I recently commented on a post by Dr. Stacy Beller Stryer at Dr. Val’s new digs.  Today, Dr. Stryer responded.  Before I get started, I’d like to thank both of them for taking time out of their schedules to respond.  That said, I was somewhat dismayed by its failure to address the concerns I raised.

Dr. Stryer said:

Indian Cowboy comments that he is a member of the “current generation of medical students,” where evidence-based medicine is important. Does this mean that we old-timers (yes, I am an ancient 45 years old), don’t practice medicine based on results of quality studies and proof of what actually works?

I implied nothing of the sort, I was making a cultural reference to the fact that ‘evidence-based medicine’ has become a buzzword in recent years, which is plain to see by the way I described it: “It has been beaten through the current generation of medical students’ heads that this is the era of ‘evidence-based medicine’.”

If she took that as an implication that older doctors (and 45 isn’t particularly old) don’t practice intelligently, I apologize, but I think its easy to see that I meant no offense.

I also never implied that any doctor said there are no risks to vaccines. I know of no doctor who has ever made that statement. Few also question the existence of more serious side effects, though rare.

I also don’t question the role of vaccines in improving public health throughout the 20th century. In India, you still see polio myelitis victims, people with the lingering effects of pertussis, decades after their infection, and countless other vaccine-preventable illnesses. There is no question about their benefits.

Dr. Stryer further says:

Just as importantly, and an absolute necessity is discussing that the risk of becoming seriously ill or dying secondary to a vaccine is much lower than the risk of developing a serious illness or dying if a child becomes ill with one of the infections for which they could have been vaccinated.

This is a clear over-reach as I have emphatically and rigorously detailed in my previous post. The bottom line is that we don’t actually know what the risk is for many vaccines. If a patient with angina comes into my office and I want to start them on aspirin, and he or she asks me what the risks and benefits are, I can tell them fairly concretely what their risk of serious complications such as bleeding, GI upset, and even tinnitus are. I can back that up by telling them just how much they’ll reduce their risk of a heart attack. Now, on the other hand, if a parent wants to know how likely their child is to develop a serious neurologic or autoimmune reaction to gardasil or recombivax, this is a number I cannot quote them. I can tell them that these are relatively rare complications (I think both Dr. Stryer and I agree on this), but I can’t tell them how rare. But hepatitis B infection and cervical cancer are also relatively rare, particularly when one avoids risky lifestyle choices, and in the case of the latter, gets regular pap smears (which are still necessary even if one gets the HPV vaccine).

This is because unlike in trials involving medications, many vaccine trials do not actually monitor for adverse events for the entire course of the studies (which often do last years). This prevents them from reporting one-year incidence rates of serious diseases among the vaccinated versus non-vaccinated populations. More worrisome, the ‘placebo’ used in these trials was an aluminum adjuvant, which itself is immunologically active and has a much higher reported rate of side effects than a simple saline solution. Between inadequate length and failure to use a true placebo, it’s hard to defend the notion that pre-licensure safety studies are adequate.

Dr. Stryer says:

Back to Indian Cowboy – he also comments that we really don’t know much about vaccine safety because studies only last days or, at most, a couple of weeks. This is also far from the truth. Before a vaccine is licensed, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) requires testing.

She says it’s far from the truth, yet if you look at Merck’s inserts on Recombivax, and Gardasil, it is plain to see that the safety arm of these pre-approval studies lasted between 5 and 14 days. As I have detailed ad nauseum in my previous post on this subject, this is an inadequate way to measure for severe adverse neurologic and autoimmune sequelae, given that this is not enough time to mount a full immune response to the vaccine and that it may take even longer for an autoimmune or neurologic side effect to appear. Again, I submit that these vaccines should be monitored for side effects and rates of serious disease for at least 6 months and more optimally one year in order to get a better idea of risk of serious adverse events. This would give us directly comparable figures to the general population: 1 year incidence in the vaccine study group versus 1 year incidence in the control population. And once again, I submit, given that an aluminum adjuvant ‘placebo’ results in high rates of side effects similar to the vaccine itself, one cannot consider it a placebo.

The efficacy arms of these studies can and do last for years, and involve measurement of antibody titers and rates of infections in vaccinated versus non-vaccinated individuals. But not the safety arms. There is no data on long-term side effects and rates of disease from pre-approval studies of these drugs.

With concerns regarding vaccine injury mounting throughout the 1980s to today, surely it wouldn’t have been too hard to gather this kind of data since these same patients were already being followed in the study for efficacy?

Now, admittedly, even if we followed the thousands of patients involved in these studies we might still miss more rare side effects such as Guillaine Barre Syndrome. Such is the rational behind the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System and Vaccine Safety Datalink.

Dr. Stryer did briefly discuss the problems with VAERS but failed to address the underlying problem of using VAERS incidence rates uncorrected in claims that rates of serious side effects are no higher than in the general population. An uncorrected VAERS figure can be 5-10 times lower than the actual figure. This study, which I’ve linked to before, provides a very clear illustration of this phenomenon. Reporting these uncorrected figures is disingenuous in the extreme, yet it is commonly done with no qualification of the inadequacy of reporting.

She also did not counter my review of pubmed which revealed that most retrospective case-control studies looked at single diseases rather than the whole spectrum of neurologic and autoimmune complications, which in case reports and series were revealed to have features of more well-known diseases but weren’t necessarily categorizable as rheumatoid arthritis or multiple sclerosis, which is to be expected. As an example, the potential association between Multiple Sclerosis and Hepatitis B Vaccination has been the subject of many retrospective studies. However, if one looks at case reports and VAERS data, MS is not as commonly reported as peripheral demyelination or seizures, and all of these are reported in higher than expected figures. A better approach would be to look at demyelination as a whole, or even better, neurologic disease as a whole. Neurologic and autoimmune disease remain the most feared and concerning among potential vaccine adverse events, and if a retrospective case-control study is going to be efficacious (which they are by nature less effective than a prospective RCT or cohort study), it needs to take a look at the sum total of these events.

At least with respect to Hepatitis B infection, neurologic sequelae are known and relatively common. Proposed mechanisms have been elucidated and have to do with cross-reaction between the Hepatitis B viral envelope and aspects of neuronal tissue. Furthermore, “challenge-rechallenge” evidence also exists regarding the vaccine and neurologic and autoimmune side effects. We also have histologic evidence of HBsAG immune complexes deposited in the Together, this represents the “gold-standard” of evidence that there is a potential causal relationship between the vaccine and severe side effects.

And as I wrote about more exhaustively in my earlier post, the aluminum adjuvant itself (present in both Gardasil and Recombivax, as well as the other vaccines in which concerns regarding autoimmune and neurologic side effects have been raised) may be implicated in potential side effects itself. This is readily revealed in the earlier-linked to Gardasil package insert. Again, a simple 15 minute review of the literature reveals that the aluminum adjuvant has serious concerns associated with it as well. It strongly affects the actions of our dendritic cells, macrophages, IgE-mediated allergic response, and Th2 T-Cells; and in some individuals these changes may last for long periods of time. And that, by causing an imbalance in Th2 versus Th1 immunity, as well as activating the inflammatory response, it may predispose individuals to the development of autoimmunity and inflammatory disorders. Animal models of neurologic and autoimmune disease due to parenteral administration of aluminum adjuvants in equivalent doses exist as well. Indeed, there is a continued search for newer adjuvants precisely because of the high rate of side effects associated with aluminum adjuvants.

Dr. Stryer goes on to say that:

I could continue, but the bottom line is that immunizations have been tested extensively for safety and continue to be monitored by reputable, quality organizations. There is an abundance of information available on safety for every vaccine.

Again, I’ve laid out the numerous problems with pre-licensure safety studies. I’ve highlighted the inefficacy of VAERS and VSD. And I’ve pointed to moderate to strong evidence for causality in the role of certain vaccines and vaccine adjuvants in the development of autoimmune and neurologic disease.

The Institute of Medicine concurs that, with respect to Hepatitis B vaccination, the evidence remains unclear regarding whether it causes or exacerbates neurologic disease as a whole. Concerns about what is unknown regarding long-term side effects have been voiced about Gardasil by leading gynecologists. And a lot of attention has been focuses on aluminum recently.

Perhaps most damningly, of the vaccine safety issues that the Institute of Medicine has investigated, they were unable to find enough evidence one way or another for 2/3 of the claims. If, as Dr. Stryer asserts, the state of vaccine safety pre-licensure trials and post-marketing monitoring was so effective, one would harldy predict this to be the case.

Dr. Stryer ends with an emotional entreaty:

I certainly hope that the one case of epiglottitis and pertussis that Indian Cowboy saw last year makes him realize not only how serious these infections can be in infants and children, but also that he only saw one case of each whereas, without immunizations, he would have seen many more and, most likely, a few deaths.

Yes, I realize that. I also realize that, rather than preventing a life-changing event, a vaccine changed my life forever 11 years ago when I developed painful demyelinating neuropathy. I live with the sequelae of it every day, as do thousands of others who developed similar reactions to the Hepatitis B and other vaccinations. I also know that many of us are not recorded in VAERS. And that there is good evidence for plausibility of a causal relationship between the two events ranging from theoretical to positive challenge-rechallenge evidence in humans. And that I had an infinitessimal risk of acquiring the infection itself due to my lifestyle. I also know that I’m seeing a similar pattern of reports of neurologic side effects being reported with Gardasil, and that the vaccine isn’t a replacement for regular pap smears and screening. I also know that aluminum is associated with significant neurotoxicity, inflammatory reactions, and autoimmunity, and that infants have a reduced ability to clear it from their system. I also know that we understand many of the biological mechanisms behind these adverse events associated with aluminum.

So let me say it one more time. We know that certain infections and thus their vaccinations may predispose individuals to the development of serious neurologic and autoimmune complications. We know that aluminum adjuvants may contribute to the problem or may even be the problem itself. We also have an understanding of why this is so in both cases. What we don’t know is how often it happens, who it happens to, and how much of this can be prevented by less toxic formulations (such as removing the aluminum adjuvant). Our efforts should go toward determining just how risky these vaccines are and how to make them less risky.

Even the IOM agress with me on that.

Introduction

I am a regular reader of Dr. Rob. And a big fan. Very cool site for both patients and medical professionals. He has a clear focus on advocacy and education (both us and patients). Recently he posted an entry about vaccines which I felt to compelled to comment on. I was going to reply to his but it got out of control long way too fast. So a post I will make.

Dr. Rob was talking about the rise in cases of Haemophilus influenzae type B infection. It can cause inflammation of a flap of tissue in the throat called the epiglottis–which normally serves the function of covering up your airway when you swallow, so you don’t choke. Bad things can happen when you have epiglottitis. Like the flap swelling up so large the child cannot breathe. In fact, when examining a child with epiglottitis we are told to have an anesthesiologist on hand ready to intubate, and if possible, defer the examination to a specialist in pediatric ear, nose, and throat disease. Nasty nasty stuff.

Where he lost me was invoking argument by anecdote and the use of the picture of an admittedly cute 7 month old.

I have a tragic tale to tell regarding vaccines myself. I’m not nearly as cute as the kid in Dr. Rob’s post though. After my second hepatitis B shot, a little more than eleven years ago, I developed a painful atrophic condition called Neuralgic Amyotrophy. And so a young swimmer’s career ended, a young musician found it a struggle to hold the bow of his violin, and his right arm withered away. I have worked hard to gain functionality, spending anywhere from 8-15 hours a week in the gym, rehabbing and gaining strength. I have developed an absurd pain tolerance. And have just barely failed to make an athletic comeback on 4 separate occasions (currently on my fifth, in an attempt to become a strongman and powerlifter). Even though I can shoulder press a barbell weighing as much as I do, I still struggle to shave, hold a phone, or write. And it was worse before I got this strong. Despite my passion for fast cars, I’m stuck driving an automatic, because my stupid hand can’t manage a stick shift. But the ravages of nerve damage and muscle imbalances have continued to take their toll. Today I suffer from cervical and thoracic radiculopathy, facet syndrome, and rib dysfunction syndrome. Next week, I’m being evaluated for wrist surgery due to the atrophy of connective tissue in the affected arm.  But to me the best way to sum it up is, at the age of 25 years old, I’ve actually forgotten what it’s like not to hurt.

That said, I am not in the anti-vaccination camp. I doubt that the mercury in vaccines causes autism. And I think that vaccines play a very crucial role in public and personal health. I am however, a trained scientist, and was taught to value epistemology, background knowledge, and study design in research. If I ever get around to blogging regularly again, you will see that those are core values of mine in the appraisal and pursuit of science and medicine. There are glaring issues and gaping holes in the evaluation of vaccines for safety, in post-marketing surveillance, and in attempts at exoneration of vaccines from charges leveled at them.

Dr. Rob stated: ‘As sad as your experience is, it was not due to negligence or ignorance.’ This is where I beg to differ. Negligence and ignorance (willful or otherwise) in vaccine safety studies is rampant. Even worse, people continue to trumpet vaccine as ’safe’ when they don’t have any reliable data from which to draw said conclusion.

Potential Vaccine Side Effects

There are known risks to vaccines, and there are theoretical risks to vaccines. A lot of people faint when they get vaccines. Others develop pain at the injection site. Neither are all that surprising, and, assuming a person is watched for 15-20 minutes after their vaccination, no harm is likely to come from fainting. However, there are two categories of side effects that can be debilitating and/or fatal. One type is the anaphylactic/allergic response, which can manifest as anything from excessive bruising and redness at the injection site to a rash to, in a full-blown anaphylactic response, swelling of tissues leading to respiratory compromise and in the worst cases, death.

The other class of worrisome reactions are autoimmune reactions. Autoimmune diseases are nasty situations in which your body’s own defenses turn against you. Both infections and vaccines can precipitate an autoimmune reaction. Reiter’s Syndrome is a famous (among medical students) example in which a gonorrheal infection leads to arthritis and eye irritation. Peripheral nerve damage is another relatively common complication of viral infection. Up to 50% of those who suffer from my condition developed it after an infection. Even relatively benign infections like uncomplicated upper respiratory infections can lead to these devastating sequelae. In some cases this is due to the fact that certain properties of these viruses are shared by properties of certain populations of our own cells. Antibodies that attacked one could thus potentially attack the other. This is believed to be behind the high rate of neurological symptoms in people with Hepatitis B infections.

Case reports have also consistently implicated vaccines in the precipitation and exacerbation of autoimmune phenomena, from lupus, to rheumatoid arthritis, to kidney disease, to multiple sclerosis. Anywhere from 15-25% of the sufferers of neuralgic amyotrophy are believed to have developed it due to vaccination.  Given that we think these kinds of things are caused by an immune reaction, it makes sense that if an immune reaction to a virus can cause autoimmune problems, than an immune reaction to a vaccine for that virus could as well.

The Problems with Vaccine Safety Studies

There are two components to assessing the safety of vaccines. The first is pre-marketing safety trials, and the second is post-marketing surveillance. Both are found sorely wanting. I am most familiar with these processes with respect to Gardasil and the Hepatitis B vaccination, so my examples will mainly come from there. My discussion will center around autoimmune and neurologic phenomena, which I and many health professionals believe are the most concerning potential side effects (whether in fact present or not).

As indicated earlier, I believe that proper study design involves the judicious application of background knowledge. A full immune response can take anywhere from 3-6 weeks to mount. It would make sense then, that we monitor for at least that long in order to detect any possible autoimmune side effects. Arguably it would be better to monitor patients for at least 6 months. The immune effects of vaccines can last anywhere from 1 year to a lifetime, so arguably side effects could manifest anywhere within this time period. Furthermore, it may take significant time for autoimmune damage to mount to clinically detectable levels. In the case of the Hepatitis B Vaccine, adverse events were monitored for 5(!) days. At 5 days, I pessimistically think that I would have been reported as a ‘minor’ localized ‘pain at the injection site’ despite the fact that my entire arm tingled and throbbed and I wasn’t able to swim, play tennis, or the violin. At one month, it would have been a different story. Likewise, the Gardasil safety trial monitored adverse events for only two weeks. Better, but still not very good.

A second problem comes in the choice of ‘placebo’. Now, the definition of a placebo is an inert substance with no innate biological activity. 4 of the 5 Gardasil safety trials used a compound called Amorphous Aluminum Hydroxyphosphate Sulfate or AAHS as the ‘placebo’. First problem, this compound is used in both the HPV and HBV vaccines (and many others) as an ‘adjuvant’. An adjuvant is a compound used to amplify the immune response to an antigen. Aluminum compounds do this in two ways: First, by making the antigen more available to be recognized by the immune system. Second, by increasing the activity of our immune system in a more general sense. Although Merck did not provide separate data for AAHS versus saline solution among side effects that potentially signaled the development of autoimmune phenomena (Table 5, page 7), they did do so for local reactions in Table 2 and Table 3 on pages 4-5. It is plain to see that the rates of infection are similar in the Gardasil and AAHS groups, and significantly lower in the saline group. In the real world, you either get a vaccination or you don’t. Your pediatrician doesn’t say ‘well since you’ve turned down Gardasil, I’m going to have to go ahead and inject you with this aluminum salt’. Since adverse effects are measured in terms of how much more often they occur in relation to placebo, it is plainly evident that such trials obscure the real incidence of adverse effects. They also obscure the role that the aluminum adjuvant may have in causing the side effects.

Aluminum salts have been implicated in a number of side effects and even vaccine-related syndromes such as gulf war syndrome, Macrophagic Myofascitis, seizures, joint aches, muscle pains, and a host of other ailments that also top the list of the most common and serious adverse events associated with many vaccines. Aluminum buildup has also been implicated in alzheimer’s disease, autism, infantile seizures, demyelination, and motor neuron death. And we know that vaccinating with aluminum leads to transient increases in brain levels (perhaps what is behind the scary increase in seizures in those who receive aluminum versus saline placebos). But I want to avoid belaboring the point. The take home message is that aluminum compounds found in vaccines can increase the intensity of the immune system and potentially precipitate autoimmune and neurologic phenomena in and of themselves. A starting list of citations can be found here which deals with everything from the effects of aluminum adjuvants to the reduced ability of infants to clear aluminum from their system. Another good overview can be found here. I should note before moving on that I don’t necessarily agree with everything the author has wrote but many of his concerns are valid and largely unaddressed.

So from pre-marketing safety trials, we learn that neither are people monitored long enough to determine the rate of serious side effects, nor are we given a true placebo rate with which to determine how much more likely one is to suffer from a potential side effect if given the vaccine (which is composed of two potentially harmful substances; the antigen, and the adjuvant).

Moving on to post-marketing surveillance. It is perhaps here that willful ignorance is most obvious. Post-marketing surveillance is achieved through something called the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System. This is a voluntary reporting system in which doctors must put forth extra effort to phone or submit online a report of an adverse event. Estimates of how often adverse events are actually reported range from 1%-10%, by the FDA and CDC’s own admission. Part of this is because VAERS is passive, rather than active. Another, more insidious reason is that some doctors will actively refuse to report an adverse event to VAERS because they don’t believe it was caused by the vaccine. VAERS works (if something with a 1-10% rate of reporting can be said to work at all) by comparing the rate of events in the vaccinated population to the rate of background events. This means, whether or not it was caused by the vaccine, it should be reported. I know for a fact that I am nowhere to be found in the VAERS database, despite seeing three different doctors and a physical therapist within a few months of the incident.

Yet, despite this known, severe, and asymmetric reporting, VAERS figures are frequently, if not always, used uncorrected. That means that if the reported VAERS rate and the background rate of a given adverse event are even similar, it is likely that the rate of adverse events for vaccinated individuals is actually significantly higher than background. This study is an enlightening read, in which VAERS-captured rates were identical to background. While real-world rates of intussusception following rotavirus vaccination were between 5 and 10 times higher than that in individuals who weren’t vaccinated. (Note: This is the old rotavirus vaccine and not the currently used vaccine). This must give pause, given that the VAERS rates for symptoms potentially heralding the onset of autoimmune disease, neurologic phenomena, and morbidity and mortality for many vaccines are at least at background rate or worse. More worrisome is that despite the well-known phenomenon of under-reporting of adverse events to VAERS, the uncorrected figures are frequently used without any discussion of the problems associated with them. Clearly, if post-marketing surveillance is going to be of any benefit, reporting rates need to be closer to 100% than 0%.

Although not necessarily a part of safety monitoring, there exists a third category of study that can be helpful in determining the relationship between vaccines and adverse events. And that’s the retrospective case-control study. In recent years, we have used such studies to examine the link between various vaccines and autism, multiple-sclerosis, seizures, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and others. I’m not linking to any studies because quite frankly everything is contradictory. Some find associations, some don’t. But even here, these studies don’t truly help out in developing a picture of the overall safety of a given vaccine. The biggest problem is that they are far too specific in the illnesses they look at. For example, lupus–one of the more common and devastating autoimmune disease–can manifest as a rash, as psychiatric problems, obstetric problems, arthritis, a propensity to develop dangerous blood clots, or kidney disease. Similarly, the Hepatitis B Vaccine–like the infection itself–has been implicated in any number of neurologic derangements from peripheral demyelination and axonopathy to multiple sclerosis-like disease (emphasis on ‘like’). The latter disease and a possible link to HBV has been the subject of several of these case-control series, with some finding associations and others not. But if you look at the actual case reports that prompted this discussion, you find that although in some ways the pathologies appeared similar to MS, in other ways they didn’t. By taking only a subset of the greater issue (neurologic sequelae) and then using perhaps too restrictive criteria for the definition of illness, they in effect do nothing to resolve the larger question.

Conclusion

In his original post, Dr. Rob said:

But there are some who would suggest that I am deluded. I am brainwashed by the vaccine manufacturers, drug reps, or narrow-minded training. Yes, I can be trusted to rescue their child from the brink of death, but can I be counted on when I recommend vaccines?

I don’t happen to think anything of the sort about Dr. Rob. I do however feel that the knee-jerk reaction to counter the anti-vaccine posturing with hysterics of our own is both counter-productive and disingeuous. We really have very little idea about just how safe or unsafe vaccines are. And anti-vaccination groups are more than cognizant of this fact. Much of what I’ve written about here is likewise trumpeted by many anti-vaccination groups. These criticisms are valid and ultimately our failure to answer them will only cause vaccine skepticism to increase. Yes, vaccines are no doubt effective in reducing the incidence of infectious disease. But do they outweigh the potential negatives? I don’t know, and you don’t. None of us do. And as long as this remains true, the case against vaccination can always be made.

Initial safety trials do not monitor adverse events long enough to reveal the incidence of the most debilitating adverse events. Many fail to use proper placebos. Post-marketing surveillance is subject to under-reporting such that actual rates may be an order of magnitude or more higher. And most retrospective case-control studies do little to advance our knowledge of the broader issues of vaccine safety.

To me, these are glaring problems. But how many in our profession look at the uncorrected VAERS data, or the pathetic nature of initial safety trials and take them as gospel? How many even think about the methodologic problems associated with our methods of assessing vaccine safety? The height of our ignorance in this matter far outweighs the depth of our knowledge. So when we find ourselves troubled by the number of parents refusing vaccinations for their children, when we see un-vaccinated children becoming sick, being hospitalized, and dying from vaccine-preventable illness, it is imperative that we correct this error. It is not enough to argue from authority: ‘I am a doctor and I say this is good.’ We have been doing this, and it hasn’t been working. There is no doubt that irrational fears play a part in the rise of anti-vaccination sentiments. But we should not dismiss rational concerns about vaccine safety. We must be able to argue from a convincing position of knowledge, something not currently possible. Furthermore as physicians we (well, not me personally until June when I graduate) owe it to our patients, our profession, and ourselves to know the truth about vaccines.

Perhaps there really is nothing to the assertion that certain vaccines can cause or exacerbate autoimmune phenomena. Perhaps aluminum adjuvants really do pose little to no risk of neurologic sequelae. Then again, perhaps the risks are real and large enough to make us sit up and take notice. Perhaps the side effect profile is poor enough that the risk of vaccination isn’t outweighed by the risk of infection. And if this is true, if the vaccination skeptics turn out to be right in some respects, shouldn’t we as physicians know that too?

I welcome dialog with doctors and other health professionals on this issue. And I hope that we as a profession learn to open-mindedly tackle the as-yet unresolved issue of vaccine safety.

Classical Values, a regular read of mine, posted an excellent piece about a salon owner who’s been sued for failing to hire a burqa-wearing applicant.

Values sums it up well:

The owner here was placed in a classic damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t position. Had she hired this whining, covered woman, and had her trendy urban hipster customers felt uncomfortable about having their hair cut by a self-proclaimed prude, they’d have most likely not have complained, because trendiness is infected with political correctness.

But the thing is, a haircut is a personal service. A very personal service. If you’re in the least bit uncomfortable (as I have been with several haircutters), you won’t go back. No one wants a confrontation even under ordinary circumstances. But when you add PC to the mix, it becomes even less likely. So, had the owner hired her and watched her customer base dwindle, what then? Fire Bushra? She’d be sued for even more.

Now, I’m very troubled by legal jihad. When I lived in London back in 2004/2005, I saw firsthand what it had wrought. Advertisements for ham sandwiches resulted in fines. A bank’s promotion involving squeaky pig toys resulting in massive government and muslim backlash. Muslim riots in my part (Camden Town) over the failure of school cafeterias to offer properly halal meat in their meals. It stifled speech, it stifled free action, it caused enormous economic difficulties, and resulted in a culture of fear. As a Hindu, I could sympathize with the feelings of muslims to a degree. ‘Beef. It’s what’s for dinner’ ads cause an upraised eyebrow in a non-beef household. Failure of menus to mention the fact that a dish contains ground beef can cause headaches. And things like the new Mike Myers movie Love Guru kind of irk you just a little bit. But I couldn’t sympathize with their actions. It wouldn’t occur to me to start a religious riot over Apu in the Simpsons or a comedian mocking Indian customer service (I have to say though that the sound of their voices when you switch over to their mother tongue and harangue them until they put you in touch with someone who knows what they’re talking about is HILARIOUS). At the end of the day I just can’t understand how anyone could want to so limit the lives of someone else just because of such seriously minimal discomfort.

But that wasn’t the point of this post. You see, I’m going to be training as a psychiatrist very shortly. One with big plans that include physical health programs. A center of some kind incorporating rehabilitation, physical therapy, and personal training for the highly motivated patient with physical ailments. I and my employees will be selling a product. A product of health and wellness that these people may believe is out of their reach. As a psych guy, I’m very conscious of the importance of image in the therapeutic relationship and the importance of not only image in the patient, but the patient’s image of what they can be.

In the words of the owner:

“I sell image — it’s very important — and I would expect a hair stylist to display her hair because I need people to be drawn in off the street,” said Ms. Desrosiers. “If someone came in wearing a baseball hat or a cowboy hat I’d tell them to take it off while they’re working. To me, it’s absolutely basic that people should be able to see the stylist’s hair.”

I’ve very rarely met a nutritionist that was actually in shape. And how many gyms actually have personal trainers that look as good as you want to? Maybe 1 in 10 in this gym rat’s broad multinational experience. This is problematic, especially where my goals lie. Because I want to take someone who feels and is broken down, I want to show them that by working hard and training smart, they don’t have to look that way, they don’t have to feel that way. And the thing is, when you suffer from serious physical issues, the journey to health is 90% psychological. You are told by everyone around you that you cannot succeed, consciously and subconsciously. You don’t hear the stories of success because quite frankly the ones that succeed have done it on their own through sheer bloody-mindedness. You don’t see the stories of success because they can be hidden from you.

So one of the major goals of this center is to provide people with an image of success, an image of health, an image of working hard to surpass the physical obstacles placed before you. People who come in the door need to feel like they can conquer the world.

How is this going to be accomplished if their caregivers, trainers, and educators don’t look like they can. The professionals working at the center need to embody the concept of working toward results. They need to look like the finished endpoint of a lot of hard work. If an out of shape, slow-moving client comes in and sits down with a nutritionist who is the same way, why are they going to believe paying attention to diet will work? If their personal trainer is doughy and weak, why should they believe that following her training program will result in anything other than doughiness and weakness? Not only will this lead to my patients questioning the ability of their coaches to provide results, they will question the very ability of hard work to result in improvement.

Rehabilitation and physical change come from a desire to improve yourself. And especially when it occurs in the context of physical illness, attachment on a role model can offer a major boost in empowerment. This is one of the reasons Lance Armstrong is so beloved. “He’s gotten through major illness, so can I.” These stories tell us that change is possible, and when we’re guided by mentors that have had to change and understand the process of change we’re that much more likely to commit ourselves to their plan.

I can only imagine the PC climate is going to be worse in 6-10 years when I’m finished training and opening up practice than it is now. Will I be forced to hire an obese nutritionist or a weak strength coach? I sure hope not. Because as the salon owner pointed out, the service I will be offering is one of fitness and physical health, which is as much about image as anything. You don’t look at someone and say ‘I bet she can run a mile in 6 minutes’, or ‘he looks like he can squat 3 times his bodyweight’, you look at someone and say ‘They look strong.’ or ‘They look healthy.

But of course there’s more to it than just the patient’s perception. There’s also the employer’s. When you come to me asking to be employed in your capacity as a fitness professional, you are selling yourself. When your job is to teach someone how to eat healthy or lift strong, shouldn’t you be healthy or be strong yourself? I know myself, when I run into a problem and have to go to a medical specialist, I almost always try to find one who’s an athlete or at least athletic. Because I need someone who will understand my needs as a person with serious physical ailments who nevertheless pursues an athletic lifestyle, and more importantly because of that lifestyle, is able to do things most people with these issues cannot. I have to question a nutritionist’s ability to teach a healthy diet if they don’t look like they follow one. I have to question a strength coach’s knowledge if they are unable to put up decent numbers in the gym.

It’s not a question of judging someone by their looks, it’s a question of judging what their looks say about their ability to do the job. Can you be a good hair stylist if you don’t have a good hairstyle of your own or are unwilling to show it off? Possibly, but can you convince me or the clientele of that? Doubtful. And when it comes to something as psychological as chronic musculoskeletal problems, empowerment and belief have everything to do with it.

A person with major physical debility comes with the viewpoint that ‘life is suffering’. Even when people are understanding and empathic, they can end up furthering this limited viewpoint. “I understand your pain, I see why walking, playing with your grandchildren (or children), is so difficult for you.” It validates their suffering yes, but it also reinforces how their suffering affects the quality of their life. When Buddha said that three word utterance, it wasn’t out of pessimism, but out of optimism. That by understanding suffering and the root of our suffering we can get past it. But as ancient buddhist saints remarked, fewer than one in a thousand could find their way without a teacher. I doubt they had any statistics to back it up, but it’s a point I agree with. It’s why I’ve been the vast exception to the rule, in both my experience, and in the experience of healthcare professionals who’ve seen me. The thing about a good buddhist or hindu guru is that to be a teacher you had to be a doer. Transference was and is an important part of the process. The student had to have faith in their guru’s abilities in order to have faith that their guru could show them the way.

If my patients are to succeed, they need that kind of faith. Will I hire handicapped people? Oh my god yes. I would love to run a place filled with coaches and educators who are as or more crippled than I am and have succeeded at overcoming their physical debility. I would seriously consider giving up half of my gonadal mass for the possibility. But will I hire people who cannot bring out my patients’ faith in their abilities to transcend their disability? Hell no. It is impossible to run a hardcore rehab facility without hardcore coaches.

One of the best friends I’ll ever have died on October 31, 2006. Eric Shockley drowned in his own body fluids in a hospital bed, in his early 30’s. A couple years ago his aorta started to balloon. They were able to patch it and replace the damaged valve, but we always knew it was going to kill him. We just didn’t think it would be this soon. And I promised I’d say this at his funeral, but I didn’t find out he’d died until afterward. So here goes:

Eric had a heart of gold. Shame about the shitty aorta.

Our friendship started randomly, as all great ones do. On a ford focus discussion board of all places, debating politics. Eric was a dirty socialist. I was a hardcore conservative. But by the time he died we were both converging on a kind of conservation-centered pseudolibertarianism. The politics weren’t important, except that they were the way we met, and a microcosm of our entire friendship.

Sometimes, I still think it’s some kind of sick joke. That there’ll be a gigantic 300lb crate on my doorstep when I come home from school some random day. That upon prying the lid off, out will pop a heavyset 6′4 white guy with a stupid beard who’ll shout ‘Surprise’. I’ll scream and have a heart attack and then we’ll both have weak tickers and moronic facial hair.

Which is exactly the kind of thing Eric would do. But he probably wouldn’t let me stew this long. At least I don’t think he was that much of a bastard.

Anyway, the point is, Eric and I were like brothers. We fought constantly, usually because one or the other was being pigheaded about some opinion or another. And then we’d make up. Heck, we were worse than brothers. If you’re a Scrubs fan as I am, you probably find great humor in the pseudo-homosexual relationship between JD and Turk, epitomized by the touching and beautiful song, Guy Love. That’s about where we were.

I’m known for my gay jokes around school, but Eric definitely holds the title for ‘gayest thing ever said by a straight man’ when he in all seriousness told me that the only time he ever smiled anymore was when we talked. But that was one of the great things about our friendship. Self consciousness was never an issue. We were ourselves.

People have a lot of layers. Some more than others. Myself? I collect layers as a sort of hobby, not to mention as a defense mechanism. I can’t say that too many people know the real me. Eric did. Hell, without Eric I don’t think I would know the real me.

In a post I made about a week before he died, I all but named him specifically. And I’m glad he commented, because it would turn out to be our last interaction. Around Eric, and perhaps a couple others, Nick came out. Not the jock, not the clown, not the nerd. Just the guy.
————————————————————–

You know how all 5 year olds have that annoying ability to ask you ‘How Come?’ until you’re blue in the face with frustration and are starting to contemplate just how far you can hurl 40lbs of annoying kindergartener? That kind of doggedness was Eric’s greatest gift to me. He forced me to push my understanding of the world and myself. And whenever I’d get to a ‘Just because, dammit!’, he’d force me through it and out the other side into deeper understanding. I’d like to think I pushed him too, which is probably why he was slightly less of a hippy by the time he died. And why I’m slightly more of one.

We have a concept in hinduism known as maya–the veil of illusion. The thing about reality is that we will always have trouble perceiving it. It’s concealed from us by our imperfect sense, by our prejudices and our preconceptions. But if we’re aware of these imperfections in ourselves and in our view of the world, we can come closer to finding reality.

In science we develop models of the world, and these models are based on certain assumptions. A model is only as true to the world as its assumptions are. The more accurate the assumptions, the more accurate the model.

Eric wasn’t a hindu or a scientist, but more than any scripture (and I’ve read them all), or any science book (and I’ve read thousands), he was the most instrumental in helping me to acknowledge the veil, and start to lift it. Because of Eric, I’ve pushed back the boundaries of simple belief and replaced it with knowledgeable understanding.

And that’s why even though I’ll never be lucky enough to see that giant crate on my doorstep, will never again hear him say something so gay that even JD and Turk would be embarassed, I know that Eric isn’t dead.

Eric’s gift is still with me, pushing me, demanding more of me. Like that 5 year old, his memory tugs on my pant leg, asking why? I’ve still got my ‘Just because’s but today it’s a much different, much smaller set of them than it was before I met him. And I keep pushing through, finding explanations for things I’d taken for granted. Changing my opinions, seeking to find not internal consistency, not some assumption upon which to build a castle in the clouds, but the truth. And it’ll never stop. I owe that much to Eric.

Eric was larger than life. And he was taken long before his time. But I take solace in the fact that everything I do, he does. That whatever I manage to do with my life is in no small part his doing. That if I can push people the way he pushed me, to find themselves and in so doing find each other, that if I accomplish nothing else, it’ll still be a life well spent.

So in memory of Eric, I’ll ask you. Where does your understanding end, and your blind belief begin?

the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace things, but burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes “AWWW!”
–Jack Kerouac

I’ve been arguing with anti-gunnies for a few years now. And the one thing that strikes me about these people is they have no fear of being violently attacked. Whether or not this fear is rational is beside the point. The thing is that they are unable to understand why others don’t feel that way. But more importantly they see no need for others to have a means of self defense.

I’ve made the confession several times before that carrying is not one of my top priorities. Because like those anti-gunnies with their heads in the clouds, I too have almost no fear of being attacked. The closest I ever came was while in England, fearing not being mugged, but the legal and criminal repercussions of defending myself against the mugger. Like the silver spoon leftists I went to school with, I live in a very nice area almost devoid of any crime. Which no doubt contributes. But I do go to school and spend much of my time in as close to a ghetto as Oklahoma City has. And that’s where my youthful arrogance and over-reliance on size comes in. One of the funniest examples of not understanding the need for firearms in self defense I ever encountered was in a Canadian bouncer. The guy was close to 250lbs, and paid to be able to beat people up, of course he saw much less need for a gun than others. I’m a dark, well built guy with a little training in boxing, grappling, and tae kwan do. While I’d likely get my butt kicked by any similar-sized guy with even a moderate amount of more disciplined training, I’m simply not that worried about your average mugger. I’ve taken them down before, and would not be surprised if I had to do it again.

Like I’ve said since the beginning, I’m far more obsessed with the right than doing so myself. In Men Like Me I talked about my schizoid tendencies just a bit. And maybe that’s why I’m able to put myself in others’ shoes. I’ve known guys with my strength and intelligence who lacked a moral code; and the results were uniformly ugly. Sometimes a friend will make a joke or hassle me a bit and I’ll say “I could end you right here, right now.” And they’ll laugh, and I’ll laugh, and someone will probably say “You’re harmless” or “Nick, you’re just a great big teddy bear”. But I know my capabilities, and I’ve seen the results when I got just a bit too into it when I was sparring with a buddy, or when someone threatened a friend. And it isn’t that far from the truth.

I think about what it would take to stop someone like me, if he was determined. A tazer? Probably not. Mace? Hardly. A wooden bat? If swung right, perhaps. A gun? Every time. Tazers and other deterrents like mace rely on luck and an easily discouraged–rather than easily enraged–perp. Bats, batons, etc still pit the potential victim against the criminal in a contest of strength and fighting ability. Not to mention that many of those are banned in the same places that ban the carry of firearms for self defense. A gun is literally the only thing that completely negates an attacker’s size and ability. And if a loved one had to go up against a guy like me, I damn well hope they’re armed with one.

The silver spoon kids are unable to put themselves in circumstances where self defense may be necessary, where you’re outweighed, outnumbered, outmatched. Where a gun might make the difference between your life, your virtue, and your property, or the rape and theft of what and who you are. So they say things like “Well, there’s martial arts” or “That’s the police’s job.” What if I were like them? What if I said “Well I don’t really need it, so no one else should either.” What if I were so selfish, so childish, as to condemn people to suffer a horrible fate at the hands of a violent criminal, simply because I was unlikely to be one of those victims?

With the growing popularity of concealed carry licenses has also come a ballooning number of establishments that prohibit firearms upon their premises.

Employee and customer alike must obey these dictates. And–often angrily–they wonder why their ‘right to bear arms’ doesn’t extend to these places of business. The answer of course is that this is the essence of the right to own property. What good is owning something if you have no control over it? Much like the 1st amendment, you can criticize their position, but not their right to hold said position.

And just as entertainers and celebrities often pay a price for opening their mouths a bit too wide, these proprietors may pay a price for the positions they take. A guy on Kim du Toit’s forum shared a letter to the editor in American Handgunner with us that illustrate’s this point perfectly:

Thought this may be of interest to Handgunner readers. Today I received the following letter:

”Dear Mr. *****, Today, while in the bank, you were noticed wearing at your side a pistol. Unless you have some specific duty or reason to enter the bank with your pistol, we appreciate your leaving all firearms in your vehicle.
Thank you for your understanding and cooperation in this matter.

Sincerely John Parker
Vice President & Branch Manager
Troy Bank & Trust Company
Troy, AL 36081”

After receiving this letter, I immediately called the bank president and asked if he knew of the letter and agreed with it’s content. He assured me he did, saying there is not much crime in Troy and we don’t thin you need to be carrying a pistol. After a few words advising him of my position on the issue, and the fact Alabama has open carry, I proceeded to seek out local banks who would recognize my right to self protection and the exercising of my second amendment rights. Wachovia advised they would not permit any armed individuals in their bank. Colonial Bank never got back to me.
Regions Bank advised they would be happy to recognize my carry rights, my status as a retired LEO and would welcome my money. By close of business that day, I had closed several accounts at Troy Bank & Trust, with several more to go, and deposited over $480,000 in the Regions Bank. You just got to do what you feel is right. Oh, by the way, I’m also getting much better interest at the new bank.
Thought this would be of interest in so far as gun owners need to know where the gun friendly banks are.

Name withheld by request
Via email

This is pretty much a classic example of how things that are neither bought nor sold still have value. This man chose to make a statement about how important it is to him to be able to carry. And perhaps what he thought of a place of business whose idea of ’safety’ was to disarm the people who follow the rules, yet do little to make sure rule-breakers weren’t armed. Works for me, and maybe got the bank to think for a second or two. Certainly if a substantial portion of the 2nd amendment supporters in Troy followed suit anyway.

Not all second amendment supporters are classical liberals, but I certainly am. And the essence of our philosophy is that we should be free to act as we wish so long as we do not interfere with the freedom of others. Demanding that we have a ‘right’ to carry our firearms on someone else’s property is imposing our will upon them. But we can always make our displeasure known, as this gentleman did.

My first contribution at the Liberty Papers in months

The essence of the post has been seen on this blog a hundred times before. Intellectimpure will soon be complaining that I’m not saying anything new. Which is true.

But liberty papers now gets more readers than I do. So I thought I’d say it anyway lol.

anyway, quick snippet

In today’s political climate, Kennedy’s famous quote has been reversed. It is now not about what you can do for your country, but what your country can do for you. In this climate, freedom has been redefined as comfort. Into this environment you invite millions of people who through no fault of their own better qualify as ‘have-nots’ than ‘haves’. And as the ‘have nots’–together with the cultural elite–have shown themselves all to willing to do, they will vote from others’ pocketbooks. And they will vote for other egregious restrictions and legalized discrimination.

Like leftists, many libertarians seem to suffer from what I can only call perfectworlditis. The major difference being that while libertarians’ idea of what the perfect world is, probably is the platonic form of our own world. Whereas what leftists think the perfect world is doesn’t make sense at any level.

I have no illusions of how perfect the world is and more importantly I understand something called the Tragedy of the Commons. Which is one of the reasons I’m a hardcore conservationist (although I don’t think global warming has been proven, deforestation and other environmental destruction due to man certainly have). And why I support some kind of government regulation/funding in education. Unlike many of my fellow classical liberals and libertarians. But much like plenty of them.

It’s something I’ve seen time and time again with people looking for philosophical and logical consistency while failing to anchor themselves against real world concerns:

“I’m more internally consistent than you!”
“Not going to deny it. But as the surgeon said to the patient with gangrene, ‘would you rather die with two legs or live with one?’”
“Yeah, well, you’re right. But I’m still more internally consistent.”
“And I’m still breathing. Later”

Post on perfectworlditis tommorrow.

Amazingly enough within a couple of hours of writing yesterday’s post and heading to school, I was assaulted by yet another piece on the horrors of debt. This one in the OU student newspaper.

Apparently ’some students don’t realize future implications of frequent credit card use.’ Not going to deny that. But yet again I’m amazed by the tone of the article. If I were to write the article, it’d very much have a tone of “Quit screwing up you idiots!” Sovereign individuals over the age of majority are making bad choices. They need to stop making them.

Instead of course the article is fairly typical in its pleas for sympathy and understanding.

Moyer, a National Merit Scholarship finalist and letters major, applied for his first credit card at 18 with a credit card company set up on campus at UTD.

He did not understand the problems he was going to face.

OU gives full rides to national merit finalists. I think UTD does too. So unlike a good chunk of this country, this kid’s tuition and general living expenses were heavily subsidized. If a National Merit Finalist isn’t smart enough to understand how debt works, who is? And even more problematic, if people of above-average intellect can’t even be expected to manage their own finances who can?

“He didn’t know how he got into all of this debt and didn’t know how to get out,” she said. “He felt like a failure.”

He didn’t know how he got into all of this debt? He did it by ignoring the consequences of his actions.

Since Moyer’s death, his mother has become an advocate for groups working to change the way people get credit cards.

She has joined the advocacy group, Americans for Fairness in Lending (AFFIL). The group is pushing Congress for change.

“We are asking for credit cards to be based on how much you make and how much you owe,” she said. “I don’t understand how all of these companies can give credit cards to someone making $5.15 an hour.”

Mother loses son. Mother wants to blame someone for son’s death. Mother then seeks to change the law and restrict freedom to somehow honor her son’s death or find purpose in it. Nope, never seen that happen.

Here’s an excellent quote from a kid with a good head on his shoulders in the same article though:

Although he is stuck repaying every dollar of his loans, he said he doesn’t regret what he is doing with the money.

“It is definitely worth it,” McCroan said. “People take out 30 or 40 thousand dollar loans to buy a car. I’m getting an education with the money. In our society, education is expensive, but it is worth it.”

Course, McCroan does whine a bit about the cost of education, but then again so does everyone. I definitely bitch and moan about the 60,000 i’ve amassed for just two years of med school. But like McCroan I grin and bear it.

I know I’m beating a dead horse here but I really don’t like ‘consumer protection laws’. And I really don’t like the intimation that we’re too stupid to make decisions for ourselves. But more importantly if we are too stupid to be masters of our own lives, what business do we have telling others how to live? Democrat, Republican, and yes even Libertarian. All of us support the right to vote and some degree of social coercion through government and law. But along with the right to vote comes the responsibility to choose wisely. To pick the right leaders who will take us down the right path. And if we can’t be responsible for ourselves how can we possibly be responsible for a whole nation?

Headline News had a little spiel about how more people are cutting back on holiday spending and are worried about credit card debt than this time last year. They blame the usual culprit: cost of living. What they didn’t ask was what level people are living at.

What I’d like to see would be a longitudinal study of income vs. ownership rates of 20k+ cars, 1k+ TVs, size/expense of movie collections, number of times people eat out at sit-down restaurants, stuff like that. Because anecdotal evidence tells me that the actual cost of living hasn’t really increased: I pay the same for Old Navy jeans as I did back in high school, bean burritos are the same price, and the only grocery I’ve seen increase are those damnably addictive Clementine Oranges. And I know for a fact that medical residents live much more luxuriously these days than they did in the mid 1980s. Same for college students.

Inflation has occurred, I’m not denying it. When I was a 1st grader taco bell burritos were 59 cents. Now they’re 79! And 20oz sodas were .75 out of the vending machine back in junior high. But then again so have paychecks. I’ve only worked entry level jobs. And I’ve never been paid minimum wage. Still during these sporadic periods of employment I’ve seen a significant rise in pay uncorrelated with the degree of skill or effort the jobs involved. But have increases in wages kept pace with inflation? Apparently, yes.

There are certain costs that are outpacing inflation. But for the vast majority of people worried about credit card debt and cutting back on their spending I wouldn’t be surprised if the reason for this fiscal bind could be traced back to the fact that these people are choosing to spend more on frivolous expenses, or simply spending more than they have to on necessary purchases.

The undertone of the pseudo-factual hit pieces we’re bombarded by about ‘making ends meet’ is that it shouldn’t be this way, that people shouldn’t be in this position. It amuses me then that the people of the self-proclaimed ‘Party of Science’ consistently fail to even remark upon what is in all likelihood a prominent factor in the rising debt of our nation’s people.

Rosie O’Donnell made a comment today about how we shouldn’t fear the terrorists:

Faith or fear, that’s your choice. You can walk through life believing in the goodness of the world, or walk through life afraid of anyone who thinks different than you and trying to convert them to your way of thinking.

I figure most people are going to key in on the ‘we shouldn’t fear the terrorists’ line. Whatever. It’s expected from her. What I personally find noteworthy is how in one short sentence she has exposed both the hypocrisy and the innate instability of the leftist worldview.

“You can walk through life believing in the goodness of the world…” is the choice she wishes us to believe she has made. ‘Faith’ in her fellow man. I consider myself a freethinker. And a tireless seeker of the truth. Are people fundamentally good? Every day in the news they shows us otherwise; rather, greed, anger, and pettiness seem to be innate characteristics. Are people fundamentally evil? Thousands of acts of kindness both large and small–many going largely unrecognized and unrewarded–would seem to belie this assertion. I submit instead that people are neutral. Neither good nor bad until we make that choice.

To have faith in the goodness of the world is to invite yourself to become a victim. Should girls at college parties get drop dead drunk assuming that all men are perfect gentlemen? Should the elderly couple entrust their life savings to a shyster? Should a person walk down the streets of Camden Town at 2 am assuming that no one will assault them?

To do so is not only the height of stupidity, but if Ms. O’Donnell truly behaved in such a fashion and truly lived in the real world, she would quickly be disabused of such lofty and inane notions.

…or walk through life afraid of anyone who thinks different than you and trying to convert them to your way of thinking. Here Ms. O’Donnell seems to be talking about the Right, religious and otherwise. But what about herself and her own politics? She rails against firearms, yet if people were truly good, she would have nothing to fear would she? She bangs her meaty fist upon her desk screaming at the camera about the need for social welfare. Yet if people were truly good, would we have need for such things? Ms. O’Donnell compares Christians to the Taliban and tells us that Christianity is if not evil, at least a danger to be carefully guarded against.

She openly derides those who seek limited government, and seeks to impose her leftist will upon us through government. She campaigns for the erosion of freedoms that could be used to cause harm and demands that government force us to be charitable.

Rosie and her ilk have no faith in the goodness of people or they wouldn’t campaign so hard to limit our freedoms and coerce us into making the social choices they want us to make. They have no respect for opposing viewpoints or they wouldn’t work so hard to silence voices like mine. Or, at best, compel us to act as they would wish through the use of government fiat, making us unwilling cogs in their machine.

What is it they fear? The evil that lies in the hearts of men. The pettiness. The greed. Just as everyone else does. This is why they fight tirelessly to control how we behave. They fear that a morally neutral tool would inevitably be used against them. They see the freedom of others as innately threatening. They fear that left alone, we would let others starve as we pad our own pockets. They fear that we have no capacity for goodwill toward others. If they do not fear such things, why do they work so hard to legislate them?

What is it they have faith in? It’s clearly not the people, or they wouldn’t try so hard to direct our every move. Yet, feeling as they do about our capacity for evil, they willingly give power to government to control us. They find little to be apprehensive about in this granting of enormous power because it will be ‘used for good’.

And yet when non-leftists are in control they briefly don the anti-establishment cloak that never leaves the shoulders of liberty-minded individuals, wearing for a time the mask of someone who sees the implicit danger of concentrated power. Faith in big government by fellow leftists, but not in big government by those other than themselves. What is this but fear of others that believe differently from you. We are left to the inescapable conclusion that what the leftist elite have faith in is in their own ability to justly preside over others.

I choose neither faith nor fear, but simple rationality. People are neither good nor bad, but will act in either fashion as their own self-interest dictates. Unlike the leftists, I do not fear others to the point I wish to control them. But neither do I have faith in them to always act in a goodly manner. More importantly, whereas the leftist has faith in ‘the right people’ and their ability to rule over us, I have faith in no one to do so. I am not an elitist, believing I operate on a level of righteousness unparalleled by ‘the common people’. I have within me the same capacity for evil as they do. And so I wouldn’t trust myself with such power, nor anyone else of a like mind. I do not hold myself above others, as the leftist elite seems to.

We were talking about The 300 on the med school discussion board. Of course, a couple of the meatheads mentioned that we would’ve loved to be born in such a time. Which incited me to mention that the Velamas today are a far cry from our warrior past, namely engineers, doctors, and mid-level managers. Someone said that stereotyping isn’t ok, even if you’re stereotyping your own people. Which, umm prompted a response. Here it is.

Stereotyping isn’t bad. The human brain (all higher mammal brains really) is designed for the express purpose of pattern recognition and categorization. All a stereotype is is a generalization concerning a given category. Many of these generalizations have considerable statistical validity. NOT acknowledging a statistically valid stereotype is irrational. Creation of stereotypes is essential to any kind of job or task that involves dealing with variability in your subjects. Without stereotypes we would be paralyzed by uncertainty. We couldn’t make assumptions. We couldn’t move forward. Because you can never be 100% sure of anything.

Stereotyping only becomes wrong when you make the mistake of assuming that everyone within a category fits the stereotype. For instance, BMI works well at the population level. As a population, people with a BMI higher than 25 tend to be fatter, have a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes, etc. At an individual level, BMI fails to accurately predict such things. Use of BMI is a stereotype. The BMI in and of itself doesn’t measure anything medically valid. It just happens to correlate well to something that is (namely body fat percentage and metabolic indicators).

A public health researcher can say “Oklahoma’s average BMI is on the rise. This is bad because this means that our incidence of heart disease, diabetes, etc will also see a corresponding rise.” Valid. Yet it’s a stereotype.

Misuse of a stereotype would be what would happen when I went to the doctor while I was still an athlete. I had a BMI of over 30. I also had a 31″ waist size. The doctor still told me I needed to lose weight because my high BMI was a health risk. BMI as I said is a population level phenomenon. And as long as it is used as such, no problem. But you can have fat people with a BMI under 25 (I’ve seen many) and people with BMI’s over 40 without an ounce of fat on them.

Or here’s another example. You’re walking from the BSEB to your car the night before a test at 3am and you see a 210lb dark guy in a black hoody walking directly at you at a fast pace. Do you make the stereotype of assuming this guy might mean you ill? If you’re smart, you do. Because at 3 am in a bad neighborhood, there’s a high likelihood that such a guy has a high possibility of being a criminal. If on the other hand you say “That guy right there is a violent criminal”, then you’ve taken it too far.

Can’t wait to see the fuss I cause this time. I’m honestly surprised the discussion board hasn’t gotten me into serious trouble yet…

Last week, I saw a totally thugged out guy with the whole huge jacket, saggy pants, and silver chains thing going on walking around my neighborhood. I thought to myself “that dude doesn’t belong here. He’s probably up to something.” I parked my car in the garage and left the family beater outside instead. And sure enough around midnight that guy and his buddies broke into several cars on our street. I live in an upper-middle class white neighborhood. And I do mean white. We are one of two minority families in the entire square mile.

I’m stereotyped the same way that guy is all the time. Back in London, after midnight people would cross the road to the other sidewalk when I was walking by. It doesn’t really bother me. Heck, I take advantage of it and am probably safer for it.

It really befuddles me that the self-proclaimed ‘Defenders of Science’ ™ are unable to understand basic logic and statistics. That they tell us we shouldn’t use the most basic element of animal intelligence when we deal with day to day life.

But what’s even weirder than that is that they go ahead and make racial stereotypes themselves with affirmative action.

It was a point I made to the new President of Cornell back in 2003. Lehman was notorious for the affirmative action supreme court case and I decided to bust his balls a bit when he had an open mic q&a situation on the quad. So I asked him why he’s such an ardent supporter of affirmative action when using income instead of race would be far more valid. I asked him how he could look at a black applicant and assume that their parents were low income and uneducated, then turn around and look at a white applicant and assume that they were privileged.

I have rarely been more popular with white people than I was that day.

Yeah, limited blogging until at least the end of this week. Possibly forever. *shrug*

Anyway, I heard an Orlando Magic fan had his season ticket revoked because he called Dikembe Mitumbo a monkey. Apparently that’s racist. I’ve had a lot of racial slurs thrown at me over the years, including pretty much everything you could call a muslim or a black person (which is funny, because I’m neither), but I’d never even heard of monkey being used as a racial epithet.

In fact, my nickname all through highschool and college was monkey. This might be because I’m an extremely gangly bastard and can touch my knees without bending over.

I’m not much of a sports fan, but one thing I know about Mitumbo is that he’s pretty much known for one thing: blocked shots. He’s not a bad rebounder either. Blocking shots and rebounding are two of the only basketball skills I’m mediocre instead of miserable at. One thing we have in common is being gangly bastards. It’s conceivable that he was called ‘monkey’ because of that.

Why I mention this is because it’s an example of how special protection laws erode the basic liberties we hold so dear. Whether it’s muslims in europe or minorities and gays here the end result is a limitation of the 1st amendment. Which I find rather strange given that it seems to be the only one leftists–the ones often behind such legislation–seem to remember exists.

This fan of an opposing team hurled an insult at a particular player. To my understanding, this is a regular occurrence. I would suspect that very few of us think insults should be illegal. Is calling someone a monkey somehow worse than calling him a loser or a moron? What if this fan had called Dirk Nowitski (also gangly) a monkey? Would he have been in the wrong then? No?

Strange. So insulting a white guy by calling him a monkey ain’t a big deal, but insulting a black guy by calling him one is? Seems odd to me. The black guy wasn’t hurt, his reputation wasn’t tarnished. I fail to see a crime. And even if there was one, how was it worse than if the player had been white?

Furthermore, they’ve managed to give this word a power it didn’t have before they made such a fuss. They’ve managed to turn a simple allusion, a simple comparison, into something hurtful. I wonder how many people like me would never have even thought monkey was racist before they heard the term.

I’m not a fan of special protection laws (such as ’sexual harassment’ or ‘age discrimination’ laws) as they take all objectivity out of the equation. It’s no longer important what actually happened but rather how someone interpreted it. Calling Nick a monkey wasn’t racist, because Nick didn’t interpret it that way. Calling Mitumbo one was, because he did. I realize moral relativism is ascendant in the children in adult bodies who are quickly claiming this world as its own, but is it really so hard to see the untenability in a justice system where the definition of crime is so capricious?

So. This is an ugly time in our Nation’s history. Far uglier than the Civil War and Reconstruction. Much worse than the Depression–although the seeds of today were planted by FDR, his four freedoms, and even moreso his massive ego.

Claire Wolfe puts it succinctly in the opening lines of 101 Things To Do ’til The Revolution when she says:

“America is at that awkward stage. It’s too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards.”

That is exactly the situation we’re in. At this point it is all but impossible for one to vote for a party that supports the essential American ideal of liberty. The Libertarians who perhaps come closest still fail to acknowledge the basic pragmatism espoused by the founding fathers and which common sense when applied to classical liberal theory would suggest.

A vote for the Democrats is the same as a vote for Old Europe. Also known as the road to serfdom, socialist collapse, and totalitarianism. To vote for the Republicans is to vote for a strange combination of plutocracy, social authoritarianism, and a brand of big government all their own. Democrats fail to understand that if it requires coercion to maintain, then it can’t really be freedom. They also strangely see no problem with giving Government control of our economic lives, all the while whining about the problems faced by those without it. Republicans are unable to separate their personal moral views from their political stances. And neither party is able to understand the difference between political and economic capitalism.

Both parties are broken. The left irretrievably so seeing as the very definitions of important words like ‘freedom’ and ‘rights’ they operate under are flawed. Castles in the sand and all that. Democrats’ minds inhabit a world in which physics, biology, and basic mathematics do not obey the rules of the physical universe. They live in a world where ’socialism is a good idea in theory’. Despite the fact that it’s at the theoretic level that socialism is most flawed, failing to take into account the basic self interest inherent in all animals.

Republicans? I’d give them slightly better odds but not much better. This might be a personal bias though. Like most minarchists I’m more sympathetic to conservatism than neosocialism since although we push for legalization of many things conservatives stand staunchly against, many or most of us willingly choose not to partake in such activities. Firmly wedded to personal responsibility as we are, the liberties of excess are not objectives we are likely to pursue.

So what do we do with one of the few tools left to us? Our vote? Well, we’ve all heard the basic arguments, which basically boil down to two:

1) The Republicans are still better than the Democrats, so we should vote for them.

2) The Republicans need to be sent a message so we should…

2a. Vote Libertarian
2b. Vote Democrat

3) The political machine is completely broken so we should refuse to vote at all.

4) Give the Democrats some power so they can hang themselves with their own rope.

I think Michael Savage has taken option 3 (if you can overlook his egotism, he’s actually fun to listen to). Boortz has rejected option 1, but I don’t know if he’s committed to anything else.
Personally I’ll be using option 2a and 3 depending on availability and palatability.

Just a couple days ago I reminded people that this is not an either/or proposition. And that’s what we need to keep in mind. This isn’t about choosing between Republicans and Democrats but architecting the birth of a new party or three. About changing things from the top to the bottom. Perhaps the new parties will keep the old names, perhaps they won’t. The fact that the Democrats can call themselves the ‘Party of Jefferson’ proves that names are as ephemeral and irrelevant as can be imagined.

Not everyone will choose the same option. Not everyone should choose the same option. I will say that Option 4 is just plain stupid. The thing about government power is that once granted it is almost impossible to revoke. Bush, like the past 70 years of presidents, is operating under the ‘emergency powers’ that FDR bequeathed upon himself. His Rural Electrification Administration is still in operation. Which is strange. I’ve lived in West Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, and rural New York state, and have never had a problem with access to electricity. It’s just possible that that particular branch of government has outlived its always dubious usefulness.

Choosing Option 4 in other words is to accept that revolution–a true revolution–will be the only recourse. Whether it could be avoided in any case is doubtful. Still, as a young man who hopes to raise children as soon as he finds a worthy vessel, I’d like to at least try for a peaceful solution.

The other options boil down to a combination of geography, the individual candidate, and personal principle. I refuse to vote for a Republican. I can do this because I live in what was the Reddest state in the union back in the 2004 election. I’m also lucky enough to call Porkbusting Senator Tom Coburn my own. I get to have my cake and eat it too. Were I to live in a borderline state like Ohio or Wisconsin, my personal convictions might have some negative side effects.

My vote isn’t meaningless, but it is futile. Even if the libertarian party presented me a candidate who’s head wasn’t in the clouds, a candidate with a strong and popular following, some Republican who displayed ‘Christian Family Values’ would still win. But like I said, my vote isn’t meaningless. Voting for an LP official would send a message. 5% of the vote this cycle, 10% next cycle. It would remind the people at large that there could be a viable alternative. And it would remind the Republicans that they aren’t the only option for non-socialists. And there is a certain comfort in knowing that even though I’d be ‘throwing my vote away’, at least I wouldn’t be abetting a Democrat in gaining a seat.

In a similar way, the same goes for those living in California, New York, or any of the other neosocialist bastions. They similarly have little chance of changing the tides. They are free to vote for an alternative candidate with a clear conscience. And that is what they ought to be doing without a doubt.

Borderline states, it’s you who have the real dilemma. When elections hang on margins that measure in the low thousands, your vote does make a measurable difference. Not voting for a Republican could change the election. Then again, voting for a Republican doesn’t quite convey your disapproval of the GOP. And then there’s the danger of the message being interpreted wrongly. The GOP could always take your decision not to vote for them as a signal that they need to turn even farther left. All I can tell you is that just remember that Dems in power means yet more liberty all but irretrievably lost.

Maverick candidates offer the best of both worlds. Republican candidates who support the FairTax plan, are more socially liberal, or firmly stand against the growth in the Executive Branch are people we can give our full support to. Unfortunately they’re an all too rare breed.

Nope, I don’t have an all encompassing solution to this quagmire. And there is no one-size-fits-all voting strategy. Human power struggles are far too messy. Which is probably why the Founders sought to limit the power of government so much when they created the law of the land. Sadly, we forgot their lesson. And this is the mess we’ve inherited.

All I can hope for is that we tread carefully and prudently. Whether we merely prolong the seemingly inevitable or somehow manage to revive our ailing nation, either would be better than hastening its demise.

You know what pisses me off?

Being called conservative.

You know what pisses me off even more?

When pseudosocialists call themselves ‘liberal’.

Do you know what pisses me off more than either of those?

Being told to vote for Democrats since I’m fed up with Republicans.

That one exposes just how statist and juvenile the modern so-called liberal is.

Everywhere around me I see discontent with the political leadership of both parties. The only ones who fully support the Democratic Leadership’s 12 step plan to emulate Europe’s slow decay are the ivory tower academics, their spoonfed and sheltered students, and a bunch of rich white people who feel guilty about their economic success.

And I don’t think I’ve actually met anyone who fully supports the Republican leadership. And I live in the reddest state in the union. Then again, maybe that’s why…

Yet this November, people are going to get into the booths and vote for people who don’t necessarily represent their interests or their positions, and in some cases are directly antagonistic to them. They’ll do so because “it’s as close as they can get.”

Unfortunately, when you vote you can’t put down “only because you’re the lesser of two evils,” or “I’m not voting for Republicans but against Democrats (which I may do, we’ll see),” or “I’m only voting for points 1, 3, 4, and 8 of the party platform.” A vote is all or nothing.

If we persist in the mindset that there are only two options, what will happen is we’ll enable these people to continue drifting away from what we really support. This is what the Bush administration has skillfully done for the past 6 years. I would sooner have shot myself than vote for Al Gore. I was 16 at the time, so it was irrelevent. But my position wasn’t so different from the people who were of voting age. And the Bush administration pushed their retarded agenda, the only unifying theme of which seems to be the desire to increase Executive Powers as much as possible while helping business out (which isn’t the same as advocating a free market).

Bush’s approval rating amongst conservatives has been relatively low for most of his presidency and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Yet he was voted in again in 2004. Not because people liked him but because he was better than Horseface.

And the same goes for Democrats. A lot of my left-leaning friends say they don’t support things like fully open borders, expanding social welfare, or enabling violent criminals by reducing our ability to defend ourselves, or a nanny state, but then they turn around vote for the people who do. Why? Because it’s ‘better than the alternative’.

So what do we have here? We have two political parties, neither of which represent their base all that well. And we have people that will continue to vote for one or the other knowing this. We are enabling the theocrats and the neosocialists by our unwillingness to tell them to go to hell.

A reformer, a new party, we need something. If Zell Miller and Ross Perot were to do their respective things right here, right now that’d be just about perfect. And we’re only get that if we encourage it. I don’t see any good options for 2006 but 2008 could be a very good time for an up-and-comer if we’re brave enough to break the hold the decayed and corrupt parties have on us. Don’t think of it as a vote thrown away, but as an investment on what could be something great.

At the moment we’re well within that 60 day period during which our First Amendment rights cease to exist courtesy of Sen. McCain’s insane publicity-driven political posturing. Which makes me angry. But I saw an ad air on TV that cleverly sidesteps that bit of legislative retardation. Which makes me smile.

Imagine an advertisement that starts out with a silhouette of what is clearly a female with a butch haircut (women should have long hair dammit). Imagine the advertisement explaining exactly why they can’t tell you what her name is or show you her picture. Imagine they tell you that this state insurance commissioner took tens of thousands of dollars from the very out of state insurance companies she was supposed to observe and regulate.

Now, imagine they give you a web address where you can learn more. This one right here:

www.oklahomasecrets.com

I don’t necessarily have an opinion on her. I already don’t like her. I don’t like her haircut. I don’t like her husband. As a former state employee I don’t like her abuse of expense accounts. And I don’t think the people who are supposed to be a check against something should be able to have their elections funded by that very thing. Could you imagine if Logan County (one of the nation’s largest meth hotspots) had a guy running for Sherrif who took campaign contributions from known drug dealers? Doesn’t make sense.

The advertisement could’ve been against Tom Coburn, who I would’ve voted for in 2004 if I’d been in the country at the time. I’d still have been posting about this slick little 30 second TV spot.

They found a way to bypass McCain-Feingold. And for that reason alone, I approve of their message.

Guy on a Focaljet asked this question and posted his top ten. Mine were slightly different. The one commonality, healthcare reform, showed just how different our ideologies and thought processes were. I wanted to reform it into a true market system with posted prices and employer-insurance decoupling. He of course wanted to go socialist. Which I found amusing since he supposedly likes math. And you have to be pretty bad with math to think socialist anything will work. Anyway, my Top Ten. There’s a fair amount of things you’ve seen before and these don’t necessarily go in order of importance.

1. Lock down the border
–simple logic says you cannot increase the size of your lower classes under a progressive income tax system
–furthermore, we are importing (and thus creating) an underclass, not good for them not good for us
–make English the official language. It’s the only way to be fair to all immigrant groups.

2. Tax Reform
2a. Eliminate Concealed Taxation
–the 7.5% ‘employer contribution’ to social security is a perfect example. It isn’t an employer contribution at all, but part of your paycheck deducted before you even see the stub. If you can’t see what taxes you’re paying you can’t know how badly the government is soaking you.
2b. Reduce corporate income taxes from sales
–this is effectively a concealed consumption tax, as their ‘profits’ are actually the money you spent on sales
2c. Initiate movement toward the FairTax plan
–income tax is both unconstitutional and unfair
–prebate plan ensures no one is taxed on necessities
–plus a lot more I’m not willing to get into. More here
2d. Decrease capital gains taxes
–possibly just for individuals below a certain income threshold to encourage saving and investing, reducing the need/desire for SS and government subsidized education loans

3. Healthcare reform (not what Hillary means when she says it)
3a. Decouple employers from managed care plans
–this is a form of concealed income. The employer doesn’t pay for health insurance, rather it subtracts the cost from your paycheck before you see the stub. The accountants consider health insurance just another part of payroll.
–this would increase competition as rather than having to sell to a single company, insurance companies now have to court thousands of individuals
*instead of pleasing the employer (by looking effective while being cheap), they’d have to please the person who wants to be insured.
–this would allow consumer choice as to whether full insurance is necessary or not. In many cases (especially single young people) it is simply too much coverage
3b. Push alternative coverage plans
–traditional health insurance is too inclusive, it’s like being forced to take no deductible comprehensive car insurance and a prepaid maintenance plan when all you need is high deductible liability
3c. Increase utilization of non-MD practitioners
–I’ve got a lot of respect for nurse practitioners and physician’s assistants. They could largely replace a lot of general practitioners
3d. Restrict medicaid and medicare programs significantly
–I’m very anti social welfare. It is not a good thing.
–Medicaid destroys market efficiency in healthcare. It gives too much coverage for some things and too little for others. And as eligibility grows, they become a larger and larger part chunk of the medical market. They can strongarm healthcare delivery systems in much the same way WalMart does with their suppliers.
–Medicaid and medicare encourage overuse of medical resources. You’re not paying, so why not go in for every little unnecessary thing.
3e. Allow emergency rooms to turn away non-urgent cases
–Right now ERs have to see and treat anyone who walks in the door, even someone with a simple cold
*seeing a kid with a runny nose in an ER is much more costly than in an urgent care or outpatient setting
–This is bankrupting them and increasing costs astronomically because many don’t pay, using it for ersatz primary care. This drives up your and my bill as these hospitals try to recover costs from us.
3f. Use tax incentives to encourage hospitals and pharmaceutical companies to provide indigent care
3g. Upfront pricing for medical care
–Allow patients to shop around
3h. In general encourage competition
–the current medical system is anything but a free market

4. Welfare reform
–major penalties for having children while on welfare
*not being able to take care of yourself is one thing, being derelict in your duty to raise your child is another
–couple welfare to working on government projects
*government can recoup cost of welfare by essentially ‘hiring’ these people, reducing the size of the civil service corps
–ensure that welfare is a transient safety net and not a lifestyle
–I toy with the idea of suspending their voting rights. If you’re not even taking care of yourself, what right do you have to tell other people how to live? But more importantly, if you’re living off of other peoples’ money, should you be able to vote yourself more of their money?

5. Move away from Social Security
–we will have to be weaned off of it as a 64 year old can hardly be expected to save enough money by next year to retire. Say anyone under 30 or so will not receive benefits and each year reduce the SS tax.
–private investment is a better alternative. Not government privatization of social security, but complete dissolution and moving to IRAs, 401ks and the like.

6. School reform
–competition is good
–vouchers ensure that parents are forced to spend money on their children (through taxation), yet allows choice.
–competition and government standards will ensure that even if parents do not choose school, school will still be decent
6a. Incentives to put elite schools in bad neighborhoods
–this worked well where I grew up. Kids who have little parental support nevertheless find themselves at schools with great opportunities.
6b. Accelerate the curriculum and provide public trade schools
–the answer is not dumbing down the curriculum but to smarten up the students. You won’t know what they’re capable of until you push them.
–some people can’t hack it. This is ok. There are plenty of well paying jobs for skilled labor, many of which can’t be replaced by machines.
–accelerated curricula might decrease the ‘college degree. any college degree’ requirement of many jobs.
*many jobs simply do not need a ba or a bs, they require these because the school system has gotten so crappy that they figure if you have an undergrad degree you’re up to high school standard.

7. Encourage research into viable alternative fuels–biofuels show great promise yet are underfunded compared to pie-in-the-sky tech that is often theoretically flawed, let alone impractical.

8. Remove ‘under god’ from the pledge of allegiance
–it just pisses me off and i’m running out of points to make. A 1950’s addition that undermines our founders’ commitment to a separation of religion and state.

9. Destroy the two party system
–there are more than two viewpoints out there yet sadly that is the choice we are forced to make
–The country would be better served by several parties who overlapped in ideologies. Voting blocs would disappear and there would be far less of this party line voting nonsense.

10. Shore up the constitution and its commitment to limited government–no more intellectual dishonesty about certain amendments (*cough* 2nd)
–return the Senate to state appointments rather than popular elections
*this would make senators part of state governments, and so reduce their urge to grow federal power.
–eliminate the executive powers first expanded by FDR and later by every president since
*reduce the size and power of the executive branch’s ’shadow wing’ (including FBI, CIA, ATF, etc). They don’t answer to the people and in many cases only nominally to the President. They have too much autonomy and not enough accountability.
–restrict federal powers to those areas envisioned by the founders as being necessary
–reform the judicial branch by increasing accountability and decreasing bench legislation
*there are activist judges on both the right and the left. With all too little justification they can drastically change interpretation of law even when original and/or commonsense interpretation is well established.
*term limits or at least periodic performance review periods

Thoughts
Schools and biofuels are probably the two things that pop out at you as not very minarchist. You’re right on the latter. And the former was cause for debate even in the formative years of our guiding philosophy.

I consider the environment a commons situation. And like all commons situations, self-interested individuals acting self-interestedly will result in destruction. I think that market solutions can work, but not without a regulatory framework. I see hunters, outdoorsmen, and the like as vital to preserving the natural world. I also know that we need to reduce our continued population growth and environmental impact. Not necessarily down from current levels, but control the growth from this point on.

On education, I think it was John Stuart Mill who said something along the lines of education being necessary for the maintenance of freedom. I happen to agree with him. Minarchists of all stripes tend to be very self-sufficient people and capable of taking care of themselves. These aren’t skills we’re born with, but things we learn. And it would be nice to say ‘It’s the parent’s responsibility.’ Which it is. But the truth is far too many people have children and whether through malice, indifference, or simple incompetence do not know how to turn those children into self-actualized adults. With a government education system (including a somewhat subsidized state university/college system), we can ensure that the opportunity to learn is there for all children and that they are exposed to it.

There’ll be disagreements of course. That’s kinda the point of political discourse. Anyway, that’s what I would do if I were eligible in 2008. Instead of 2020.

If you’re a firearms enthusiast you’ve probably heard of Norinco.

They’re a chinese manufacturer of a lot of weapon-related tech. What makes buying Norinco different from buying other Chinese stuff is that they are a profit center for the People’s Liberation Army. Who they’re liberating and who they’ve kept liberated I don’t know. But there you have it.

Buying exports sucks, but we all do it. But when you buy Norinco, you are directly increasing the coffers of the army of the world’s next big–probably inimical–threat. What makes it so tempting is that in several cases, Norinco offers clones of some interesting and highly sought after weapons.

They make the only forged M14/M1A receivers, Springfield et al. use cast receivers. And while they need a heat treat and some hand finishing, they are far and away the best new receivers available.

They also make a clone of John Browning’s Winchester 1887 lever action shotgun. Which is just plane cool. Also, Cowboy Action Shooting is fueling a resurgence of interest in clones of period longarms like the Taurus Thunderbolts. An 1887 would be a pretty cool piece to show up with at one of these matches.

They also do a clone of a Winchester 1897 ‘trench gun’, used in WW1 during the desperate and dirty fighting across the atlantic.

The M14 is the quintessential battle rifle and probably will always be regarded as such. The 1887 and 1897, while not exactly an improvement upon modern choices, remain interesting and fun (especially the lever-action) historical pieces and offer plenty in the way of desirability themselves.

Tempting, but worth it? To my mind no.

Most of us are well aware of all that. But a question I’ve seen come up time and again is “If it’s already in the store, then the PLA already has the money, why shouldn’t I buy it?”

Simple economics. It’s true that the chinese government has already benefited from this transaction. But importers and retailers typically decide what, how much, and how often to order based on prior sales. The faster those Norinco guns get bought off the shelves, the more of them importers and retailers will buy, and thus the more the PLA benefits.

There is one way to keep your conscience somewhat clear when it comes to these firearms, and that is to buy them used off of a site like gunbroker. The money changed hands long ago, and the person selling the firearm likely has no interest in selling more of them for a profit.

Still, this too can lead to increased sales of new weapons should these firearms become popular enough. Indeed domestic firearms manufacturers keep their eyes on sales of discontinued models, calibers, and options. When these used firearms become popular enough to start engendering a premium, manufacturers look into reintroducing these models.

You’re free to make your own choices when it comes to buying these products. After all, buying anything Chinese has a similar, but more mitigated, effect. I’m certainly not going to judge you for buying Norinco, just as I don’t judge my friends for getting drunk when I don’t. But you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

This is my personal take on buddhism, a combination of a strong spiritual upbringing and some scholarly dabbling in college. The Dalai Lama almost certainly has a different interpretation. I hope this clears up some of the misconceptions about Buddhism, and explains somethign of the differences between the Buddhist sect of Hinduism and other religions. It isn’t that this way is the only way, just that, so long as you remember the above lessons, it is incorruptible. If you live as a Christian, a Jew, whatever, so long as you, yourself are uncorrupted, the Hindu Gods really won’t give a damn which path you took to get there.

To understand the nature of Buddhism, and the purpose of Buddha’s life itself, one has to understand why God himself would come to Earth in mortal form, for the express purpose of telling people NOT to pray to Him.

Buddhism is a much misunderstood religion, often the biggest perpetrators of it of misinformation are Buddhists themselves.

The New Testament is like a ship floating aimlessly in the sea without the anchor of the Old Testament: You can’t understand Christianity without a basic knowledge of Judaism.

The same is true, even moreso, for Buddhism with regard to Hinduism. In fact, Buddhism is not a religion of its own so much as a sect of Hinduism. To understand this, we might as well start at Buddha’s birth.

A young queen has a dream that a six-tusked white elephant pierces her womb, an omen that the child is destined for great things. Eventually a baby boy is born: Siddhartha Gautama. The crown prince lives a sheltered and indulgent life until sometime in his twenties, he realizes that he has no idea about what life really is. So he kisses his wife and son goodbye and sits underneath a tree (a bodhi tree to be specific) and doesn’t move for 8 years.

He comes back from his trance enlightened. Now it is revealed that he is Vishnu incarnate. Other vishnu incarnations you might be familiar with include Rama and Krishna (as in Hare Krishna cultists…who I’ll save a tirade against for later). Buddha didn’t actually say anything new. But then again, neither did Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. Buddha’s contribution was to remind us what the soul of Hinduism really is.

Hinduism had become (and is becoming again today) an empty religion of prayer for things– rather than guidance–and ceremonies whose symbolism was lost. To rectify this, Vishnu came down as Buddha, and preached the same central message that had been present in Hinduism since before the Vedas had been cobbled together.

Vishnu (as Buddha) reminded us of the central fact that you do not reach salvation through devotion to God. You reach it by living according to your dharma, your duty. Which isn’t given to you by god, but through obeisance to the Vedas. The Vedas were not God’s (or God’s earthly incarnation’s) words to us; they were an explanation of the world around us (epistemology), and an elucidation of man’s place in it (ethics). Hinduism, at its core, is about man living as a part of nature, respecting nature, and interacting with others and the environment according to the precepts of natural law.

Buddha reminded us of this through the simple expedient of declaring that the question of God’s existence is irrelevant. It isn’t that you don’t believe in god, or believe wholeheartedly in Him, it’s that said belief doesn’t change how you should live: agnosticism. It is a godless, but far from soul-less sect. Buddhism wasn’t the first agnostic Hindu sect, but it was originally the most widely practiced…until ideas of God, prayer, and ceremony invaded Buddha’s central tenets some years after his death.

Buddha once again espoused the ideas of karma (what goes around comes around), ahimsa (not harming other living creatures more than necessary), dharma (duty), reincarnation, and release from the endless cycle of birth death and rebirth through the attainment of perfect harmony with the natural order (nirvana). But he did so in simpler terms, leaving God out of the picture, and thus making sure the meaning of God was not perverted by the selfish actions of what we in Hinduism have termed Rajasics (or those who pray in order to achieve their desires).
————–
To be a Buddhist then, one is faced with the paradoxical belief structure of admitting the existence of God, yet having a religion in which God plays the most minimal role possible. Brahma still created the universe, and Vishnu, in his incarnation Kalki, will still destroy it at the conclusion of the Kala Yuga (the current age). Buddha himself was an incarnation of Vishnu. In adhering to Buddhist tenets you are obeying the word of God. But Buddha is to be thought of as a messenger, enlightening us on natural law, rather than dictating it. One of his many titles was The Teacher. And it is in this capacity we must accept him.

When a Buddhist meditates, seeking enlightenment, he is not asking for the answer of an omnipotent God, but asking for the counsel of his sagacious Guru, his all-knowing Teacher. His Mr. Feeney

When I attempt to meditate, it is not to ask Buddha for the answer, but for guidance in how to solve the problem.

Myself.

70 years ago, the Indian symbol for good fortune was appropriated by an ambitious German politician to denote his Third Reich. The symbol that had graced everything from doorways to jewelry for thousands of years was in a moment’s space twisted into a representation of one of the most evil regimes in history. Today, for me to display an important part of my heritage would send quite a different signal from that intended.

Also around 70 years ago, the transformation of the word liberalim from a doctrine of minimal interference and autonomy to direct interventionism and state-mediated privileges neared completion under Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his four freedoms.

“The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under
the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist
program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without
knowing how it happened.”–Norman Thomas, founder of the American Socialist Party

I got in trouble back in middle school for drawing a Swastika on a notebook. The teacher demanded I throw the notebook out. I did. And then drew an even bigger one, in marker, on a new notebook. She tooke the hint. Hitler perpetrated so many evils against the Jews and other undesirables, as well as Europe as a whole. To allow him to further rob Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains of an essential part of our heritage is unconscionable.

It is for the same reason that we must not yield the name ‘liberal’ to our ideological enemies. To do so is to grant them a victory and a legitimacy they do not deserve. When I started this blog, almost a year ago now, I said that the war against the left wasn’t merely about issues, but about definitions. I still believe that if we are to win, we must show the world how hollow the word ‘liberal’ rings when it comes from their mouths.

Liberal–from liber, meaning free. Freedom. Autonomy. Non-interference. As 311 says:

do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law
until you violate the rights of another
respect the space of your sister and your brother

This is the sum total of what it means to be liberal, freedom to choose both good and bad, yourself.

To take the hard-earned fruits of labor from some to give to others. Not liberal, but statist.

To criminalize the possession of objects, rather than their criminal use. Not liberal, but statist.

To ban unhealthy foods, because people ‘don’t know what’s best for them’. Not liberal, but statist.

To seek comfort through government. Not liberal, but statist.

To view government as the creator, rather than a defender of liberty. Not liberal, but statist

Every time Boortz denigrates the deranged thought patterns of ‘liberals’, every time Michael Savage descends into yet another overly egotistical yet erudite tirade against the ‘liberals’, it rankles. Every time a leftist declares that he is a liberal, every time someone who supports social welfare insists he’s more ‘liberal’ than me, my anger grows.

And the converse is also true. I am not a conservative. I cannot be lumped in with the conservatives. Because although I and many of my ilk are more sympathetic to conservatism, we understand that ultimately that road leads to the same tyrannical and oppressive government as leftism does.

I am a liberal. I am proud to follow in the footsteps of Jefferson, of Paine, and of Locke. I revel in the words of Godwin and Voltaire. I nod in understanding as I read Hayek, Freidman, and Smith. I am but an insignificant part of a strong, proud, and long philosophical heritage. And I will not have my name taken from me without a fight.

…maybe we’d finally get included in these massive diversity initiatives all over the place.

Thanks to the apologists at CAIR who’d much rather guilt trip Americans than actually reform their own religion, the bleeding hearts who think that if we all just hold hands and sing Kumbaiah around a campfire world peace will appear out of thin air, and the appeasers who are so scared of Islam the word ‘Allah’ causes them to lose control of their bladder and their dignity, middle and high schoolers around the country are now being taught units on Islam.

I’ve got no objection to being educated about world religions and cultures. What I’ve got an objection to is the motivation behind this. It is a tried and true axiom that ‘diversity’ only becomes important when the group we’re focusing on becomes politically important. First in the civil rights era, blacks became an important political node. Black history month, Kwanzaa, and Levar Burton in a loincloth ensued. Hispanic immigrants become the fastest growing segment of the population through means illegal (mostly) and legal. All of a sudden these new immigrants, with no history of institutional racism, become a part of the Affirmative Action eligible population, which is bizarre since other recent immigrant groups (less numerous of course) are left out. National Hispanic Month, bilingual civil servants, and illegal immigrant havens that defy US law and principles rise to the fore. Terrorists become more than just a nuisance, killing in the name of Allah, and all of a sudden Muslim Americans are in the spotlight. And, inevitably, it is followed by obsequious whoring and the judicious application of lips to buttocks.

Looking at the data from the American Religious Identification Survey from 2001, the zeal with which schools across the country are rushing to teach children about Islam seems somewhat misplaced. Especially given that one of the oldest and largest religious traditions continues to be overlooked.

As one might gather, I’m talking of course about Hinduism and Buddhism. Which really can’t be taught separately; Buddhism lacks context without a discussion of Hindu philosophy and history, and leaving out the latest reincarnation of the Hindu conception of God (Buddha) is similarly awkward. Together they represent roughly 2.5 million people as compared to the 1.5 million of Islam. Buddhism alone is just about even with Islam at about 1.5 million, while Hinduism is just behind them with 1 million.

More importantly, whereas between 1990 and 2000 the Muslim population doubled, the other two saw substantially higher growth rates. Buddhist residents nearly tripled in number, while the number of Hindus grew by an even greater 237%. But of course, no rush to add us in.

We continue to be left out of diversity initiatives across the country, and while we’re included in some, all too often we’re simply left out of the picture or given merely lip service. Far more important is it to focus on the Abrahamic religions (of which Islam is one). As an outsider, I’ve found far more similarities in those three religions than I have differences (indeed, Mohammed saw his gospel as rather similar to that of the monophysite Christians and initially approached them in a spirit of brotherhood). All three religions trace their roots to Abraham. All three place man against nature. All three count their members among ‘the chosen’. And in all three, submission to God is one of the most important themes. The eastern religions differ from them in every one of these aspects. But apparently the largest and oldest Eastern religious and cultural tradition would add little to our appreciation of the richness and variation of human cultures.

Maybe if we rioted over the Simpsons episode where Homer dressed up as Ganesh and demanded Matt Groening’s head on a platter. Maybe if we killed Texans, citing their steak addiction as an abomination unto Vishnu. Or maybe if Buddhist monks and Hindu priests demanded that we be allowed to live under our religious law despite living on American soil, or face the terrible wrath of a holy war against the American devils. Maybe then we’d be worth learning about?

If I sound angry, I am. If I sound jealous, I’m not. Disgusted would be a better word. Disgusted that people don’t see ‘diversity’ and ‘multiculturalism’ for what it is: political posturing. Muslims might be fewer in number than other groups, but they’re a very visible one given the trouble intolerant Islamofascists are creating on every continent except South America (and I might be wrong there). And at the end of the day I’m simply not a fan of enforced cultural education. It becomes just another chore when you do that. I’d much rather people come to me and ask if we really do worship cows. It sucks that that’s the public perception, but their curiosity means that when I explain the true nature of Hinduism to them, they want to hear it.

So 1000 lawyers have shown up at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay to defend the 400 some inmates, for free. Screw the inmates, lets focus on those lawyers.

I’m going to go ahead and make the assumption that probably upwards of 90% of those lawyers are flaming leftists. With maybe the remainder made up of conservatives and libertarians who dissent with the war for whatever reason.

Why do I make this assumption? Because under international law, the only rights of enemy combatants fighting without uniform is to be summarily executed and/or hanged after a redundant battlefield court martial. In other words, just by being left breathing, they’ve been shown considerable mercy. And through leftist posturing, they’ve been given more amenities than I get. And more consideration for their religion too. Which is funny because Hindus have never tried to kill Americans in the name of religion.

What do you call someone who wants to give people ‘rights’ that are neither rights nor deserved? A leftist. Hence my assumption that these lawyers are leftists.

Moving on, that’s slightly more than 2 lawyers per detainee, all of whom vote for Democrats because they’ll ‘take care of the less fortunate’. These people likely call those who don’t support social welfare names like ’selfish’ or ‘greedy’ or ‘uncaring’, while they call themselves ‘charitable’, and ‘respectful’.

So here’s my thing. How many of these 1000 lawyers do you think have ever offered their services to the poor for a significantly reduced rate or for free? You think it’s even as high as 50%?

Leftists talk a good game about caring more about others than we do. Yet a look at their personal lives often reveals just how hollow their talk of charity and good will really is. As I’ve discussed before, they on the other hand simply vote for someone else who will so that they don’t have to.

What does it say about a person that they think service to his fellow man can be discharged by choosing a proxy, and then forcing everyone else to do the same?

Chili’s locations nationwide are donating 100% of their profits to St. Jude’s today. Monday September 25th. 100%. The dirty, selfish capitalist pigs that they are, this is nothing but a marketing gimmick, the increased exposure will return monday’s ‘donation’ sevenfold. So it’s not really unselfish.

Seriously, altruism is nothing but an artificial construct thinly veneered over a scaffolding of the complexities of self interest.

And while I leave you to ponder that point, remember that even if Chili’s is profiting off of this, so are the kids at St. Jude’s.

And that’s the important thing. So stuff your face with an appetizer, one of the more expensive entrees, and then order an 8 dollar daquiri (virgin for me, thank you) or one of those other fru-fru drinks they seem to sell all the time. Because as a former frat party bartender I can tell you that the profit margins on those things are HUGE Heck have several, just have someone drive you home. If you live in OKC, heck, I’ll do it.

I’ve got a dirty secret. I don’t see the point in packing heat all the time. Or even most of the time. There. I said it. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a very strong second amendment supporter and the fact that I have to get a license to concealed carry pisses me off only slightly less than the fact that California still has an ‘assault weapon ban’. And don’t get me started on the BMG ban. I also believed that an armed populace is more important than jail sentences or a police cruiser as a criminal deterrent. But by and large I am and have always been far more interested in the right to keep and bear arms than doing so myself.

We were talking about it on the Life Liberty Property community’s mailing list after we got sidetracked from the initial subject of web traffic. Don’t ask me how. RG Combs was telling me about his experiences with the Guardian series, which I’ve been eyeballing after playing with (and enjoying) my Black Widow. I admitted that I’m simply not that worried about the personal safety aspect, expecting a torrent of distaste and angry statistic quoting. Instead it turns out I’m not the only one. Several in fact have never even fired a gun before.

And it occurred to me that the libertarians who make you feel bad for admitting the above are guilty of making the same exact mistake conservatives do. They forget that the important thing is the freedom to choose to carry, not that you yourself carry. As I’ve said before, I probably wouldn’t even own a gun if I hadn’t been attracted to the engineering aspects first, and the fun second. Granted, I’d still probably have a CCW license just so I could wave it at hippies and make them cringe in fear…

I’m a rather conservative man as personal habits go. Yet I support drug legalization and a host of other ’socially liberal’ things which I myself either look down upon or simply would never do. When conservatives hear that, they often make the mistake of assuming that I am somehow ‘for’ those things. Heh. If only they knew just how puritanical I can be. On the other hand, I hate seatbelt and helmet laws, but I always buckle up and wear a helmet on the rare occasions I ride. Which upsets the leftists, who claim I don’t care about people, unwilling to realize that I’m simply willing to give them the respect to allow them to make their own decisions about issues that only affect themselves.

What I’m getting at is that the biggest difference between classical liberals and both the right and the left is that the latter share the belief that personal opinion should be law. When we create an environment where other liberty-minded individuals feel like pariahs because they have little interest in firearms, we make the same mistake the mainstream does. The important thing is that–like us–they support the right to use firearms in defense, utility, and fun, not that they themselves do so.

It’s a common plot device in cartoons. Kid gets tired of being bullied. Kid learns karate/gets special powers/buys robot and neutralizes bully. Kid eventually becomes worse than old bully. I would say it’s gotten tired and old, but it hasn’t. And it’s yet again a lesson the leftist would do good to apply to his political thought process.

In 1789 the French stormed the Bastille and took a stand against the aristocrats, abolishing feudalism and theocracy in one fell swoop. In the 19th century, protests against the robber barons raged far and wide all over the West as workers and their children were exploited during the Industrial Revolution. And in October of 1917, the Bolsheviks took the words of Marx to heart as they usurped control both in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The common theme of all of these events was injustice. People had power they did not deserve, and they were exerting it over people who couldn’t defend themselves. Although I have little patience for socialism, even I must admit that something had to be done about what was going on.

The danger comes when a perception of wrongdoing turns into outright jealousy, and the desire to dispense justice turns into the bloodthirsty motivation to punish. One sees this most clearly with Marx’s–and his followers’–endless tirades about the bourgeoisie. When all is said and done, their greatest criticism of the fledgling middle class is that they are better off than the proletariat. And so they punished prosperity. The Soviet Union managed to function for 74 years after that revolution, but it never knew wealth. Could it be that the two are related?

It seems that along the way leftists found themselves unable to keep their eye on the prize. The point was to prevent men from becoming prosperous by taking it off the backs of others, not to prevent them from becoming prosperous. But by looking first at their situation and then assuming that a crime must have been committed, they have become just as oppressive in their own right as the kings of days past.

And I speak not only of wealth, but of any pursuit in which we will naturally stratify and separate into different levels of success and attainment. Of academic excellence and artistic fervor. In athletic competition. Even, sadly, in health. The left sees each of these things and believes that any differential amongst the various demographics cannot be tolerated. They punish out of jealousy and nothing more.

The founding fathers stressed the importance of reciprocity in government. In fact, it is reciprocity that separates the fundamental rights of life, liberty, and property from the coercive privileges demanded by the modern leftist. Civil rights weren’t created for the majority, but for the minority. Freedom of speech wasn’t for the eloquent but for the dastardly. If you took free speech away from him, you have also taken it from yourself. By the same token, by punishing someone else for their success, you prevent yourself from ever being rewarded for your own.

In a casual conversation the other day, we got to talking about traffic laws, parking tickets, university police, and other such travesties of justice when someone wondered aloud why law enforcement seems to attract the best and the worst people in society with equal frequency. I would think that the answer would be self evident to anyone. And it bothers me that in a few months, tens of millions of people are going to elect state and national leaders without understanding this basic aspect of human behavior and its political ramifications.

The purpose of government is to ensure the well-being of the people. But government cannot discharge this responsibility except through the projection of power. At its core then, government is force. Like any other potentially destructive implement, the determining factor isn’t in the object itself, but can be found in the character of the man wielding it.

As the old adage goes, with great power comes great responsibility. These ultimately inseparable aspects of any position of influence nevertheless attract two very different kinds of people. And therein lies the danger.

While being far from an accomplished woodworker, I do enjoy the avocation. For me it’s about watching a few pieces of oak or pine magically become a functional, and sometimes aesthetically pleasing, piece of furniture. At the opposite end of the spectrum we have Tim ‘The Tool Man’ Taylor. With his constant quest for more power and his animal-like grunting, and the fact that I don’t think I ever did see a finished piece of work on his part, one is left in little doubt as to where his interests lay.

And so it is with government. There are those who lust for power, and then there are those who desire nothing more than to fulfill their duty to their fellows. The Founding Fathers–and in particular George Washington–were perfectly situated to claim as much power for themselves as they liked. After all, even in their own time they were treated almost as demi-gods, and it was they themselves that created the government they would later lead. Yet they created a founding document intended more to curb and limit government, rather than empower it (the EU and Iraq could take a lesson from that. Washington himself was treated like a king, and indeed at one point they tried to make him president for life. Washington was never tempted, never took the gifts of power that he was offered, for he knew that foremost among his responsibilities was to set an example for the maintenance of carefully circumscribed government.

Compare this to FDR, who ran for four terms as president. Who by declaring a State of Emergency, gave himself more power than any president who preceded him. Who mocked the very soul of this land when he declared the Constitution a ‘horse and buggy’ document and proceeded to destroy the Fathers’ vision as surely as Orwell’s pigs learned to walk on two legs. Or to Bill Clinton, whose ego makes even this author look as humble as a saint. Or to George Bush, who though not as bad as the press and the left make him out to be, is clearly a power monger in his own right.

How then do we prevent the power-mongers from taking office, from becoming dictatorial bureaucrats, or from wearing a badge? Is there a good way? We can’t achieve this in medicine or in the clergy, why would government be any different?

Those on the Left seek a big government. They do so because they think government has a larger responsibility to do things for its citizens. But they forget that with greater responsibility will come greater power. And, inevitably, abuse of said power.

So apparently with the tightened border security in California and Texas, illegals are ‘being forced’ to traverse the ‘dangerous Sonoran Desert’. Funny, no one holds a gun to their head and tells them to come here. In fact, they pay other people to get them across. The fact that they’re taking more arduous routes tells us one thing: the potential profit is worth the risk. They make this determination on their own, using their own faculties. And if the desert claims them, then so be it. They knew what they were getting into.

Harsh? perhaps. But I have no respect for those who won’t respect the laws and the history of my country.

Journalists once again come to our rescue by using idiotic language. The vocabulary of coercion is dangerous, particularly when used in a political context. It implies an oppressor and a victim. It implies that something must be done. It begs for government to arrive, wearing the guise of protector. And just as serfs once bowed their heads to feudal lords in exchange for safety, so do we.

I am profoundly sick of hearing about ‘victims’ and people ‘forced’ to do things. If you use such language, I want to see the crime, I want to see the coercion. People choosing to do stupid, dangerous, or inane things do so at their own peril. And I’ll respect them enough to allow them their freedom. And in return I expect that people leave me alone to do what I will. Succeed or fail, it’ll be my own doing.

‘Cause I’m just a girl, little ‘ol me
Don’t let me out of your sight
I’m just a girl, all pretty and petite
So don’t let me have any rights

Oh…I’ve had it up to here!
The moment that I step outside
So many reasons
For me to run and hide
I can’t do the little things I hold so dear
‘Cause it’s all those little things
That I fear

Tragic Kingdom was the first CD I ever bought. And when I heard the latest in inane auto regulation, Just a Girl was the first thing that popped into my head. Because just like Gwen, it’s all those little things–helmet laws, park curfews, and now mandatory stability control–that I fear most.

Why? Because they, more than anything, show how little the public understands the meaning of liberty. Because while it might be hard to push for major changes like even more pervasive social welfare, it’s quite easy to pass ’sensible’ legislation that makes everyone ’safer’.

Sadly I don’t recall a single paean to safety being sung by our founding fathers. But, being the child of immigrants, it’s possible that I overlooked that chapter in their collected works. Neither do I recall anything in the constitution about government having a duty to keep people safe from themselves. And I could have sworn that Benjamin Franklin made a famous quote about trading liberty for safety.

But I could be wrong.

Electronic Stability Control mainly kicks in when you lose control of the car. Skids, rollovers, etc. It helps primarily in avoiding single vehicle crashes. The stuff is pretty trick, actually. I’ve got it in my Mustang and it came in handy more than once while driving on ice and snow shod in sport tires. Then again, the ESC in the Windstar I drove in high school tended to cause more sticky situations than it eased by dint of an overbearing response to minimal wheelspin.

And my car happens to have this great little button. When I hit it, the ESC disappears. Which is nice, because when you drive a sports car, it’s just possible that you might want to spin the tires every once in a while. I don’t see those buttons sticking around for very long though. Already, in many makes and models ESC cannot be defeated.

The worrying thing in all of this is the lack of uproar, just on general principle. The journalists, supposed crusaders for the people, have emitted nary a peep about one more act of government intrusion. On the automotive forums I frequent, the response is a sad “well as long as you can turn it off…sounds like a good idea. There’s a lot of bad drivers out there.” And from most of my friends, “so what?”.

Some author once said that it’s the little things you should judge people on. It’s not what they did for the world when everyone was watching, but what they did for the person they’d never see or hear from again. It is much the same for government. Immigration reform, tax cuts, welfare and medicaid, all of those are as much about getting a vote as they are for the good of the country. But it’s the things like this that show our citizens’ indifference toward liberty and their general apathy for developing a cohesive ideology.

Should’ve let yall know I was going away. Meh. Things got busy both personally and ‘professionally’. And I went back to England for graduation. Which surprisingly worked out ok. The idiot europeans were so busy trying NOT to appear racist that they didn’t search the one guy on the plane most likely to be a terrorist. 15 stone of swarthy, angry young man with a goatee. Traveling alone with no check-in baggage. Probably should’ve raised a flag or two. Probably did. I would say no skin off my nose, but considering the frequency with which I travel, I really would’ve been more reassured if they had searched me.

I’m tiring of politics. Oh, I’ll still blog about it. But I’m getting sick of all the idiots calling themselves ‘liberal’ who immediately call me ‘conservative’. It’s like all the ‘hindus’ at the temple asking my parents why I haven’t shown up recently. Or Richard Gere being ‘buddhist’. I fear if I dwell too long on politics I’ll get a vasectomy for fear of raising a child in such a horrible world. Although, given my recent prospects, I probably don’t need to bother with surgery.

But expect more science, more psych, more religion, and more randomness on the blog in the future. I will try to post more at The Liberty Papers and I’m going to try to revive CAID now that I might have some help with it.

Two unrelated topics, but my infinitessimal attention span has me tiring of this line of discussion. So deal.

By vertical integration I speak primarily about ‘approved providers’. This is one where I simply haven’t done the legwork as to understand its origins completely. But I can say with confidence that without the massive sized corporations created by barriers to entry and employer-insurance coupling, such things would not have been possible. Just think about Halliburtion. They routinely received no-bid contracts (which I disagree with) from Clinton, not just Bush. Why? Because they were a vertically-integrated juggernaut. They were the only one stop shop that could provide all the services sought by the contract. They had no competition, so government decided not to bother with a bidding process (again, I don’t agree with that logic completely).

When I was rear-ended all four times, State Farm did something that no HMO or PPO in the history of mankind has ever done. They cut me a check based on reasonable repair cost (that was actually reasonable), gave me a list of recommended repair shops, and then told me I could take it to whomever. Repair shops thus had to compete for insurance-based business. One of the benefits of getting a check for a set amount is that these repair shops can ‘buy’ my business by leaving money left over. Discounting, in a sense. I can do with this money what I wish, such as keeping it. Or, as many gearheads choose to do, invest the extras in performance and appearance parts to be installed during the repair and so eliminate future labor costs or driveway wrench-turning.

The end result, as prices are driven down by competition, is that insurance companies can lower payouts and hopefully pass it on to the consumer. As a future doctor, it’s probably imprudent to say many specialties are compensated at a level incommensurate with the amount of work, but many specialties are overcompensated. A radiology resident recently remarked that the lowest offer he’d gotten was 350,000, right out of training. I’ll be training longer, with similar (higher than average) malpractice insurance costs, and in a considerably more stressful specialty, and if I’m lucky I’ll make about half that at my peak. If radiologists and imaging centers had to compete it might look a bit different.

As for overuse of resources, comprehensive insurance plans encourage you to seek medical care when it may not be necessary ‘to get your money’s worth’. If you’re spending 3,000 to 5,000 dollars on health insurance, you might as well see the doctor 10 times in a year, none of them for anything resembling serious. You already paid for it right? Problem is, as I said in an earlier post, these premiums are based on average consumption. The more often you go, the more premiums will rise.

Prescription drugs now make up 10% of our total healthcare costs (compared with 20% for doctors, and 30% for hospitalizations) and that is slated to continue to rise. How much of this is really medically necessary? How much could be eliminated by simply manning up, altering behavior, or otherwise? Of course, this meteoric rise is rooted in Big Pharma’s advertising drive, which has quintupled in just 5 years.

But one must ask how effective this would be if we didn’t see health insurance as ‘already paying for it’? If we had emergency and critical care insurance, but had to pay for such garbage as sleeping pills, antidepressants (truly therapeutic in a minority of patients), and anti-fat pills, what would be the result?

In order for consumers to make informed decisions they must be able to recognize the costs and benefits of a given action. When these are concealed through multiple mechanisms, consumers lose the ability to make rational decisions. Markets become inefficient, and consumers waste resources where there is no need for such. This waste is pocketed by the suppliers.

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