We thank gentle reader and honorary co-blogger JB in CA for pointing us to the thoughtful column by humorist Kurt Luchs posted today at First Things. In sum, enraptured backers of political candidates offering "change" should consider well the lesson of history and of The Lord of the Rings: that humans do poorly when they assume power.
Sadly, the party of limited government doesn't seem to be listening to the message well, either. Still, one can at least make a choice between the candidate of a party that has at some points acknowledged the limits of humans to change things politically, versus the one for which no promise is too great, as in "I think health care is a right."
7 comments:
What always gets me is that those that who claim that health care is a human right are disingenuous on (at least) two fronts. First, what they desire is not health care, but affordable health care. Basic health care is available for any person without regard for their ability to pay. Secondly, and in my mind more tellingly, what is desired is health care for all Americans, not for all humans. Americans are already the recipients of far more health care than the vast majority of the world's population. I hear no clamor from the left for increased funding for mosquito nets, anti-malarial drugs, or dare I say the reintroduction of DDT for Africa. Surely these steps would pay far bigger dividends in the crusade for health care as a right than any plan that involves dollar one for America's health care.
Nice! We wish we'd written that.
Writing something that makes SWNID envious, I'm never washing this keyboard again!
Three of four, you clearly do not actually listen to the left (to be distinguished from elected liberals) very much if you think there is no clamor for mosquito nets & malarial drugs in the third world.
If anything, the Bush Administration's call to increase funding for these things was the primary thing we thought he got right.
Let's be honest - Obama doesn't have a monopoly on making unrealistic promises. McCain promised today to "create millions of high-paying jobs through tax cuts that spur economic growth."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-mccain28oct28,0,5450046.story
Not just millions of jobs - millions of high-paying jobs. Very impressive - especially since Bush's tax cuts certainly haven't created all those jobs over the past several years.
Here is an article that I thought was great. It is an article about media bias, but it isn't from talk radio. It is from ABC.com. I can hardly believe that they would post it on the web.
I apologize for a comment not directly related to the topic. But, I thought it was something SWNID readers would like.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Story?id=6099188&page=1
Brad:
I am not saying that those on the left do not care at all about poorer nations. That would be like a liberal painting all Republicans as rich fat cats or uneducated rednecks, and we both know that would NEVER happen. But please note that it was the left praising President Bush's actions, not calling for it. I'm sorry, I mean "the Bush administration," you can't bring yourself to give the president any credit can you? Also, you left out the most effective malarial remedy, DDT. Also, also, my point was regarding the argument that health care is a right, and yes, that argument comes from the left. I will grant you that it is unfair to lump the entire left together as it has many different factions. The abortion lobby, the environmental lobby (this itself ranges from reasonable to crazy), the anti-gun lobby, the secular humanist division, the anti-war division, the socialist division, as well as the "help the poor" division and other equally noble ideals. Thus the extended primary season for D's. But, that does not mean that you can separate yourself from your elected leaders. And I'm not talking about 1 or 2 nutjobs that somehow got into office. read Kucinich) Because of the great diversity of pet projects on the left, the leaders find themselves trying to appease a fair number of, in my opinion, unsound ideas. Such as, health care as a right.
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