On Bloggingheads, David Frum tells us that Obama is offering to have us clean a dirty stable that is in fact dirty, when it comes to reforming the government's intervention into healthcare. He makes this observation at about 29 minutes +/- 2 or so.

What I can't figure out is why all these smart "liberul" people can't figure out the problem is that the President is only handing out toothbrushes and bullsh!t for cleaning tools.

If you want to reform healthcare such that costs go down:

1) Limit "unlucky judgement call" malpractice tort damage awards to real damages, increasing to a low order multiple of that as bad judgement becomes inexplicable other than to be negligence. Punitive damages should be limited to cases of criminal malpractice where a conviction has been secured, and payment delayed until appeals are exhausted. At the discretion of the judge and/or jury, the losing attorney should pay.

Not the losing client, the losing attorney.

2) Competition across statelines should be allowed, with out-of-state companies not required to entertain local states' pet insurance mandates.

3) The money's spent on an individual's healthcare whether it is the person's own money or an employment "bennie", should be equally taxed or not taxed, whether or not it is an employment benefit. This will cost me money, I don't care, it's fair.

In the event an uninsured patient contracts something they will likely not live to pay for, then we have to decide that when the charity otherwise runs out, we'll keep them from pain as best we are able, but that they will be let to die from their illness without treatment which is possible. Then we need to agree that mandated treatment is not charity, it is socialism/communism, and it is never worth the price in the long run, and that in any case it is the political decision of the states and never the national government.

Unless, of course, an Article V procedure changes things. Fat chance.

Via Instapundit, this is so obvious it should never need be said.

WILL WILKINSON writes: It ought to be less embarrassing to have been influenced by Ayn Rand than by Karl Marx.

The military must not face book.

Says Bob Owens in this post to Pajamas Media.

My reply is below the quote, lightly editied:

“Social relationships established on Craigslist and MySpace have led to homicides, and a relationship status change on Facebook led to murder.”

Well obviously we have to make it contrary to good unit order to have social relationships…

#3 of the Pajamas Media posting guidelines prohibits me from treating your ludicrous post as it fully deserves, Mr Owen.

When genuine failures of OPSEC can be demonstrated, educate or punish the offenders as appropriate. The most that can be done which is reasonable is the most you should do.

@ 19. RM3 Frisker FTN

If the jihadis decided to attack essentially any elementary school near a big base they’d accomplish much the same thing. I suppose you and Owen now feel the need to take the fatuous step of prohibiting service personnel from having kids?

@ 20. Ecosium:

You are correct in theory, I admit I don’t think the sort of alienation of the military from general society that leads to increased tyranny will be a result of this even in the long run.

@ 21. Bill Quick:
“As usual, the classic conservative response to an issue of security is More Controls! More Regulations! More Bans! Less Liberty!”

There is nothing conservative about being stupid. Stupidity is the liberals province. What is conservative in this country is the Revolutionary Spirit of 1776.

You are correct Elementary schools should be harder targets.

The bottom line is, that in spite of the chin high sewage spewed by the MSM instead of either raw facts or reasoned analysis, the war effort in Iraq and at least up until now in Afghanistan enjoyed good recruitment and re-up rates. Treating the troops like utter morons and abject mushrooms will change that in a hurry.

Mr. Owens’ suggestion is a profoundly poor one.

Yours, TDP, ml, msl, & pfpp

The mechanism to reply to a reply on Q and O is broken, so I'm replying here to a reply to this post by Dale Franks.

If such forces as desire it can peacefully achieve an amendment which permits such a separation, I believe I’ll abide it. Absent such an amendment I think I will not.

how can those two diametrically opposed philosophies be reconciled?

The two sides make each other hurting and dead until one side gives up first. What, you don’t think that how it was done in 1783 ?

Coercing one to live within the model state of the other would be to deprive a large portion of the population of its liberty.

The thing is, they are not at liberty to have what they want. What they want is not to live in liberty, but to enjoy the fruits of taking license. When what a person wants is not their’s to have, their taking it is theft–and ultimately, lethal force can justly be used to prevent such a felony. Let them have their New New Harmony if they can muster the wit to build it, and we’ll run a pool for the date of it collapsing.

There is nothing wrong with the peaceable dissolution of the Union or the relationship between the states to be changed.

Oh I think there’s a great deal wrong with the peaceable dissolution of the Union in the manner Franks suggests, and the the relationship between the states and each other and the national government has certainly changed–not for the better. It would not be a better thing in outcome if it had been done by amendment, but it would at least be genuinely legitimate in the contect of the organic law.

but Thomas Jefferson said the several states should go their separate ways if they were to decide the Union did not work in their mutual benefit

Thos. J said a lot of things. He had an intemperate nature to go with his red hair–he was enamored of the French Mob, and thought little of the ill said of them was true, although the tumbrels had been rolling for a while–his judgement is suspect in that light. If it improves liberty, I will support it, what Franks speaks of will not improve it, so I will oppose it. If it is not done according to the civil law–the process of amendment–thenit surely should be opposed in keeping with the law of war.

it is interesting to note that the Constitution is silent on the issue of secession

It is certainly is not silent on the matter. Powers are given over to the national government, and there is no mechanism therein for their retrieval to the states–except parenthetically by amendment–so there is no mechanism for the retrieval at this time nor was there such in 1860.

The 10th amendment is no mechanism for seccession, because it excludes from the free exercise by the states the powers given to the national government–those powers are the states no longer. What powers the states retain they do not need to secede to exercise, because they already have them without seccession.

Since the states are not explicitly prevented from seceded by the Constitution

Yes they are, as I have demonstrated. What powers the national government has– absent an amendment to the contrary– it retains, and the laws made pertaining to those powers are the supreme law of the land, the pretensions of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

the federal government is not given the power to suppress secession,

Oh yeah? Such a power given to the national government follows:

“To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;”

And a duty given to the President:

“The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;”

and the oath of that office:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

The national government is not merely given the power to do it, the President is not at liberty not to do it.

it is allowed through the Tenth Amendment.

The 10th amendment creates no new power to secede unilaterally for the states. It merely says powers not given to the national government haven’t been given, not that when they were given the states didn’t really mean it or that the supremacy clause or other clauses I’ve quoted against secession above were null and void.

I also vowed to defend the Constitution, and I have no moral reservation about the idea of secession.

If, absent an amendment to permit it, you have no moral reservations about secession, then when you took that vow–in my view–you did so in a cloud of ignorance or deceit.

But it should always remain a viable option, as it is a powerful tool for the states to retain some power.

It is a legal, viable, option now by virtue of the 5th amendment. I think it would improve nothing if so exercised as to make real Franks vision reality, in fact I think it would be tragic.

If you haven’t noticed, the states in fact retain great power now–RealID is all but dead as a doornail. If it were pressed, I shouldn’t be surprised to see state troopers or if need be the state militias telling the TSA goons to depart their screening stations.

And I would welcome that, the commerce clause is solely about customs fees between the states, it is not a plenipotentiary grant of power for the Congress to control whatever might brush up against what might cross a state line.

Similarly, the customs duties the national government may require on goods crossing into the US are not about Progressively influencing what recreational pharmaceuticals we consume, they can only be about supporting national industries–sadly, the Founders believed in Mercantilism as an economic policy–and about those fees being the same throughout all ports of entry.

That’s one reason I’m astonished Franks wrote this piece.

As far as I can tell, he long ago declared he was on the pinko, Constitution be d@mned side of things, he just whinges about the parts of it he doesn't like.

Hello Again.

Thought I ought to rededicate myself to this effort, especially since the youngest is pretty reliably sleeping through the night.

Oh, yeah.

One hand on the ground, one hand in space.

Dr. Paul Broun's election and first House of Representatives vote is the best political news I've had since 9:47PM, Nov. 7th, 2004.

He voted for prohibiting federal funds from being used to prosecute federal drug offenders in states where the alleged use has been legalized by the state in question.

The vote reflects Broun's promise to apply these tests to legislation:

Is it constitutional and a proper function of government? Is it morally correct? Is it something we really need? Is it something we can afford?

I'd like about 235 more Repesentatives like him, about 65 Senators, and a like President, please.

Dave Barbee is the chair of the Republican effort in the district Broun represents. He is quoted as saying,

"Either you're with the team or you're separate from the team," said Barbee, who backed Broun's opponent in the runoff. "If he doesn't follow the [conservative] mantra he campaigned on, he'll be called home."

Sounds like he voted just the way he said he would to me.

A genuinely conservative vote--hacking at a mouldered branch.

Polywell gets funding.

Probably.

Hat Tip to Instapundit. Dr. Bussard's Polywell reactor may get funding. I've mentioned before that this sounds a good thing.

Fully private investment would be better, but the potential payoff to cost ratio is so high, and in terms of California's budge, the cost so low, this will do.

If supporting any sort of government funding for such a thing sounds to you like an inconsistent thing for a libertarian to do, I would like to suggest you consider that prudence is a virtue, and that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good.

Update, July 29th, 2007.
This was a hoax. The guvernator never heard anything about it. The hoaxter posted the "news" by GoDaddy to stay anonymous.