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Today’s Downsizer Dispatch . . .::::::Evangelize the Downsize DC message. Forward this to friends . . .::::::Quote of the Day:::::::
“One death is a tragedy. Six million is a statistic.”:::– attributed to Joseph Stalin
::::::Subject: Death by government::::::When real market prices are unavailable to balance supply and demand in the health care sector — when prices are set by government decree, or distorted by government funding — the consequence can be death.::::::It’s easy to miss this truth if we only focus on anecdotal personal testimony. Talk to people from Canada and the U.K. and you’re likely to hear glowing praise for their national health services. Alas, there are fundamental problems with this kind of testimony . . .
- People living under national health services have little or nothing to compare them to.
- Small medical problems, easily fixed, are far more common than those that are life threatening — thus, most personal testimony tells us little about how well major procedures are handled.
- Patients that survive major medical problems in such systems tend to assume the system works.
- While those who die because of the system’s failure are unavailable to testify.
- This is the familiar economic problem of the “seen and the unseen” — the successes are seen, walking among us, while the failures lie buried, unseen and silent.
Michael Moore, in his film “Sicko,” makes dramatic use of horrifying anecdotes of failure in the American system. We say, “Good for him!” We too reject America’s current system, precisely because it is already half-way to the type of system Moore advocates. We applaud him for exposing the failures of America’s half-socialized system, but . . .::::::We must criticize him for not telling the whole story. If you watch another movie, “Dead Meat,” you’ll hear equally horrifying anecdotes about the fully socialized Canadian system, which is the kind of system Moore wants for America. Though Moore favors the French socialist system, future messages will show that there is really no fundamental difference between France and Canada. For now we just want to compare movie-anecdote to move-anecdote, and “Dead Meat” is about Canada . . .
Today’s Downsizer-Dispatch . . .::::::Is our campaign for the Read the Bills Act getting results? We are certainly encouraged that Congress has taken some steps in our direction. Sen. Dianne Feinstein writes to a Downsizer:
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:::”Like you, I believe that it is important that Senators and Representatives have a full understanding of bills before they come to a vote. You may be interested to know that a provision was included in the ‘Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007’ (S. 1) that requires any bill containing earmarks to be available on the internet for at least 48 hours before it can be considered by the Senate. This bill also includes a provision requiring that conference reports be available on the internet for at least 48 hours for Members to review before they may be considered. I am an original cosponsor of S. 1, which passed the Senate on January 18, 2007 by a vote of 96-2, and support these provisions.”
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:::Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama is also feeling the winds of change, saying that as President “he would post all non-emergency bills online for five days before he signed them into law, allowing Americans a chance to weigh in on the legislation.” Source: Yahoo
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:::Fine idea, Senator! It looks like you borrowed our idea of posting bills for seven days before Congress votes on them. And that raises the question:
Spread the Downsize DC message. Forward this to friends . . .::::::Quote of the Day::::
“Influence: In politics, a visionary quo given in exchange for a substantial quid.”:::– from “The Devil’s Dictionary” by Ambrose Bierce
:::Subject: The drumbeat for a health-care monopoly::::::Have you noticed? Nearly every talking-head show on TV contains a plug for so-called universal health-care. Everyone, everywhere is being exposed to this message nearly every day.::::::Can you imagine, in such a climate, that we will not end up with some form of tax funded universal health care? ::::::If we do, you can be sure of two things . . .::::::1. The resulting policy will be sold as a visionary step forward:::2. The prices and terms of your health-care will be set behind closed doors::::::The so-called visionary quo will come in return for a substantial quid. The program will amount to the most massive system of corporate welfare yet devised. ::::::Here is an important question to consider: How should the prices be set for health-care procedures?
I’ve got some questions. Maybe you can help me by calling my one hour, Sunday radio show, the Downsize DC Conference Call at 1-800-259-9231.
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:::Why is it important to declare war instead of pass an authorization to use force? Candidate Ron Paul has insisted it’s important. But an observer on C-SPAN recently accused him of being a “demagogue” — the authorization of force was good enough.
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:::I disagree. I think I have some answers to this question.
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:::But I have another question for which I haven’t gotten satisfactory answers. Once the President is given either a declaration or an authorization, either one (keeping in mind that the latter is unconstitutional), is it an eternal power? Here’s what I mean: Bush has said he would veto any attempt by Congress to withdraw the troops. But this is a Congressional power! How can he do that?
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:::This is a smart audience. So if you have intelligent analysis to offer, please help me! In addition to calling 1-800-259-9231, you can email me at CALL at DOWNSIZEDC dot ORG (we write that out “long-hand” to stop spam harvesters from snagging this address).
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:::And you want to miss this episode! Depending on how busy our phones are, you’ll also hear . . .
Have we tried yet?
Today’s Downsizer Dispatch . . .::::::Evangelize the Downsize DC message. Share this Dispatch with concerned friends . . .::::::Quote of the Day:::::::
“Government cripples you, then hands you a crutch and says, ‘See, if it wasn’t for us, you couldn’t walk.’”
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— Harry Browne
::::::Subject: Reviving American Health Care::::::Step by step we are moving toward a system in which the federal government will pay for all health care, and regulate it from the top down. You will have no choice . . .
Evangelize the Downsize DC message. Share this message with concerned friends . . .::::::Quote of the Day:::::::
“The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.” :::-George Orwell
::::::Subject: Bad things done in your name::::::Because we tend to forget, it’s time to remember something. We should pause to remember the pictures of prisoner abuse by U.S. soldiers in Abu Ghraib, Iraq.::::::The acts committed in that prison were done in your name. Those acts, in the eyes of the world, are representative of what America does, what America believes, what America is. Like it or not, they are representative of you, and of me. ::::::Sadly, we are about to look at another example — new evidence from another case of another stain on our good name.
Today’s Downsizer-Dispatch . . .::::::Monday, July 30 was a busy day. The House of Representatives passed 36 bills. Assuming a 9-hour day, a bill would have been read, debated, and voted on every fifteen minutes. But that couldn’t have happened, because the House also managed to pass 17 resolutions.
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:::How could the House accomplish so much in one day? By not reading or even considering the bills and resolutions they passed.
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:::All in all, the House passed 48 bills in the last week before the August recess, and the Senate passed 32. We normally tell you the total number of pages of legislation Congress passed, but this week, we just don’t have the time to add it all up. And we don’t think that is needed to prove the point: members of Congress can’t possibly have time to read and understand the bills they pass.
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:::Perhaps Congress needs to pass all these bills to keep Big Government running. But that’s just the problem. If we want Big Government, we can’t have truly representative government.
The Downsize DC approach is going to win. DC Downsizers are already getting their way. It’s amazing, given the circumstances, how well we’re doing.
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:::And we have every reason to hope for more and greater success.
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:::Do you believe that?
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:::This is not idle talk. It’s very important to have a discussion about hope.
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:::I’ve been reading pessimism . . . hearing cynicism. One can feel the gloom. This sense of doom is even pervasive. Worst of all, it’s debilitating.
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:::It’s unwarranted. And in today’s episode (Sunday, 8/12/07) of the Downsize DC Conference Call (my radio show), I’ll explain why I’m hopeful and excited.
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:::I’ll tell you the path to success!
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:::Now here’s what I WON’T tell you.
Plans & Progress