A thought experiment

It's the last game of the season, and you need a win to insure your team makes the playoffs. Your star running back, who is retiring, is 105 yards away from breaking the league rushing record. Your game plan calls for a strong rushing attack behind your offensive line.

But when you line up, inexplicably, the other team is putting a slow cornerback one on one against your fastest wide receiver. They keep doing it, even though you are able to complete every pass to him, regardless of down or yardage.

Do you stick with the game plan and try to get your running back the record? Or do you exploit the weakness for the easy and sure win?

So put this experiment into political terms. You are gearing up for the biggest fight for SCOTUS of all time, rivaling the Bork hearings. You receive a list from your political opponents of acceptable candidates that includes a name of someone that you know will make Scalia look like a liberal. But you are the only one who knows. What do you do?

The Mier's pick

Oh my God, I have never seen such hysteria from people I have considered very intelligent. National Review and Rush Limbaugh are having fits over this selection, as if Bush has some obligation to vette his choices through the conservative hierarchy before making the announcement. Here is an example of several letters I felt compelled to send to various folks today:

In the last 24 hours, all I hear is everyone whining about how they don’t know Miers, and why didn’t Bush nominate someone that has a record that conservatives can see and be comfortable with. This is a failure of perspective. Everyone is forgetting that from Bush’s perspective, she is a completely known quantity, and he knows her better than all the other possibilities, including Luttig and Brown.

I think that he is KEENLY aware of the importance of this nomination, and he has selected someone he is certain will be a conservative justice. When coupled with a desire to put someone on who is NOT a judge and understands the global war on terrorism, the choice is obvious. This isn’t about picking a fight and humiliating Democrats, it is about making sure that we win the real battle, changing the court. With all due respect, Bush job isn’t to pick someone that all the conservative political wonks can look at and say “Damn right!”, it is to pick someone HE knows will be a safe conservative vote for the next 20 years.

What 99% of conservatives are doing is getting wobbly, because they are so used to getting beaten by Democrats that they assume they will be betrayed. They assume this, when there is no evidence that it is happening. They do know that Miers is the person that recommended Brown, Owens, Luttig, Estrada, and Roberts to the president in the first place, don’t they?

When will the Media be held accountable for killing poor people?

During the Mike Brown testimony yesterday, I found his most interesting statement to be that he did not send FEMA workers into New Orleans, because the news reports were saying that it was a war zone.

What amazing irony. The media (I am including Fox here, since that was what I watched mostly, and their reporters were just as culpable) reported hearsay, rumors of shootings, rapes, riots and general bedlam. I saw one reporter interview a reporter from another network who relayed a story from her sister about a man raping a 13 year old girl in the Superdome, then slitting her throat, only to be beaten to death by an angry mob.

In this midst of this, we have crazed reporters standing on bridges saying, "When will help arrive? How much longer will this insanity be allowed before help arrives?"

So now we find out that the media was reporting the basest rumor as fact, and FEMA with its unarmed civilian employees assumed the media was responsibly reporting, and waited for military assistance.

What angers me the most is that contrary to the cries of the black leadership, the only racism on display was that of the media. They assumed that black people, deprived of basic services, would resort to savagry and canniblism. They then reported this "truth" without any proof or sourcing. The ultimate racist point that they were making is that you can't trust black people to act with dignity during a crisis, therefore we must continue to "control" them through our social programs. And then they echo this with cries of shock that the government response is not rapid enough, when the hesitation was directly due to their own shoddy reporting.

There is a scandal out there all right, but it is not the Bush administration or even Gov. Blanco. It is the media. They need to put down their microphone and get to work cleaning up the mess they created.

The War in Iraq

On Monday, while driving to work I was listening to WMMB here in Melbourne, Florida. Bill Mick had his normal Monday guests of Bruce Wexler (Chairman of the Brevard Libertaian party) and Aaron Lyons (a local attorney). Usually, I find myself in agreement with Bruce and Aaron, but this day I found myself in violent disagreement, especially Bruce.

Bruce is a classic libertarian, and I assume this includes the belief that it is inappropriate for the US to involve itself in foreign engagements. I missed the first part of the discussion where context was established, and joined it when Bruce was strenuously arguing his position against the war, that its justification was based on falsehoods, the justifications have been changed "6 times since then" and that we should pull out now to keep from losing any more troops.

Aaron had a less strident position, but he had two points. First was wondering when you start down the wrong path, do you keep continuing down it? Second, how do we hold our government accountable?

Let me address Aaron's points first, then delve into Bruce's. First of all, governments are not accountable, almost by definition. In all of history, governments themselves are never held to account for their actions, except by other governments in the case of war. Germany was held accountable for their invasion of neighbors (not the Holocaust, mind you!) only through the exercise of military might by other governments. The Chinese government has never been held accountable for Tiananmen Square. In a democracy, the only accountability is at the ballot box.

So theoretically, if enough people think Iraq was a mistake, they can vote out of office all those who voted for it. But this is the only recourse, governmental accountability is a myth and one of the key reasons why so many of us oppose big government and prefer the use of private enterprise to solve the national problems. Private concerns can be held accountable in the courts and in the marketplace. Government can not.

Which brings us to Aaron's other point, and Bruce's key position. Is the War in Iraq a mistake? When will we win? What is our exit strategy?

Let me start by saying that not only is the War in Iraq not a mistake, it is already over and we won. Let me repeat, IT IS OVER AND WE WON! The war ended when we assumed control of the territory and administration of Iraq, ending the regime of Saddam and the Baath party. What we are arguing about now is our continued military presence in a country that was defeated and is now an ally.

When will we get out? Well I don't know, I suspect never. It has been sixty years since we defeated Germany and Japan, when will we get out of those countries? It has been almost 50 years since the cease fire in Korea, yet we still maintain a large armed force in that country. You can make the same paper tiger arguments regarding those conflicts just as easily as Bruce is making regarding Iraq.

So what was the point of going into Iraq? Bruce is either surprisingly uninformed or being purposely disingenuous. He claims that the reasons have changed 6 times since the start of the war. If you do the proper research (web searches will do, it is very simple), you will find that both the President and Dr. Rice presented 4 reasons for attacking Iraq. These reasons can be found in speeches and text published prior to the start of the war. All four of the reasons were considered equally valid, however the WMD point appeared to be the most compelling and had the most evidence supporting it.

1) WMDs - This is the reason everyone remembers, and it was clearly the most justified. We knew Saddam had at the least had them at one time, since he had publicly used them. Saddam joins Harry Truman as the only two modern leaders to order the actual use of WMDs. Even after all the dust had settled, the Duefler report showed that while not having current WMD capability, Saddam intended to reconstitute his arsenal once international sanctions had been removed. This brings us to point #2...

2) UN Resolutions - Iraq had successfully thumbed its nose at the UN sanctions, and Saddam had personally profited from its corruption. Bush made the challenge to the UN, if you are to remain relevent, how long will you allow him to ignore you? I personally couldn't give a damn if the UN dissolves tomorrow, but quite a few institutions world wide operate on continued viability of the UN as an agent, including relief efforts and peacekeeping in other areas of the world. As pointed out in #1, if the UN was allowed to fail, then the fall of sanctions would have given Saddam free reign to rebuild his arsenal. This caused a threat related to #3...

3) Terrorism - It has been proven that Iraq had active ties to terrorist organizations. Terrorists resided within the borders of Iraq without interference. Saddam was funding Hamas suicide bombers. Iraqi intelligence had active contacts with Al Queda. These are not points of conflict, and the 9/11 report details it. The only point that has not been proven is Iraq ties to 9/11. This point is largely irrelevent, since the principle threat was the proliferation of weapons and technical knowledge (an important factor that remained within Iraq, even without actual WMDs). The cozy relationship between Iraq and terrorists was not something that could be tolerated in a region of such strategic importance. Finally, we had #4...

4) Totalitarianism - Iraq was a purposely designed Stalinist state. Saddam admired Stalin and adopted his methods to maintain control over his country. People that complain about how many Iraqis have been killed since we arrived should be reminded of the mass graves uncovered in southern and northern Iraq containing thousands of bodies. The foreign terrorists now attacking the citizens of Iraq for daring to try a democratic (instead of theocratic) government are killing a small percentage of those killed by Saddam's secret police.

The bottom line is that human nature is as it always is. We forget the history of the situation in the face of immediate media publication of today's news. Iraq was a destabilizing influence in a region of the world that is critical to our national interest. The cost of the war in dollars has been ultimately insignificant to the national economic growth spurred by 3 years of stability brought to the region. And all of the reasons given above were outlined by the administration prior to the war. The selective memory of people such as Bruce Wexler is a journey into personal policy preferences and emotional reaction. But the facts tell a different story.

How to fix the energy problem

Ox said nothing about the UK. The UK can set their own policy. They are a different country with different geographies and geologies. For example, the UK produces considerable oil from the north sea and has an excellent rail system. This is a bonus for public transportation and a negative for terrorism.

The US is much larger, much more spread out and public transportation is mostly impractical, due to the incredible price tag for providing service to such large areas. In DC alone, the cost to extend the subway system to the airport is going to cost $10 billion.

As for using taxes as a mechanism to control human behavior, it has been tried in the past and it will be tried in the future, I am not naive. It has worked 100% of the time as a disincentive (cigarettes are a good example) and also 100% of the time it has become a drag on the economy. If your economic policy is growth (not everyone agrees with this policy) then increased taxation is a poor choice.

Conservation is an important component of the answer, but it can't be the only component, since industrialized growth worldwide has increased demand to the point the increased capacity must be provided. The solution is a combination of the following, and I recommend that ALL of them should be implemented:

1) Increased domestic production by utilizing all 4 of the major untapped domestic reserves (ANWR, Santa Barbara straight, Florida gulf coast, Wyoming). The result of tapping all four will increase domestic production by 5-10 million barrels a day for 30 to 40 years.

2) Increased conservtion efforts. There isn't much that can be done here, or needs to be done, since economic forces tend to drive these efforts (people take the bus instead). Some cultural changes, such as legalization of telecommuting in the federal sector could help considerably.

3) Increased use of alternative fuels. Methanol can be produced and sold as fuel for an end price of $2.20 a gallon. Previously, there was no incentive since the cost of gasoline was lower, but now it becomes economically feasible.

4) Research and development into new technologies, including hybrids and hydrogen fuel cells. Fortunately, we are close to release of fuel cell technologies, since the Bush adminstration began funding the research in 2000. The problem with these technologies is they are still too expensive. The cost of a hybrid far outweighs the savings in fuel costs right now, for example.

5) Conversion of power production from oil to nuclear. Nuclear power technology is the only 100% renewable energy source available currently, until they figure out controlled fusion.

6) Build more refineries domestically. We have not increased refining capacity in the last 30 years.

7) Maintain a strategic gasoline reserve in addition to a crude oil reserve.

8) Federally mandate a single environmental policy for gasoline blends to allow a single blend to be produced for the entire country, instead of 40 blends.

9) Treat oil production and refining as a strategic resource to remove foreign interest in our domestic production. The Venezuelan ownership of Citgo is going to cause us more problems in the future.

10) Remove all taxes on gasoline and replace with a national sales tax, since gasoline taxes are an inherent disincentive to important and unequal segments of the economy. For example, trucking companies are penalized, while financial services firms are not.

Update: Ironically, this was written in response to someone advocating a national boycott on 9/1/2005. When 9/1/2005 actually arrived, the news was about Hurricane Katrina, not a gasoline boycott. The short term result of Katrina was the increased emphasis on #2 and #8, both of which helped ease the shortage problems, despite month long disruptions of refining and gulf oil production. Also #1, #5 and #6 are now part of the national debate.

Health care in the US

The reason we have so much trouble with insurance companies, is that it is one of the few segments of our society where free market economics do not apply. You are set up into a situation where you do not get to make a cost/benefit decision regarding the value of the treatment vs whether you want to continue to live with the condition. Since there is no competitive force at work, the providers and the insurance companies are free to establish a price fixing scheme (called euphamistically, fair and reasonable cost).

This is why the concept of health savings accounts are so important, since it puts the ultimate decision regarding how much you are willing to pay for treatment in your hands. If you want the fancy hospital bed and the best surgeon and are willing to pay a premium, then that is your choice. Just like some people choose to buy BMWs and some choose to buy 15 year old used Toyotas.

The irony is that this change would benefit both the medical profession and the consumer, as evidenced by the fastest growing segment of the health care industry, cosmetic surgery. This is the one area that is largely untouched by insurance companies, and the profits for doctors are way up, the costs are way down, and the customers are utilizing the services in record numbers. It is successful because people are electing to spend their own money for breast implants and Lasik, and will do what consumers always do. They shop around for the best deal.

Catatrophic insurance is the only area where health insurance makes sense. The same way you pay insurance in case your house is destroyed in a fire, but you don't call them up when you need to paint the garage door. You just go to Lowe's to see if they have paint on sale.

Also, if you put the premiums for health insurance and medicare into a private account that you managed, then you would have considerable funds built up from the time you were young and healthy, by the time you are old and sick.

Also, the costs of those treatments would be considerably less than they are now, due to competition.

I got a bill for having a kidney stone treatment once by mistake. It was for $21,000 for 30 minutes of ultrasound. This wasn't the cost the insurance company was going to pay, they were only going to pay $3500. But if I was paying my own way, they would have tried to charge me that. Well, if I had been shopping for my own care, I would have demanded to know the cost up front and headed to Orlando where the lower cost machine is located.