Culture Shocked

That appears to be the message from the Obamacare repeal and replace crowd. I haven’t looked over the details and need to hear more from people I trust. But, my immediate reaction is:  well, I’ll prefer a tax credit over a medicare subsidy, if we are talking about entitlements.  I prefer we give folks money and let them figure out how to buy what they need with it.  They will make mistakes that busybodies will want to regulate away, but in regulating away possiblities for abuse, we tend to codify things we need to keep fluid. That is what the market is good for.

For example, I think that if we are going to tax everyone $7,000 to educate each child, I prefer we just hand the money over to each parent, and let them know they are free to do whatever they need to do to educate their child with this. If they take the money and leave the kid home to play video games all day, well, believe me, the same kid is probably going to get as good an education if he is sent to school to disrupt others or daydream away. It may be worse, it may be better. I’ll bet it’s better – for that kid.

Now, if the parent takes the money and uses it to find a great school for the child, or buys some great books, hires a couple of tutors, that child may end up getting a fantastic education. It’s really up to the parents.

Some kids need religious instruction. Let the child go to whatever school the parents deem best. Suppose it’s a school of satanic witchcraft, you ask? Well, them’s the breaks. Freedom of religion and all.  I trust the parents, and willing to deal with some bad choices in return for less One Size Fits All. If the satanic witchcraft schools flourish, they must be doing some pretty good teaching, right?

Thing is, by and large, parents want what’s best for their children. Many don’t care, of course. That’s why we have prisons, I suppose.

But this post is about healthcare, not state sanctioned brainwashing. Sorry I got a tad distracted there. but the point is the same:

I never cared for the Obamacare top down regulations. If we are going to afford this then the key is cutting all the red tape and let the market work. Find innovation, encourage innovation, reward innovation. Some people, many in fact, will buy snake oil. It happens. Here’s the key folks: use Facebook to warn people about snake oil, instead of pushing socialized medicine. Let a thousand flowers bloom. There will be weeds.

I have always been interested in the Medishare model. Anybody out there have any information on it they’d like to share?

But, like they said on Jaws, regarding our economy and the need for 3-4% growth – yeah, we’re gonna need a bigger boat.

 

I am truly amazed at how easy it is to hide the true news lede for months: What we KNOW is this: There is no evidence of collusion between Trump and the Russians. That’s all we really know. Still. After all these months. No new evidence of collusion. Can you believe it?

Even Senator Coons admitted he knows of no evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia, after going on TV to strongly hint there was. He did this to a media gaggle so eager to believe it, breathlessly running story after story, discussion after discussion, about the Sessions non-story. (No, it was not perjury. No, he did not “lie” to Congress).

Over the weekend, Trump apparently had had enough after that Coons suggestion the intelligence community had evidence. You want to talk endlessly about stories with no proof about a President? I’ll give you a story about a President with no proof.

And suddenly, the press demands from the President a standard of proof it refuses to demand of itself: “We, the media, have a role to endlessly speculate about the worst of the President we despise. But you: Mr. President, must be held to a higher standard. That is our job, after all, to endlessly chatter on things we can only speculate on, and hide the one fact we must all agree on: there is no proof of what we chatter about.”

The press, occupied by left leaning folk, hated Nixon. But Watergate was driven by evidence. This current stuff is driven by hatred, and fueled by speculation.

Watergate had the benefit that it drove the press to up its game, to uncover true evidence of malfeasance and coverup. Whatever we want to call this scandal, it seems to have the opposite effect. Journalists spend more time covering each other and not the story. This is because the story is what people are saying about the story. It is not the “scandal.” There is no scandal. But we desperately want a scandal. So, to keep the scandal alive, we need to talk endlessly about the “scandal”.

It is not right to allow your side to speculate, and offer a lower bar of evidence (“Sessions met with the Russian ambassdor! He said he didn’t meet with the Russians.” Context, please. People in Government are supposed to meet with ambassadors. That’s why we have ambassadors.). Yet you are not fair to demand a higher standard of evidence and proof from your opponents than from the party you prefer.

Examples: Secretary Clinton faced two telling scandals. The media demanded irrefutable evidence before they intimated the guilt they so easily suggest with Trump. And they got it.

1) In Congressional testimony, Secretary Clinton and the world was presented by Representative Jim Jordan with the smoking gun: email evidence – in two separate instances -she knew from day one the Benghazi attack was a terror attack and not a demonstration gone bad. The media hid that lede as well, and made excuses it would never allow this current President, should it come to that.

2) FBI Director Comey presented the findings to The public that Secretary Clinton mishandled classified information, on multiple occasions. The FBI, in other words, uncovered real evidence.

In both cases, the argument from the mainstream, left leaning media went from: “Is it true?” (It was) to “Does it matter?” Something tells me Trump will not be given the same pass, because he doesn’t even get the benefit of there being no evidence. But that’s partly Trump’s fault.

Trump would do well to fight his instincts, shut up, and ignore the matter. But he is a fighter, a media brawler. This is not an impeachable offense, by the way. In fact, the people who elected him want him to fight for them and for America. They see it as an asset. I like it when people fight for me. Don’t you? Sure you do.

The Russians, meanwhile, demonstrate they play chess, while we play checkers.

If Russia wanted to insert itself to disrupt our government and our electoral process, they couldn’t have done a better job than how they did it: the media hates Trump and wants Hillary. So…hack Hillary (who proved in the scandal before this scandal that her apparatus is an easy target after all) and prefer Trump. Get them all worked up, and blame it on collusion. Then have the mainstream media play the role of what they use to call in the old Soviet days their “useful idiots”: get them all worked up to disrupt the work of the enemy government.

They did their job. Now the media, their useful idiots, can take it from there. Once again, as in the 60’s, there is a Russian under every bed. But this time, the hysteria is coming from the left. Not because they seek to harm America. But because their political party is jeopardized. The Russians know the media doesn’t fear or particularly care about them.

Meanwhile, let me know if and when there is actual evidence of collusion. Otherwise, we all have more important things to do.