Category Archives: libertarianism

Rabid ObamaCare Bureaucrats Add Insult To Injury

Barack Obama, Government, Healthcare, libertarianism, Regulation

I hope doctors (and patients) for ObamaCare enjoy the 140,000 added codes into which they’ll have to categorize care rendered. These include 9 new codes for injuries from the common macaw! You’re more likely to be felled by an Obama-directed drone than by that gentle hook bill, who exists in captivity.

Rand Paul (courtesy of William Bigelow of Breitbart.com) lampooned the latest revelations about the law that keeps giving:

Now I know you’ve heard some bad things about ObamaCare, and I haven’t been a big fan of ObamaCare but, you know, the government just wants to take care of you; they don’t think you’re smart enough to make these decisions, okay?
I’m a physician, and when you come in to see me, I put down a little diagnostic code, and there were 18,000 of these, but under Obamacare they’re going to keep you healthier, because now there’s going to be 140,000 codes. Included among these codes will be 312 new codes for injuries from animals, 72 new codes for injuries just from birds, 9 new codes from injuries from the macaw. The macaw? I’ve asked physicians all over the country, “Have you ever seen an injury from a macaw?”
There’s 2 new injury codes under Obamacare from injuries sustained from a turtle. You might say turtles can be dangerous, but why do you have to have two codes where your doctor needs to inform the government whether you’ve been struck by a turtle or bitten by a turtle? There is a new code for- I see some alcohol out there- walking into a lamppost; there’s also a code for walking into a lamppost; Subsequent Encounter. I guess that’s if you don’t learn. There is a code for injuries sustained from burning water skis. Your government’s just trying to take care of you.

These regulations will further throttle healthcare.

UPDATE IV: Dying For Nothing Day (You’re For The Military, But Not For Liberty)

Bush, Classical Liberalism, Homeland Security, Just War, libertarianism, Nationhood, Propaganda, The State, War, Welfare

It is the habit on the Memorial Day weekend to thank uniformed men for their sacrifice. My sympathies go out to Americans who fight phantoms in far-flung destinations. I’m sorry they’ve been snookered into living, dying and killing for a lie. But I cannot honor that lie, or those who give their lives for it, and take the lives of others in America’s many recreational wars. I mourn for them, as I have from day one, but I can’t honor them.

I am sorry for those who’ve enlisted thinking they’d fight for their countrymen and were subjected to one backdoor draft after another in the cause of illegal, unjust wars and assorted informal attacks. My heart hurts for you, but I won’t worship at Moloch’s feet to make you feel better.

I honor those sad, sad draftees to Vietnam and to WW II. The first valiant batch had no option; the same goes for the last, which fought a just war. I grew up in Israel, so I honor those men who stopped Arab armies from overrunning our homes. In 1973, we came especially close to annihilation.

I can legitimately claim to know of flesh-and-blood heroes who fought so that I could emerge from the bomb shelter (in the wars of 67 and 73) and proceed with my kid life. I always stood in their honor and wept when the sirens wailed once a year. Every Israeli stops on that day, wherever he is, and stands still in remembrance. We would have died or been overrun by Arabs if not for those brave men who defended the homeland, and not some far-away imperial project.

But can we Americans, in 2013, make such a claim? Can we truly claim that someone killed an Iraqi or Afghani or a Libyan so that we can … do what? Remind me?

“What I learned growing up in a war-torn region is that a brave nation fights because it must; a cowardly one fights because it can.”

UPDATED (5/26): GIVE GOVERNMENT A LEG, RIDE WITH DUBYUH. Thomas DiLorenzo nails it:

That’s how emailer John D. describes the Marc Levin (“The Grate One”) radio show Friday night during which he “played nationalistic and patriotic music nonstop” during the third hour, motivating “a weeping veteran” to call in to say “thank you for all you do, Mark.” One envisions a “weeping veteran” who lost both legs or an arm or two in Iraq calling in to thank the neocon propagandist/shill for the military-industrial complex for making it all possible. It’s kind of like those old pictures of legless veterans with their new iron “legs” jogging with President Dub-Yuh and smiling away at the “honor”he bestowed on them.
Get ready for all the chubby chickenhawk neocons like Levin and Limbaugh, who never even tried on a military uniform, to produce an explosion of war propaganda tomorrow.

UPDATE II: “For The Love of A Brother-In-Arms, And ‘Big Brother’ Be Damned.” Robert Glisson was once asked by myself to write an op-ed for Barely A Blog about the “Patriot Guard Riders.” I prefaced his op-ed—which I entitled “For The Love of A Brother-In-Arms, And ‘Big Brother’ Be Damned”—with this comment: “I do not identify with the military mission, but who can fault the humanity of the effort?”

It’s a shame Robert failed to remember the distinction when engaging with boorish warmongers on my Facebook Timeline.

UPDATE III: DITTOHEAD DAY. The military is still a government job; a career path with huge risks. How fast the so-called small government types forget this immutable truth. From the appropriately titled “Your Government’s Jihadi Protection Program” (which the military has become):

“When Republicans and conservatives cavil about the gargantuan growth of government, they target the state’s welfare apparatus and spare its war machine. Unbeknown to these factions, the military is government. The military works like government; is financed like government, and sports many of the same inherent malignancies of government. Like government, it must be kept small. Conservative can’t coherently preach against the evils of big government, while excluding the military mammoth.”—ILANA (“Your Government’s Jihadi Protection Program.”)

UPDATE IV: IF YOU DON’T GET THIS; YOU’RE FOR THE MILITARY, BUT NOT FOR LIBERTY. From “Classical Liberalism And State Schemes”:

We have a solemn [negative] duty not to violate the rights of foreigners everywhere to life, liberty, and property. But we have no duty to uphold their rights. Why? Because (supposedly) upholding the negative rights of the world’s citizens involves compromising the negative liberties of Americans—their lives, liberties, and livelihoods. The classical liberal government’s duty is to its own citizens, first.
“philanthropic” wars are transfer programs—the quintessential big-government projects, if you will. The warfare state, like the welfare state, is thus inimical to the classical liberal creed. Therefore, government’s duties in the classical liberal tradition are negative, not positive; to protect freedoms, not to plan projects. As I’ve written, “In a free society, the ‘vision thing’ is left to private individuals; civil servants are kept on a tight leash, because free people understand that a ‘visionary’ bureaucrat is a voracious one and that the grander the government (‘great purposes’ in Bush Babble), the poorer and less free the people.”

UPDATED: Hillary’s Husband Would Have Fired Her

Affirmative Action, Foreign Policy, Gender, Hillary Clinton, libertarianism, Paleolibertarianism

Les Aspin. President Clinton. Mogadishu, Somalia, October 1993.

Rand Paul takes us back to “Black Hawk Down,” in drawing parallels between the way Hillary Clinton has escaped responsibility for refusing security to her underlings in Benghazi, and the fate of Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Defense Les Aspin, who too refused “tanks and armor-plated vehicles to reinforce the mission in Somalia,” a month prior to the deaths there of 18 American soldiers, the wounding of 80, and the loss of two American helicopters.

Via The Washington Times:

Two months later, after less than a year of service, Aspin resigned as secretary of defense.
Though Mr. Clinton cited personal reasons for Aspin’s resignation, it was reported widely that he had asked him to step down. Aspin did ultimately accept responsibility for his decisions, saying, “The ultimate responsibility for the safety of our troops is mine. I was aware of the request and could have directed that a deployment order be drawn up. I did not, and I accept responsibility for the consequences.”
By refusing to grant requests for weapons and reinforcement in Somalia in 1993, Aspin made a bad decision, admitted his bad decision, accepted responsibility and eventually left his position as a result of it.
When Ambassador Stevens, Libya’s site-security team commander Lt. Col. Andrew Wood and others made repeated requests for increased security and resources in Benghazi, those requests were ignored. No one denies that these requests crossed Mrs. Clinton’s desk. But virtually everyone involved has denied that they should accept responsibility for the tragedy in Benghazi.

Has Sen. R. Paul forgotten that Hillary is a girl, and thus would get preferential treatment, especially in the Obama administration?

Hillary had no time for the Benghazi embassy, whose defense she entrusted to a local militia called the “February 17th Martyrs Brigade,” Paul told Mike Huckabee. On the other hand, she threw money around on frivolities. For example: $100K on sending an American-Indian comedian to India on a “Make Chai Not War” tour.

Hillary also spent $80 million on a consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, which was designed in such a way as to rule out its effective defense.

On and on.

UPDATED (5/20): In reply to Myron Pauli on the post’s Facebook thread:

“The problem is foreign policy, as this writer has repeated in numerous articles and blog posts (and an RT TV appearance). However, from the fact that foreign policy is the crux of the matter here—it doesn’t follow that derelictions such as Hillary’s should be ignored by those libertarians who claim to be in the business of thinking and writing about these matters. As I keep telling you, this either/or thinking in our circles amounts to plain laziness. The reason Rand is resonating so well is that he is in there, addressing each matter with sophisticated arguments and pointed references to history.”

O’Reilly Embarrasses Our John Stossel. Yes, It Happened.

Crime, GUNS, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, libertarianism, Political Correctness, Race

It doesn’t often happen that Bill O’Reilly makes our John Stossel look, well, silly. But “Billy” did just that (April 31). I can’t find the TV clip, but when asked to explain why blacks were vastly overrepresented in violent crime statistics, Mr. Stossel, essentially, came up with the standard libertarian reply: The state made them do the crimes. As I put this reasoning in “Beware of ‘Absolut’ Libertarian Lunacy”:

“For the sins of man, hard leftists blame society, and hard-core libertarians saddle the state. ‘The State made me do it’ is how Stossel’s social determinism can be summed-up.” (June 6, 2009)

Stossel Matters Segment
What is the root cause of violence in Chicago?
Guests: John Stossel

Last year Chicago had more than 500 murders; the vast majority of both victims and killers were black males. The Factor asked John Stossel to evaluate the stats. “It’s wrong to focus on Chicago,” Stossel asserted, “because other cities are worse and it’s also wrong to focus on race. It’s much more your fault because if you weren’t supporting the drug war the drug laws would go away and most of this crime would go away.” Stossel turned to the fact that most violent crimes are committed by blacks and Hispanics. “Monica Crowley talked about the wreckage of liberalism and you talk about welfare chaos. We’ve sent the message that you’re a victim and you can’t participate in the white capitalist world. People used to lift themselves out of the ghetto but now they’re being told that they can’t.” …

I wonder if John Stossel “enfeebles his own kids with PC pieties,” rather than warn them of dangers they may face, as described in “Sacrificing Kids To PC Pietism.”