Tag: Leviathan

Malice vs. Stupidity

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Heinlein’s (or, if you insist, Hanlon’s) Razor:

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don’t rule out malice.

Then there’s Grey’s Law:

Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

And Rick Cook‘s admonition:

The key to understanding the American system (of government) is to imagine that you have the power to make nearly any law you want. But your worst enemy will be the one to enforce it.

One more on top of that, from my comments recently:

Congress does two things well – Nothing and Overreact. — Adam Putnam

The topic of the 2008 Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act has once again arisen in the blogosphere. Megan McArdle brought up one unintended consequence of that particular overreaction, and that was picked up in a couple more places, like Tam’s View from the Porch (not a good idea to get Tam mad at you), and The Washington Examiner. But these pieces were primarily about children’s books, and the CPSIA covers a lot more than just books.

Walter Olson of Overlawyered has been on top of this since the legislation was introduced. From a Forbes piece from January:

Self-congratulation makes for bad law.

If someone you know volunteers at a thrift store or crochets baby hats for the crafts site Etsy or favors handmade wooden toys as a baby shower gift, you’ve probably been hearing the alarms about the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA).

Hailed almost universally on its passage last year–it passed the Senate 89 to three and the House by 424 to one, with Ron Paul the lone dissenter–CPSIA is now shaping up as a calamity for businesses and an epic failure of regulation, threatening to wipe out tens of thousands of small makers of children’s items from coast to coast, and taking a particular toll on the handcrafted and creative, the small-production-run and sideline at-home business, not to mention struggling retailers. How could this have happened?

I find the title to Olson’s piece particularly interesting, since it echoes a particularly fine book, Thomas Sowell’s Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy. Professor Sowell’s book was published back in 1996 and it covers thirty years of history, so the CPSIA has a lot of company. I strongly recommend it, if you haven’t read it.

Malice, or “sufficiently advanced incompetence”?

Does it really matter?

For example, let’s look at the McCain-Feingold Incumbent Protection Campaign Finance Reform Act. It passed in the House by a fair margin, and squeaked through the Senate, and was signed into law by G.W. Bush, even though Bush said he thought parts of it were probably unconstitutional. Shortly after passage, training seminars were instituted to instruct incumbents on the nuances of the bill they had just passed.

The general response when told what they could and couldn’t do under the restrictions of the new law? “I didn’t know it said THAT!“

The tradition of not reading bills (a book on the law and its meaning runs a mere 457 pages) has a long, rich history. The War on (some) Drugs™ has resulted in numerous unintended consequences from poorly thought-out legislation and laws enforced with either malice or incompetence sufficiently advanced so as to be indistinguishable. Radley Balko has made a career out of reporting on those. But there are others that people know less of. I wrote about the prosecution of Christopher and Trudy Sherburne for the possession of ten rounds of tracer ammunition. The state of California destroyed their home and business – literally – over those ten rounds, and sentenced Christopher to five years in prison.

I’ve written about George Norris, whose business was raided and in effect destroyed by gun toting, body-armor clad agents of the Fish & Wildlife Service over some rare orchids that he insisted were legally imported, but the Feds insisted were not. The Feds have unlimited funds with which to persecut, er, prosecute. Mr. Norris did not. He plead guilty at the advice of his attorney and got a 17 month sentence. Read the update to the story here. Store all breakables before you do. Then read the story of Krister Evertson and his persecution by the Feds.

And it’s not just laws, look at a recent regulatory change. The EPA has now classified carbon dioxide as a pollutant, and the EPA has the power to regulate the production of pollutants. I’m unsure where, exactly, that power comes from under our Constitution, but it’s a fait accompli. What will the unintended consequences of this decision be?

I’ve quoted Rand’s take on this several times (do read that link). As others have noted, as time goes on she seems more and more prescient.

And now the Obama Administration wants to shove a 1000+ page bill that totally reforms the American health-care system through Congress, and Congresscritters aren’t even shy about admitting that they don’t know what’s in it.

At some point it becomes immaterial whether the laws were due to incompetence or maliciousness. That point is when their implementation is indistinguishable from maliciousness. I submit that we’ve passed that point, and the only thing preventing even more massive public blowback is our general ignorance and our well-established general respect for the Rule of Law. As I’ve said, the .gov has done a good job of practicing such persecution on a retail level, rather than wholesale, but it’s getting to the point where the abuse is going wholesale and the stories are getting out to the mass audience.

I’ve also stated that I know where my personal “line in the sand” is. I suspect that the number of others reaching their own conclusion on that subject is growing.

Too bad it won’t result in a restoration of the Constitution. Entropy doesn’t work that way.

And I need to cheer the hell up.

UPDATE: PolyKahr has a related post up.

Quote of the Day

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Quote of the Day

Once again, a break from education quotes and a new one from House of Eratosthenes:

What is The Truth that people figure out? That some 30 percent of us already know, and that more and more of us learn as we debate back and forth on the latest “gimme”? Simply this: That the government doesn’t really have money; it spends only what it has taken from others, plus what it borrows on the credit of others. Which naturally means that one man’s “right” is another man’s burden. That when we debate these proposals, we aren’t debating how to make life more secure, we are in fact debating how to make our country less free.

Which is why there is such urgency to pass massive spending bills without debate, review, or even reading them – because they have to get it done before too many people figure out this Truth, and get massively PISSED OFF.

A “boiling pit of sewage and death and destruction.”

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I was going to respond to this comment by reactive target Markadelphia a couple of days ago, but I discovered I didn’t need to. John Stossell, one of the few in the legacy media who doesn’t qualify as a “gerbilist” already has:

“Better” Health Care?

by John Stossell

President Obama says government will make health care cheaper and better. But there’s no free lunch.

In England, health care is “free” — as long as you don’t mind waiting. People wait so long for dentist appointments that some pull their own teeth. At any one time, half a million people are waiting to get into a British hospital. A British paper reports that one hospital tried to save money by not changing bedsheets. Instead of washing sheets, the staff was encouraged to just turn them over.

Wow. That sounds . . . sterile. Then there was the recent case of a British patient in hospital for an abscess on her neck who took it upon herself to clean the ward she was in because it was filthy.

Obama insists he is not “trying to bring about government-run healthcare”.
“But government management does the same thing,” says Sally Pipes of the Pacific Research Institute. “To reduce costs they’ll have to ration — deny — care.”

Like the New Zealand hospital for all intents and purposes told a Samoan family that they should let their deformed newborn daughter die, and denied her care. The government went so far as to deny her a visa to travel to where she could get care. That child eventually did get to the U.S. for treatment, and has now returned home, still alive.

There’s a difference between having the government insist on denying care, and the family making that decision. That difference is who’s paying.

“People line up for care, some of them die. That’s what happens,” says Canadian doctor David Gratzer, author of “The Cure”. He liked Canada’s government health care until he started treating patients.

“The more time I spent in the Canadian system, the more I came across people waiting for radiation therapy, waiting for the knee replacement so they could finally walk up to the second floor of their house.” “You want to see your neurologist because of your stress headache? No problem! Just wait six months. You want an MRI? No problem! Free as the air! Just wait six months.”

As others have noted, in 2005 (the most recent data I’ve been able to find) Canada had 5.5 MRI scanners per million population, and 11.3 CAT scan machines per million. The U.S. had at that time 27 and 32 per million population, respectively. Canada’s are still backed up for months. Here you can get an elective “heart-saver” CT scan for about $100, usually within a couple of days of calling to make the appointment.

Greedy bastards.

These machines are quite expensive, but you’ll note that our hospitals generally have them. Canada’s, not so much.

Polls show most Canadians like their free health care, but most people aren’t sick when the poll-taker calls. Canadian doctors told us the system is cracking. One complained that he can’t get heart-attack victims into the ICU.

In America, people wait in emergency rooms, too, but it’s much worse in Canada. If you’re sick enough to be admitted, the average wait is 23 hours.

“We can’t send these patients to other hospitals. Dr. Eric Letovsky told us. “Every other emergency department in the country is just as packed as we are.”

In the UK they decided to DO SOMETHING about long ER waits – they enacted a rule mandating that patients be seen within four hours of entering the ER.

Essentially, the government rejected our reality and substituted its own.

One response? Keep patients waiting in ambulances outside the ER, so the clock doesn’t start. Another? Rush patients through the ER in order to meet the standard.

At least one doctor has said “Some patients may have died as a result. I don’t think there’s any question about that.”Australia is having problems with long ER waits as well. They followed the Mother Country’s lead.

More than a million and a half Canadians say they can’t find a family doctor. Some towns hold lotteries to determine who gets a doctor. In Norwood, Ontario, “20/20” videotaped a town clerk pulling the names of the lucky winners out of a lottery box. The losers must wait to see a doctor.

Ronald Reagan warned in 1961 what socialized medicine would lead to:

First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then the doctors aren’t equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him you can’t live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go some place else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go.

How long before the Canadian government decides that this will be a good idea?

Shirley Healy, like many sick Canadians, came to America for surgery. Her doctor in British Columbia told her she had only a few weeks to live because a blocked artery kept her from digesting food. Yet Canadian officials called her surgery “elective.”

“The only thing elective about this surgery was I elected to live,” she said.

It’s true that America’s partly profit-driven, partly bureaucratic system is expensive, and sometimes wasteful, but the pursuit of profit reduces waste and costs and gives the world the improvements in medicine that ease pain and save lives.

“[America] is the country of medical innovation. This is where people come when they need treatment,” Dr. Gratzer says.

“Literally we’re surrounded by medical miracles. Death by cardiovascular disease has dropped by two-thirds in the last 50 years. You’ve got to pay a price for that type of advancement.”

Canada and England don’t pay the price because they freeload off American innovation. If America adopted their systems, we could worry less about paying for health care, but we’d get 2009-level care — forever. Government monopolies don’t innovate. Profit seekers do.

We saw this in Canada, where we did find one area of medicine that offers easy access to cutting-edge technology — CT scan, endoscopy, thoracoscopy, laparoscopy, etc. It was open 24/7. Patients didn’t have to wait.

But you have to bark or meow to get that kind of treatment. Animal care is the one area of medicine that hasn’t been taken over by the government. Dogs can get a CT scan in one day. For people, the waiting list is a month.

So not quite a “boiling pit of sewage and death and destruction,” but there’s definitely some death there, some sewage, and I’m sure some destruction. And Fido and Fluffy get more prompt, more complete care than their human masters – and the only difference is who pays, and who makes the care decisions. Governments making decisions about who should live and who shouldn’t, rather than the patients or their families, because government is paying the bills – with the money they extort from those patients and their families, unless those patients and their families don’t actually, you know, pay taxes.

And innovation? Forget it. Directors Czars of Government programs aren’t interested in risk-taking.

UPDATE: Irons in the Fire links to this story you ought to read: Chickenpox Boy Died After Hospital Release

Here’s a taste:

Fabio Alves-Nunes suffered multiple organ failure after a severe reaction to the illness.

His death was the result of a series of “significant failings” by East Surrey Hospital in Redhill, an independent report said.

(My emphasis.) Here’s the kicker, a photo of the boy on the day the hospital initially RELEASED HIM:

Read the whole thing. Then tell me you don’t want to kill someone.

Is that enough “sewage and death and destruction” for you?

Here are some more “associated stories”:

‘Whistleblowers Ignored By NHS Managers’

‘Lives At Risk Due To NHS Target Culture’

‘Hospital Equipment Cleaned In Bathrooms’

And, of course:

‘Shocking’ £350m NHS Consultancy Bill Slammed’

The key graph from that one:

Some £273m of the money spent was not related to patient care, said RCN chief executive Peter Carter.

He added that was the equivalent of 330 fully-staffed 28-bed medical wards, 9,160 experienced staff nurses or 267,647 bed days in an intensive baby care unit.

(My emphasis again.) Hey, it’s not like it’s real money or something . . .

UPDATE:  The original JSKit/Echo comment thread is available here, thanks to John Hardin.

Pitchforks, Torches, Dogs, Tar and Feathers

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So, I see the “Cap and Trade” bill “Pile of s–t” passed the House with the aid of eight “Republican” representatives even though 44 Democrats voted against it. Not surprising in and of itself, but The Washinton Examiner reported on Friday the really blood-boiling news:

On the House floor

By all appearances, the House is about to vote on a very long bill of which it has no completed official copy.

Texas Republican Reps. Joe Barton and Louie Gohmert have just asked the chair whether there exists a complete, updated copy of the Waxman-Markey carbon-cap bill.

“If a bill for which there is no copy were to actually pass this body,” Barton asked, “could the bill without a copy be sent to the Senate for its consideration?”

Through a series of parliamentary inquiries, the Republicans learned that the 300-plus page managers’ amendment, added to the bill last night in the House Rules Committee, has not even been been integrated with the official copy of the 1,090-page bill at the House Clerk’s desk, let alone in any other location. The two documents are side-by-side at the desk as the clerk reads through the instructions in the 300 page document for altering the 1,090 page document.

But they cannot be simply combined, because the amendment contains 300 pages of items like this: “Page 15, beginning line 8, strike paragraph (11)…” How many members of Congress do you suppose have gone through it all to see how it changes the bill?

Global Warming is apparently so urgent that we can’t even wait until members of Congress know what they’re voting on.

Our. Elected. “REPRESENTATIVES.” Voted. On. A. Bill. They. Could. Not. Possibly. Know. The. Contents. Of.

And they PASSED IT.

Oh, and don’t worry – if it passes the Senate you won’t get that promised 5-day “review and comment” period Obama promised during his “Sunlight before Signing” speech. (And is five days enough time to review an 1,100+ page document anyway? Oh, silly me, the House did it in less than 20 hours!)

I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

Quote of the Day – If the Foo Sh!ts Edition

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Quote of the Day – If the Foo Sh!ts Edition

Before the 1994 Republican takeover, Democrats had sixty years of virtually unbroken power in Congress – with substantial majorities most of the time. Can a group of smart people, studying issue after issue for years on end, with virtually unlimited resources at their command, not come up with a single policy that works? Why are they chronically incapable?

One of two things must be true. Either the Democrats are unfathomable idiots, who ignorantly pursue ever more destructive policies despite decades of contrary evidence, or they understand the consequences of their actions and relentlessly carry on anyway because they somehow benefit.

I submit to you they understand the consequences. For many it is simply a practical matter of eliciting votes from a targeted constituency at taxpayer expense; we lose a little, they gain a lot, and the politician keeps his job. But for others, the goal is more malevolent – the failure is deliberate. Don’t laugh. This method not only has its proponents, it has a name: the Cloward-Piven Strategy. It describes their agenda, tactics, and long-term strategy.

American Thinker, 9/28/08 – Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis by James Simpson

Interesting read. I am once again reminded of the warnings of Yuri Bezmenov from the 1980’s. And remember Rahm Emanuel‘s “You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.”

Or that others would thwart, given the time.

(I can hear Markadelphia’s head explode from here!)

“We the people are coming.”

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An open letter to our elected representatives from Arizona resident Janet Contreras, sent to Glenn Beck which he apparently read aloud yesterday. (I don’t listen to Glenn, this was recommended to me.)

I’m a home grown American citizen, 53, registered Democrat all my life. Before the last presidential election I registered as a Republican because I no longer felt the Democratic Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. Now I no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue the issues important to me. There must be someone. Please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me that you are there and that you’re willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written. Please stand up now. You might ask yourself what my views and issues are that I would horribly feel so disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut job am I? Will you please tell me?

Well, these are briefly my views and issues for which I seek representation:

One, illegal immigration. I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders. Close the underground tunnels. Stop the violence and the trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution. P.S., I’m not a racist. This isn’t to be confused with legal immigration.

Two, the TARP bill, I want it repealed and I want no further funding supplied to it. We told you no, but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded 95% repealed. Freeze, repeal.

Three: Czars, I want the circumvention of our checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the czars. No more czars. Government officials answer to the process, not to the president. Stop trampling on our Constitution and honor it.

Four, cap and trade. The debate on global warming is not over. There is more to say.

Five, universal healthcare. I will not be rushed into another expensive decision. Don’t you dare try to pass this in the middle of the night and then go on break. Slow down!

Six, growing government control. I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more. Shrink it down. Mind your own business. You have enough to take care of with your real obligations. Why don’t you start there.

Seven, ACORN. I do not want ACORN and its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated. I also do not want mandatory escrow fees contributed to them every time on every real estate deal that closes. Stop the funding to ACORN and its affiliates pending impartial audits and investigations. I do not trust them with taking the census over with our taxpayer money. I don’t trust them with our taxpayer money. Face up to the allegations against them and get it resolved before taxpayers get any more involved with them. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, hello. Stop protecting your political buddies. You work for us, the people. Investigate.

Eight, redistribution of wealth. No, no, no. I work for my money. It is mine. I have always worked for people with more money than I have because they gave me jobs. That is the only redistribution of wealth that I will support. I never got a job from a poor person. Why do you want me to hate my employers? Why ‑‑ what do you have against shareholders making a profit?

Nine, charitable contributions. Although I never got a job from a poor person, I have helped many in need. Charity belongs in our local communities, where we know our needs best and can use our local talent and our local resources. Butt out, please. We want to do it ourselves.

Ten, corporate bailouts. Knock it off. Sink or swim like the rest of us. If there are hard times ahead, we’ll be better off just getting into it and letting the strong survive. Quick and painful. Have you ever ripped off a Band‑Aid? We will pull together. Great things happen in America under great hardship. Give us the chance to innovate. We cannot disappoint you more than you have disappointed us.

Eleven, transparency and accountability. How about it? No, really, how about it? Let’s have it. Let’s say we give the buzzwords a rest and have some straight honest talk. Please try ‑‑ please stop manipulating and trying to appease me with clever wording. I am not the idiot you obviously take me for. Stop sneaking around and meeting in back rooms making deals with your friends. It will only be a prelude to your criminal investigation. Stop hiding things from me.

Twelve, unprecedented quick spending. Stop it now.

Take a breath. Listen to the people. Let’s just slow down and get some input from some nonpoliticians on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed reading our bills into law. I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant or a violent person. I am a parent and a grandparent. I work. I’m busy. I’m busy. I am busy, and I am tired. I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawn, wash our cars on the weekends and be responsible contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same all while living in the home of the free and land of the brave.

I entrusted you with upholding the Constitution. I believed in the checks and balances to keep from getting far off course. What happened? You are very far off course. Do you really think I find humor in the hiring of a speed reader to unintelligently ramble all through a bill that you signed into law without knowing what it contained? I do not. It is a mockery of the responsibility I have entrusted to you. It is a slap in the face. I am not laughing at your arrogance. Why is it that I feel as if you would not trust me to make a single decision about my own life and how I would live it but you should expect that I should trust you with the debt that you have laid on all of us and our children. We did not want the TARP bill. We said no. We would repeal it if we could. I am sure that we still cannot. There is such urgency and recklessness in all of the recent spending.

From my perspective, it seems that all of you have gone insane. I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back. You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess that you are making. We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on you to bring our concerns to Washington. Our president often knows all the right buzzword is unsustainable. Well, no kidding. How many tens of thousands of dollars did the focus group cost to come up with that word? We don’t want your overpriced words. Stop treating us like we’re morons.

We want all of you to stop focusing on your reelection and do the job we want done, not the job you want done or the job your party wants done. You work for us and at this rate I guarantee you not for long because we are coming. We will be heard and we will be represented. You think we’re so busy with our lives that we will never come for you? We are the formerly silent majority, all of us who quietly work , pay taxes, obey the law, vote, save money, keep our noses to the grindstone and we are now looking up at you. You have awakened us, the patriotic spirit so strong and so powerful that it had been sleeping too long. You have pushed us too far. Our numbers are great. They may surprise you. For every one of us who will be there, there will be hundreds more that could not come. Unlike you, we have their trust. We will represent them honestly, rest assured. They will be at the polls on voting day to usher you out of office. We have cancelled vacations. We will use our last few dollars saved. We will find the representation among us and a grassroots campaign will flourish. We didn’t ask for this fight. But the gloves are coming off. We do not come in violence, but we are angry. You will represent us or you will be replaced with someone who will. There are candidates among us when hewill rise like a Phoenix from the ashes that you have made of our constitution.

Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian. Understand this. We don’t care. Political parties are meaningless to us. Patriotic Americans are willing to do right by us and our Constitution and that is all that matters to us now. We are going to fire all of you who abuse power and seek more. It is not your power. It is ours and we want it back. We entrusted you with it and you abused it. You are dishonorable. You are dishonest. As Americans we are ashamed of you. You have brought shame to us. If you are not representing the wants and needs of your constituency loudly and consistently, in spite of the objections of your party, you will be fired. Did you hear? We no longer care about your political parties. You need to be loyal to us, not to them. Because we will get you fired and they will not save you. If you do or can represent me, my issues, my views, please stand up. Make your identity known. You need to make some noise about it. Speak up. I need to know who you are. If you do not speak up, you will be herded out with the rest of the sheep and we will replace the whole damn congress if need be one by one. We are coming. Are we coming for you? Who do you represent? What do you represent? Listen. Because we are coming. We the people are coming.

I hope Ms. Contreras represents a growing number of voters, I really do.

Please pardon me, though, if I doubt.

Glenn Beck interviewed the author today, I think. From the transcript:

May I, may I make a prediction. Your letter, in the next 72 hours, will be a letter that is circulated through a good portion of this country on the Internet. I have a feeling your letter may become a rallying cry.

Just doing my part.

We the People are coming.