What is said over the dead lion's body
could not be said to him alive.
Zairean proverb
Ernest Borgnine: RIP
As a kid, what I remember about Ernest Borgnine is his role in the sitcom "McHale's Navy". But it was only a few years back when I stumbled across his Oscar-winning performance in "Marty", the story of a homely 34-year-old butcher whom lives with his mother and is convinced his lack of success with the opposite sex has to do with his appearance. Marty eventually meets a 29-year-old plain-looking schoolteacher named Clara. I've embedded a movie clip below. I have to say that I have to wince at Marty's total obsession with looks, and when I hear him compare Clara's looks to a "dog" or "gorilla", I'm halfway hoping that she'll slap the taste out of his mouth. (I personally think Clara is very sweet; the story she tells coming alone to a dance and nobody asking her is heartbreaking. Marty won the jackpot with Clara.) But when his friends find out whom he is dating, Marty starts having second thoughts about Clara. (In real life, this really happened to me. I had asked out this college nursing major I met through a relative. Someone whose opinion I otherwise respected found out and told me that she was plain-looking and I could do better. I never asked her out again, but it had nothing to do with her looks or that person's opinion.) I won't spoil the ending (which is predictable).
Reason.com Ranks the
Five Worst Anti-Liberty SCOTUS Decisions:
Thumbs UP!
This post has the funniest line I've seen in the aftermath of indisputably one of the worst decisions in SCOTUS history, i.e., Chief Justice Roberts' logically incoherent majority vote/opinion upholding National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, i.e., ObamaCare : "Where's Harriet Miers when you need her?" [For those who don't get the joke, President Bush initially nominated his crony White House Counsel (without judicial experience) for the retiring Sandra Day O'Connor seat. After Miers withdrew given opposition on both sides of the aisle, John Roberts was named to replace her. After Chief Justice Rehnquist subsequent died, Bush switched Roberts' nomination to the Chief Justice slot and named Sam Alito to fill the O'Connor vacancy. The authors are sarcastically suggesting given Roberts' questionable ruling, maybe Miers wasn't so bad after all...] I am somewhat amused by seeing seriously deluded progressives wax enthusiasm over the alleged ability of central planning to fix health care; after all, government price-fixing has such a clear record of success in other contexts. (Remember wage-and-price controls in the 1970's after Nixon broke with Bretton Woods (i.e., the gold standard)? Gerald Ford's "Whip Inflation Now" pins?) It's outrageous how politicians have the unmitigated gall to expand the federal footprint in health care imposing dubious rules and regulations which perversely impede the functioning of the "Invisible Hands" free market system (and price-fixing which is almost always wrong in the context of market supply and demand: as Heraclitus noted, "You can never step into the same river."). And we are not even looking at over $20T in unfunded Medicare liabilities. Any reasonable person would have said, "Let us reform the existing Medicaid and Medicare system" before pushing on a string with new, ill-advised initiatives. (The myopic progressives will no doubt say, "You want economies of scale? We have economies of scale." Yes, and so are losses; no private-sector business on earth could operate with nearly $16T in debt.) The handwriting is on the wall: sooner or later, ObamaCare (and the rest of similarly doomed federal forays into the health care sector) will face its day of reckoning, no matter what kind of disingenuous smoke and mirrors accounting. Price-fixing results in market distortions, e.g., gluts and shortages. We will only reform health care by unshackling government chains and letting free market principles operate.
Okay, as bad as the individual mandate question was handled in a manifestly bad ObamaCare decision, Reason decided to review a handful of decisions as bad, if not even worse, from a pro-liberty perspective: (I have my own list, starting with Carolene Products, or I refer to it, "the day economic liberty died", which I'll probably post at a later date)
- Miller v California (1973): Miller, the operator of a mail order porn business, mailed unsolicited promotional brochures to a restaurant, opened by a restaurant manager, whom subsequently complained. Miller was convicted of violating a relevant California anti-obscenity law. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court, which, in a split decision, sustained the decision, instituting a broader but hopelessly convoluted "community standards" framework for state/local communities to restrict the sale or distribution of obscene material. My take? Unsolicited mail should be treated in a consistent manner regardless of content. There should be equal protection for free expression, and this ruling suggests that material can regulated in an arbitrary, inconsistent manner and that majoritarian preferences can trump individual rights. I personally don't participate in this market, and I don't think prohibition of porn is enforceable; I think that participation in the porn market is a matter for the individual to resolve with his own religious and moral beliefs. I concur: bad decision.
- Bennis v Michigan (1996): Tina Bennis split the cost of a $600 auto with her husband John. Bennis subsequently was arrested for picking up a prostitute in the car and convicted of indecency. Law enforcement took possession of the auto under the circumstances of the arrest, allowed under Michigan law. Tina Bennis sued, arguing a violation of her property rights as half-owner of the vehicle. SCOTUS upheld the seizure, holding the fact that Tina Bennis did not know or approve of her husband's actions was irrelevant and state law trumped her property rights. This is an inexcusable, unconscionable, immoral abuse of government power and outright government theft. I concur: bad decision.
- Muehler v. Mena (2005): 5'2" Iris Mena, who had rented a room to a gang member (a suspect in a drive-by killing), woke early one morning to SWAT team members surrounding her bed; she was handcuffed and detained in her garage for 3 hours while an 18-member SWAT team, searching for the gang member and relevant weapons, ransacked the residence, causing damages to doors and cupboards (when keys were available). The SWAT members also questioned Mena about her immigrant status, although she was not listed on the warrant. SCOTUS reversed lower court rulings in favor of Mena's fourth-amendment arguments and property damage awards. My take: if Clinton wants to know what the definition of 'is' is, why in the world isn't anyone asking what the definition of 'reasonable' vs. 'unreasonable' is? This was clearly abusive, unnecessary use of force, and the officers were essentially given a blank check to holding an unarmed woman and trashing the possessions of someone whom had nothing to do with the crime in question. I concur: bad decision.
- Gonzales v. Raich (2005). The 1942 case of Wicker v. Filburn is easily one of the worst, most moronic "is the emperor wearing clothes" decisions in SCOTUS history. In this decision, the Court allowed the Feds to go after an Ohio farmer from growing and consuming his own wheat: there was no transaction; there was no transport of wheat across state lines. Basically a similar situation exists here: Angel Raich has had chronic pain since a car accident; she was allergic to various medicines. Her doctor approved medicinal use of marijuana, and she grew a small number of plants for her own consumption: there was no transaction; no shipment of weed across the state line. (This involved the federal Controlled Substances Act; California allows medical use for marijuana.) I concur: bad decision.
- Kelo v. City of New London (2005). This one should be no surprise to my readers because I have repeatedly referenced it throughout the history of the blog. In effect, the Supreme Court allowed the local city to abuse eminent domain as an end run to force a property transaction between two private-sector parties. Pfizer was working with a developer (on a project since abandoned) which got the city to clear the target area of homes and give it to them (in the hopes of the developer yielding higher tax revenues).
NCPA's Alternative to ObamaCare: Thumbs UP!
Let's be clear: I prefer restoration of a free market. But NCPA addresses some key criticisms I've made of ObamaCare in its Health Care Contract With America:
- Tax Fairness: Flat Reimbursable Tax Credits. Suppose a family policy costs $10K a year. If the policy goes through business using pretax dollars, the effect of the subsidy is determined by the employee's tax bracket. For instance at the 35% bracket, the policy really costs $6.5K. At the 10% level, $9K. On the other hand, if your employer does not provide health insurance, you pay the full $10K. The idea is to eliminate the pretax basis and give everyone an equal tax credit to be applied against health insurance costs.
- Unclaimed Tax Credits: Local Health Care Safety Nets. This addresses the freeloader issue that Obama and Romney have discussed. Any unclaimed tax credits in a locality would be distributed to local safety net institutions to defray costs of the uninsured.
- Employers: Individually Owned Insurance. Currently tax laws focus on group plans which don't accommodate portability for employees whom may during their work career work with other employers or for themselves.
- More Flexible Tax-Advantaged Self-Managed Accounts. The basic concept is to wrap a tax-advantaged account for ordinary expenses wrapped around conventional high-deductible insurance; the account can also include other funds to facilitate self-directed care for certain medical conditions.
- A More Intelligent Way of Handling Preexisting Conditions. We need to charge people in terms of their expected costs; if healthier people are overcharged (to subsidize other policyholders) they'll underinsure; if sicker people are undercharged (i.e., their own costs), they'll overinsure. Most people have been covered by health insurance during their work career. Suppose a preexisting condition is encountered in transitioning between plans. Clearly relevant costs should have been covered during the period such a condition arose, e.g., under the older plan, under which the condition developed untreated. The old plan in effect should be sharing some of the higher costs with the new provider. Basically we can think of two types of health care policy: one for healthy people's expenses and the next for a change in health status.
Entertainment Potpourri
I saw a 2007 film, Enchanted, play over the weekend on a non-Disney cable channel while I was working on a blog post, and it probably rates as my favorite Disney film. I bought a copy of the DVD after watching the movie one time. I love musicals, and this is a fairly novel twist: it starts out as a cartoon between the redhead Princess Giselle in love with and due to wed Prince Edward (a true royal doofus). Edward's evil stepmother Queen Narissa, who is holding the throne until Edward marries and doesn't want to give it up, banishes Giselle from the cartoon world to the real world with no happy endings: New York City, of course.
The cartoon-turned-real life Giselle (Amy Adams) is a fish out of water and gets confused when she sees a billboard with a castle. Jaded single father and divorce attorney Robert (Patrick Dempsey) with cute-as-a-button daughter Morgan rescues Giselle. In her early 30's Amy Adams, a former military brat (like me), is absolutely adorable; gorgeous and a good singer, Giselle looks so kissable in every scene (but who will turn out to be Giselle's one true love--Edward or Robert?) The doofus is even willing to go to NYC, if necessary (brave man), to retrieve his future bride, and Narissa quickly follows him. I'm a fan of musicals to begin with. I don't like the dragon scene near the end; I would have tweaked the storyline in a few places, but it's great.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, "A Higher Place"
