Miscellany: 6/26/12

Quote of the Day  
Be wiser than other people if you can,
but do not tell them so.
Lord Chesterfield

My Original Quote of the Day for Obama

Here is the only Latin phrase Barack Obama understands:
"Ignorantia juris quod quisque scire tenetur non excusat."

My variation is:

Ignorance of the free market, which every politician is supposed to know, does not constitute an excuse.

Sorry, Obama: this doctor (of philosophy) will not write an excuse for your catastrophic failure as a President (in Name Only).

Solon reportedly had a saying, "Laws are like spiders' webs which, if anything small falls into them they ensnare it, but large things break through and escape." My twist on Solon (and Jonathan Swift):  "Laws are like cobwebs, which don't catch any spiders."

Here is a selected list of other law quotes that Obama never came across at Harvard Law School:

• "Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." - Plato
• "A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed." - Rene Descartes
• "Law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual." - Thomas Jefferson
• "Good men must not obey the laws too much." - Ralph Waldo Emerson 
• "If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law." - Winston Churchill *
• "Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit." - Seneca *
• "The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly." - Abraham Lincoln *
• "To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all laws into contempt."  - Elizabeth Cady Stanton
• "The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free." - Henry David Thoreau
• "We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape, till custom make it Their perch and not their terror" - William Shakespeare

* My reflective variations:

• "A lawmaker is like a bear emerging from his lair, and the wise man avoids his attention. The cubs may look harmless, but the prudent man keeps his distance: he knows that the mother is watching, even if he does not see her. The vigilant man waits to rest until the bears hibernate."
• "A lawyer is like a toll keeper: his vested interest is the existence of law, not its nature. A law is effective insofar as it yields a client, the state or individual."
• "The law is like an iceberg: we only see the tip. What sinks the ship is the government, the bureaucrats and the judges, beneath the surface."
• "By the fruits of the law should you know it. Good law does not yield vice, and bad law does not yield virtue. If the law corrupts men, it should be repealed, condemned to the fire." (reflection on Matthew 7:16-23)
• "If laws were sufficient, man would not require liberty, conscience or judgment. Thus, if the law is necessary, the first law must protect man's liberty, conscience, and judgment."
• "What prohibits a law may restrain shame."
• "The best way to get a bad law repealed is to expose its practical relevance."
• "Ignorance of the law is the salvation of any incumbent politician."

The Verdict on ObamaCare is Due Thursday
Mitt: Your Message Must Be
RESTORE HEALTH CARE TO A FREE MARKET

There is rampant speculation about what the Court is expected to announce Thursday. If there is a consensus, it seems that the controversial mandate is gone (indeed, it's very difficult to see where you draw any line otherwise to any government coercion of consumers: if nothing else, you could see the statists to load any mandatory purchases through any opening SCOTUS gives them, which would be the end of any meaningful concept of individual liberty). Some Obama loyalists hope that their post hoc rationalization of a penalty as a tax will stand. The penalty is a form of economic extortion by the federal government: if I can't afford a $10K/year health insurance policy, taking the penalty is a no-brainer. Believe me, it's only a matter of time before businesses realize with health care expenses out of control, a low, fixed tax penalty can help them control their costs. I think everyone is waiting to see which corporation takes the plunge first, but if and when it does, you are going to see a bandwagon effect. This alone will skyrocket health costs beyond the Democrats' wildest imaginations. I GUARANTEE this will happen. It will contract the private health care market, and federal subsidies will explode upwards.

There is a big problem here in the sense that state governments have traditionally regulated health insurance--and that has problems, too. The real economic problem here is that special interest groups can socialize costs on other Americans, and if the federal government (or state government) is allowed to mandate them, I have lost any ability I have through the marketplace to obtain a bare bones package. If the federal government had any role to play, it would be to facilitate, e.g., self-insured groups operating across states. What you really have here is progressivism run amok: instead of special interest groups having to lobby across 50 states, they get a central clearinghouse of benefits in which individuals and states have no say.

 But, strictly in terms of states' traditional regulation as part of its policing power, I see the flip result of what was just argued in terms of yesterday's Arizona SB 1070 decision. For example, the majority argued that a state couldn't make it a misdemeanor for an unauthorized alien to apply for work, because the federal government did not assign criminal penalties (just civil). So if, say, the emerging federal bureaucracy imposes new health benefits on top of state government's historical regulation, how does that not imply an unconstitutional primacy of the federal government over the state? The same thing holds true of the federal government unilaterally raising eligibility for Medicaid, which has traditionally been split with the states. The federal government's out is to say "all-or-nothing". That's not a choice: that's extortion. So, say, for instance, if a state's match rises to 130% of current costs: the federal government is saying to the states, you have a choice between assuming 30% more of your costs, or 100% more of your costs, because we'll no longer contribute anything.

In fact, health insurance is a perversion of the concept of insurance, and the federal government is responsible for the current mess. For example, I have to pay auto insurance with after-tax dollars, but the government subsidizes employer/employee health insurance by exempting the compensation in question from being taxable. Should we be surprised? I made the same type argument recently in looking at the real estate bubble, and we now have a health care bubble. Just like real estate, government policies have perverted this, in multiple ways: but the whole process of price-fixing in Medicare and Medicaid is a PERVERSION of the free market system. The 50% or so of the national health care pie paid by the federal government is perverse: what you really have here is sort of a wolf in sheep's clothing: the private sector cannot continue to subsidize an increasing national share of the pie paying below cost. You will end up with rationing, etc.; the private sector will melt away, leaving a single payer government system by default. Progressives know this: it's a stealth takeover by government bureaucrats.

I'm not going to rewrite what Ron Paul did in a brilliant essay today (if only somehow I could merge Ron Paul's political principles with Mitt Romney's business know how and administrative experience... I described myself the other day to a libertarian economist blogger as a pragmatic Ron Paul). Reading this short essay is experiencing an intellectual rapture: it's such a difference in listening to someone whom knows what he's talking about versus a pretentious know-nothing like the current President in Name Only.:

Supporters of Obamacare are willfully ignorant of basic economics. The fundamental problem with health care costs in America is that the doctor-patient relationship has been profoundly altered by third party interference. Absent [free market] pricing information, our system increasingly resembles socialist systems with centralized price setting, shortages, rationing, apathy and declining quality of care. As the situation deteriorates, fewer bright young people want to practice medicine and fewer foreign doctors seek to immigrate. Obamacare's third-party insurance mandate is only the first step toward what the political left really wants: a single payer government healthcare system.

In a free market, most Americans would pay cash for basic services and maintain inexpensive high-deductible insurance for catastrophic injury or illnesses only. Health insurance would be decoupled from employment, which would unleash entrepreneurs. Costs would plummet due to real competition among doctors, price sensitivity among patientsand elimination of enormous paperwork costs...Congress needs to let markets work by aggressively repealing healthcare laws, including: the HMO Act of 1973, the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit passed in 2003 and the Obamacare bill passed in 2010. Furthermore, we must begin scaling back Medicare coverage

YES! YES! YES! Testify, my brother! (I've been watching too much pro wrestling...)



TSA: Tacky Shameless Arrogance

The interesting part of this Fox News Channel story is that the molested passenger, an ex-TSA agent who was traveling to attend the funeral of her brother (which she ended up missing), used to work with or for the supervisor. They had an adversarial history. After multiple inappropriate touches during the search, the former agent decided to return the favor. She, if anyone did, KNEW that wasn't prudent and wasn't going to end well.

I've mentioned a couple of times about the time I almost lost my flight because of a TSA screwup. When you get selected for a "random" search, there's a code on the boarding pass. As part of compliance, airline gate personnel are supposed to ensure that the boarding pass shows a TSA stamp that the screen was completed. I wasn't aware of the fact that the TSA agent who screened me was supposed to stamp my boarding pass but hadn't done so. An airline gate agent seemed almost proud of himself for catching the discrepancy, refused to let me board, and called TSA. The agent finally arrived to the gate, apparently in a foot race with a tortoise, while a stand-by passenger is trying to get the airline to book him into my seat.  When she started to repeat a full search--in front of everyone in the gated area--I protested. "Why do I have to go through a second search? Don't you people track who goes through the detailed searches? Can't you just double-check with someone in the screening area?" No, of course not. It's far more likely an obese man managed to sneak his way through security unnoticed. She simply said, "One more word, and we'll go back to the screening area to have it done."

It reminded me of how Clayton Williams, a Texas Republican "good old boy" shooting star who just obliterated his primary competition, blew his gubernatorial campaign against Ann Richards in 1990, despite beating her by 20 points in early polling. (I was on the UTEP faculty at the time.) "During the campaign, Williams publicly made a joke likening rape to bad weather, having quipped: "If it's inevitable, just relax and enjoy it"." [Joking about rape is brain-dead under any circumstances; when your general election opponent is strident Democrat feminist Ann (" Poor George [HW Bush]. He can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.") Richards, it's like a political death wish.]

So I shut up and let the TSA agent have her way with me. The second scanning would only take a minute or two. It wasn't worth losing my flight over. But I didn't forget or forgive what happened.

I can't believe, when the evidence clearly shows someone--who had a history with the passenger--touched the passenger inappropriately multiple times, which in other circumstances would be considered criminal assault but doesn't even merit disciplinary action from TSA. These TSA agents are on a power trip and use un-American authoritarian tactics to intimidate the flying public. The TSA serves at the discretion of the people; the people are not subordinate to the TSA. It takes institutional chutzpah for an organization which engages in assaults as standard operating procedure to point fingers at customers engaging in justifiable self-defense. I feel for the defendant here; it's bad enough trying to cope with the loss of her brother but having to put up with the unprovoked, unnecessary, unprofessional behavior of a former supervisor whom she didn't get along with in the first place? If any judge or jury buys that the repeated unwanted touching was "accidental", there's a Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska I want to sell you...



For this second video, this is from the TSA website:

Passengers are allowed to carry a crematory container as part of their carry-on luggage, but the container must pass through the X-ray machine. Under no circumstances will an officer open the container even if the passenger requests this be done. 

From ABC News:

John Gross was leaving Florida with the remains of his grandfather  in a tightly sealed jar marked “Human Remains.” “They opened up my bag, and I told them, ‘Please, be careful. These are my grandpa’s ashes,’” Gross told the station. “She picked up the jar. She opened it up.” Gross said the TSA agent used her finger to sift through the ashes and accidentally spilled it.  He said one-third to one-half of the ashes spilled and that the agent laughed as he tried to gather what he could from the floor. “She didn’t apologize. She started laughing. I was on my hands and knees picking up bone fragments. I couldn’t pick up all, everything that was lost. I mean, there was a long line behind me.”

Let's go beyond the fact that TSA agent didn't know relevant rules or even have the common sense to ask for supervisory assistance in what was clearly a novel circumstance for her. What is obviously clear from her actions is that she didn't have a clue what she was doing, but her job was to inspect things, and so she was going through the motions of showing her supervisor (or others in the area) that she was doing due diligence by going through the late grandparent's ashes, bluffing as if she had any clue what she was looking for in a dead person's ashes and bone fragments. And the same thing goes for invasive searches in or around one's private areas. Not one American flight in decades of passenger traffic has ever been brought down by a bomb hidden in a catheter, an urn or a person's private areas. Most people doing these searches don't have the slightest idea what they're really looking for. Go back to Plato's quote at the head of the post: I guarantee if some bad person was trying to do something, he or she would be factoring in TSA's screening procedures. The one thing that's almost guaranteed is that unwanted offensive touching by TSA agents will occur multiple times daily through the system, and  the TSA agent at the drop of a hat will abuse whatever authority he or she has to portray the victim as the criminal!





Political Humor

A new survey found that only 30 percent of Americans are confident in the country’s public schools. It’s pretty bad — for my niece’s history final, they’re just taking the kids to see “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.” - Jimmy Fallon

[That may explain why "Barack Obama: UBL Slayer" is opening early this fall.]

"Yesterday President Obama released a new commercial aimed at female voters. Which explains the commercial’s title, “Fifty Shades of Change.”" - Jimmy Fallon

[The other reelection ads in the "I Promise to Listen Better" campaign include "Michelle's Honey Do List for America", "I Still Remember Our First Vote", "Next Term Michelle Is in Charge of the Budget",  "The White House Toilet Seats Are Always Down", "I'm Asking You For Directions",  "You Get the Final Word This Election" and "I Was Wrong, and You Were Right".]

Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, "A Face in the Crowd"