If you are not an idealist by the time you are twenty
you have no heart,
but if you are still an idealist by the time you are thirty,
you don't have a head.
Randolph Bourne
Chart of the Day: US Healthcare Costs (Thanks, Government!) vs. the World
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| Via LFB |
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| Via Vinnie Chenzo Domino |
The Black Box of US Healthcare Charges
The President's Appendix
Facebook Corner
(National Review). Did cigarette taxes kill Eric Garner?
I usually don't get as agitated over notable cases like Ferguson or Trayvon Martin in part because of the lack of independent evidence over details; and certainly you can make an argument that the victims were physically bigger and posed a potential physical threat to their opponents. (Note that I am NOT justifying the use of deadly force in these cases.)
I am sickened by the excessive, unnecessary use of force. Why are we surprised when grand juries whitewash the murder of citizens, despite compelling direct evidence of a policeman choking a suspect, disregarding the victim's pleas that he couldn't breathe, even as he was on the ground and other police stood around doing nothing, all over a victimless crime of selling cigarettes? The same grand jury which would have no problem indicting a murderer who shot someone who didn't die immediately but in a hospital, disregards a medical finding of death by homicide? Whereas Garner's health condition wasn't robust enough to survive the murderer's unprovoked, unreasonable assault, Garner was not responsible for his own murder.
I take exception to Goldman's comment "But the simple fact is that a Staten Island grand jury saw evidence that led it to conclude otherwise. People should at least entertain the possibility that it might have gotten the ruling right." No, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. We all know there's a reluctance to indict police officers. In this case, the policeman applied lethal force, even after the victim repeatedly told him that he couldn't breathe. This is a case where the policeman knowingly applied a banned, potentially fatal hold, even after the victim was disabled, on the ground, and surrounded by other police--who did nothing to stop the assault.
In fact, I thought Rand Paul was trying to draw a lesson about victimless crime--and the fact that armed organized crime profiting from prohibitions can pose a danger to officers. But regardless of the dysfunctional nature of enforcing victimless crimes, the issue here is the inappropriate use of excessive and unnecessary force. Don't the police have better things to do than killing someone exercising his economic liberty?
(National Review). Sin taxes on cigarettes lead to potentially lethal clashes between lawbreakers & police. http://natl.re/1FUkNHf
I'm completely nauseated by so-called freedom-loving fascist trolls trying to defend the unprofessional policeman's murder of a man over selling loose cigarettes. I find it remarkable so-called "conservatives" are willing to find any ludicrous excuse, even Garner's obesity and other health issues, for a policeman choking a nonviolent suspect to death, even when the man was on the ground surrounded by police, after the suspect repeatedly complained that he could not breathe. What about the other unprofessional "safety officers" who did nothing to stop the lethal force? Under what rational concept did the murdering cop think an outnumbered unarmed obese man deserved excess force and/or constituted a flight risk? I remember there was a case a while back where a man with a higher IQ (Robert Jordan, New London, CT) was not allowed to join the police; evidently NYPD standards do not include a modicum of common sense, professionalism, or intelligence that you don't kill people over violations of nonviolent offenses.
I thought this NR piece was a moderate piece, but the fascist trolls think that a Big Nanny judge, jury, and executioner of citizens with the unalienable right to life over anything a despotic majority decides to impose on others for their own good is not unlike bombing a Vietnamese town in the cause of liberating it.
I am a paramedic. Garner was NOT choked to death. He died due to exacerbation of an underlying medical condition. How do I know? Simple. He was TALKING while in the so called "choke hold". In order to talk you have to take air into your lungs and expel it out of your mouth. "Choke holds" work in two different ways. 1- They may occlude the carotid arteries cutting off blood flow to the brain. The victim will usually go unconscious after a few seconds but will regain consciousness almost immediately after getting out of the hold unless they have been in it long enough to sustain brain damage which takes 3-4 minutes. Neither of those occurred so you can rule that out. 2- The trachea is occluded cutting off air to the lungs. Again you cannot talk if you cannot breathe and since he was talking he was breathing. Also a "choke hold" is simply a mechanical strangulation of the throat. Once the "choke hold" is released the victim will start to breathe better. 3- His breathing got WORSE after being released which is the OPPOSITE of what would happen if he was really choked. There is only way to explain that and it fits into his medical history perfectly. ASTHMA. He died of an asthma attack brought on by overexcertion when he resisted arrest. Now unless you're going to claim the cops had ESP there is no way they could possibly know what his medical history was
The medical cause of death was HOMICIDE, the policeman's choke hold. Arguing that some throat injuries are more traumatic is misleading and non-responsive. You are arguing the equivalent of someone being shot and not immediately dying means if he died later in the hospital, he didn't die by gunshot but some weakened state of health that the gun assailant didn't know about. The fact is that the cop-murderer ignored the man's repeated warnings he couldn't breathe. This was no accidental death--he maintained an illegal hold, even after the man was disabled and on the ground.
(Libertarian Republic). See Ron Paul quote/image above.
Why should I be surprised any immigration thread is going to be spammed by economically illiterate anti-immigrant trolls? Some of these know-nothing anti-liberty idiots do not know that there are no workable temporary guest worker programs--protectionist unions closed down the Bracero program decades ago (why Latinos favor the Democratic Party acting on behalf of union bosses, I don't get). and it can take over a decade for a family to reunite through antiquated quota systems. For those quoting Milton Friedman out of context, he did NOT demand repeal of the welfare state; he simply did not want an economic incentive for new immigrants--and in fact unauthorized aliens don't qualify for most programs. Friedman, in fact, was for illegal immigration so long as it remained illegal. Immigrants, unlike natives, are willing to migrate where work is available; immigration is one topic where economists are essentially unanimous in supporting its win-win nature. The evidence shows immigrants are mostly complementary vs. directly competing for higher-value employment; there is a modest, temporary (like 5%) effect on low-skilled labor; in most cases, immigrants tend to be younger and work-productive, meaning that they help support the unsustainable tax burden
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of the original artist via Libertarian Republic |
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| Courtesy of Chip Bok via Townhall |
The Priests, "In the Bleak Midwinter"
