At least Radley Balko was right about the Gates arrest, unlike most of the pseudo-libertarians one encounters on the Net.
You know, as long as killing rich people is illegal the market ain’t never gonna be free.
What’s WRONG with the Free Market?! It’s good enough for these people…ain’t good enough for you?!
Whole Foods is unfailingly listed among the most employee-friendly, environmentally-conscious, animal-friendly, and generally socially conscientious companies in the country.
Considering that we’ve got companies that blow the tops offa friggin’ mountains, this is a pretty backhanded compliment.
Here’s a thought experiment. Let’s say a Republican runs for President on a platform of gun reform, spelling out concrete examples and goals such as universal conceal carry, anywhere, anytime (except the Whitehouse and Congress of course), mandated ownership of rifles, bullet co-ops, etc. He wins in a landslide along with healthy majorities in the House and Senate. While debating the gun reform bill, a CEO of a major retailer that sells lots of guns (say Dicks or K-Mart), writes an Op-Ed in the Nation, suggesting some alternate reforms, such as making bullets $100 a piece, and guns that would only work if you first recite “Song of Myself” by Whitman… with feeling. Would the wingnuts:
A) Give kudos to his brave stand and use of the First Amendment, or
B) Show up at a protest with their Second Amendment showing, carrying signs about watering the Tree of Liberty?
The invisible hand of the market is giving Mackey the finger. If they were real libertarians thye would appreciate what was happening… that is if they gave a flying fig about the rights of people not named John Mackey. (How it’s his right to have shoppers is something I don’t get, but then the “logic” of free markets often escapes me.)
commie atheist said,
It started with St. Ronnie, who dressed up resentment with a smiley face and convinced enough people that it wasn’t the corporatists who were keeping them down, it was the welfare queens, the liberals, and the hippies.
Though I don’t remember the Reagan yrs much, having been born in yr 2 of the reign of St Ronnie, King Dumfuck I, from reading books like Nixonland by Rick Pearlstein–which i highly recommend even tho it’s depressing as hell cause you know how the shit turns out–I would say that the reagan presidency was simply the realization of the grand neoconartist vision that had its origins in the Goldwater movement of the early 60’s. That was when the right wing really started stoking the fears and resentments of Middle American and southern whites by invoking the scary negroes and commie hippies who wanted to rob them of their way of life. What we see today is that the repub party is pretty much left with this mostly white, mostly rural base that is oh-so-fucking-resentful and armed to the teeth and just itchin to explode. Well, ok thanks and sweet dreams evrybody!
Unless, of course, in Balko’s looney-tunes universe bunny rabbits count more than sick people.
They do, of course; rabbits are fundamentally amoral, being without souls, while uninsured people are poor, which means they behaved in some improper fashion, moral behavior and a good work ethic being all one needs to make money.
Christ, I hate libertarians.
It would appear Mr. Mackey has been rendered mute by his stockholders. The invisible knee, jerks a rough justice for the dumb-ass who forgets on which side he butters his bread. I doubt Reason will risk the pain of holding the conflicting thoughts long enough to comment.
I am familiar with the spin cycle and the pre-soak.
I bet you are.
Bravo! But now you have to return my thoughts, which you taken and so elaborately typed out, back to me.
John Mackey never tested cosmetics on bunny rabbits.
Unless, of course, in Balko’s looney-tunes universe bunny rabbits count more than sick people.
It’s not jus Balko that lives in that looney-tunes universe. I remember an interview with Michael Moore in which he stated that he recieved all kinds of complaints and objections because of the scene in Roger and Me where a woman is skinning rabbits to provide meat for her family but did not get one comment about the scene where a laid off worker is shot down in the street.
It’s pretty simple, really. If you think “Free Market” trumps “Civilization” while deriving all the benefits of the latter, you’re a hypocrite that does not deserve serious intellectual attention.
In other words, Radley, go live in Somalia for six months, then we’ll listen to your ideas.
All Randroids and Reaganatics start any discussion of health care reform, and Radley is no exception, with a hushed and reverential invocation of the free market followed by a deep genuflection and a solemn kiss of the ring on the “invisible hand” of the market. Neither group appears to have any awareness that it was the failure of the free market with respect to elder health care that was both the policy and politics behind the adoption of Medicare.
They also don’t ever stop to acknowledge that the existence of a market in the first place is dependent on the existence of some outside authority that permits the free exchange of x for y in the first place. “Free” markets don’t exist without a government (either de facto or de jure) willing to enforce rules about who can participate and how much screwing of the other guy is permitted in the exchange. Witness, for example, the thriving health-care marketplace in Somalia. The only reason there’s a health-care insurance industry in this country is because the government allows such a thing, and if anyone screws with the insurance companies’ right to turn a profit on human misery they waste no time at all running to the government (via the court system) to recover their loss. Libertarians are quite skilled at ignoring the hidden support their cherished free-marketeer banditos receive from the government they (the Libertarians) so disparage.
There are lots of things that the “free” market works just fine for – consumer and luxury goods, for example. There’s a lot of other stuff, though – police protection, clean water, public transit – that the market is poorly suited to provide. Health care is more like the latter than the former.
Libertarians are quite skilled at ignoring the hidden support their cherished free-marketeer banditos receive from the government they (the Libertarians) so disparage.
True dat, Aaron.
Hell, money itself requires a government. “It’s my money” pisses me off to no end. Funny, it doesn’t have your name on it (word to the wise – don’t say this to a live person unless you are pretty confident you can take them in a physical altercation). Libertarians think money is a fixed aspect of the universe, like gravity or magnetism.
It’s funny, really, how much is taken for granted by economic liberarians, either by naivete (well gosh oh golly, no corporation would ever do *that*) or by omission (“Sure, it’ll be dog-eat-dog, but I’m one of the smart ones that will come out on top – I just won’t say that publicly”). The former don’t have an appreciation for just how damn evil some folks can cheerfully be, and the latter are dangerously overconfident as to their ability to survive the aforementioned evil people.
“The reason the invisible hand often seems invisible is that it is not there.”
— Joseph Stiglitz
http://www.newstatesman.com/business/2008/10/economy-world-crisis-financial
bunny rabbits count more than sick people.
Not baby ducks?!
” Unless, of course, in Balko’s looney-tunes universe bunny rabbits count more than sick people.”
So Whole Foods treats it’s employees badly? The environment as well? Were those determined by a relative comparison with the old Union Carbide operation at Bhopal?
If he did not explicitly assign unequal weights to his ‘evil mackeyism mitigating’ factors, why are you doing so?
I don’t agree with everything in his ‘post-script to SN’ but wasn’t his initial point that the reaction to Mackey’s editorial on the proggadiddledoopantsstainedwithrenderedangelwings left was disproportionate to any reasonable conception of what our health care system will actually look like and that boycotting a store which fits the aesthetics of value which aforementioned angel-stained-pants crowd ascribes to without possibility of being dissuaded is just as loony as the non-lib right turning against Walmart?.
I think he’s making a cultural argument (not where I think it may be made confidently) and not a substantive one.
It may come from reading people he would probably agree with on drug policy and punishment, like Mark Kleiman, breathlessly declare his mortal opposition to the fleet of libtardian dreadnoughts filled with artisanal goods piloted by the dread lord Mackey.
It’s always disturbing to see people you see making sense (and yes, i know you’ll snark a prolapsed muse with this sentence) so consistently fall off the analytical cart and straight into kindergarten.
Gotta give credit to the socially obnoxious but hilarious Bob Black for the “libertarian is a Republican who does drugs” line and also I believe he coined Randroids as well.
Shorter article: “Wah, I want free stuff!”?
Wow, you pinkos really get snotty every time you get one of your clowns in office and he squanders all his political capital by making yet another try at subjecting us to socialized medicine.
For my part, I hope Obama keeps beating that drum, and pisses away his party’s control of the congress exactly the same way that Clinton did. In our severely disfunctional imperialist system, the only break we get is when the two wings of the Ruling Party are deadlocked.
BTW, if you want to know what socialized medicine would be like in the USA, go check out a Bureau of Indian Affairs clinic on any reservation. There will be a couple of Potemkin hospitals in DC for the pols and the press, and the rest of us will read Solzhenitsyn and conclude that he was an optimist.
The “libertarian is a Republican who does drugs” line is great because it’s a quicker way of saying, “I don’t know the first thing about what libertarians believe.”
I disagree with libertarians on a variety of issues, healthcare included, but the objective fact is that when it comes to the drug war, criminal justice, foreign policy, and personal freedom, libertarians are more liberal than Democrats.
Of course, there are a variety of libertarians, just as there are a variety of Democrats. I know of many who aren’t against medicare and medicaid or welfare or food stamps. There are many who favor environmental regulations, as well.
This thread (and Sadly, No!, especially) reflects the depth of thinking and intellectual honesty (or lack thereof) one frequently finds at Free Republic.
This is as meaningless a paragraph as there can be. Well done.
psa said
“…Seriously, anyone that gets up on their hind legs and says that ensuring decent health care for every man, woman and child is a Nazi policy deserves not a dressing down by Barney Frank, they deserve to be punted. It baffles me that there are that many truly misinformed people that are even capable of dressing themselves without first donning protective gear.”
Umm…they are proposing punishing people who choose not to get health insurance. Not on the same level as a Nazi, but definitely authoritarian and anti-freedom.
“…I don’t get it, I really don’t. How on earth can people be so angry and stupid that they make such barbaric asses out of themselves to protect a failed system that leaves one and a half times Canada’s entire population with no coverage? Wanna guess why foreigners think of Americans as dangerous buffoons? You actually have people on national TV defending the availability of assault rifles to borderline retards and allowing them to attend political rallies and mass gatherings. When did America get the idea they were in any way more civilized than Libya? That isn’t freedom, it isn’t liberty, it is flat out stupid. There’s no shortage of weapons up here but at least we have the good sense to recognize that there are reasonable limits to their ownership. Waving a flag and demanding a street sweeper will get you nothing but the disgusted looks you deserve.”
Of the people who do don’t have coverage the majority are illegal immigrants and young healthy people who simply do not care about it or choose not to pay for it.
You will never get it. You are totally dependent on the state. Many Americans prefer to stand on our own as much as possible. This might make us barbarians in your eyes, but in ours you just look weak and pathetic.
“You will never get it. You are totally dependent on the state. Many Americans prefer to stand on our own as much as possible. This might make us barbarians in your eyes, but in ours you just look weak and pathetic.”
Good luck with going through your life without any unexpected disasters, Scott L. It almost makes we want to wish you some health catastrophe (and based on my medical training, these can always happen out of the blue) to see where you draw the line on “as much as possible.”