How odd it is that after decades of the federal government twisting the arms, legs, and other appendages of state governments to lower their speed limits on the Interstate Highway System and on US Highways, Government Motors is now aggressively marketing a Cadillac that achieves speeds of 193 mph on the highway. Yes, it has wiper blades designed not to lift off of the windshield at that speed says the oft-repeated TV ad.
In this day of the Nanny State, when warning labels proclaim that only professional riders should ride small bicycles built for young children, this would seem a surprising turn of events at first glance. But upon reflection, we remember that the cigarette tax is a good part of the reason that cigarettes have not been banned. The state and federal governments make big money from the sale cigarettes. If marijuana had been similarly taxed, it would not be banned today. Now that the federal government has a direct and very substantial financial interest in Government Motors, it is hardly surprising that GM is now free to advocate a car designed to achieve speeds of 193 mph. If that helps sales by creating a new, less stodgy, image for Cadillac, then the Nanny State training wheels need not be attached.
So, the old argument that high speeds are not an efficient use of fuel and therefore endanger national security by forcing us to buy oil from the OPEC nations who do not like us, is now set aside in the interest of making Cadillac seem sexier. The argument that high speeds are dangerous and should be prohibited, is now inverted into one that implies that driving at dangerous high speeds is sexy. And everyone knows that sex sells cars.
The fact that the government gave GM up to a $45 billion tax break by allowing it to continue to write off any current and future profits against losses prior to its reorganization is an ongoing embarrassment the government is trying hard to hide. It has given GM a further domestic tax break of about $14 billion. On top of that, the government still owns 26.5% of GM stock and wants to unload that well prior to the upcoming 2012 election. It is estimated the loss upon the sale of the stock will be between $10 and $25 billion, where the upper estimate is based on the sale of so much stock no one much wants dragging the price way down. These are the real costs of the GM bailout.
Of course all these losses do not stop Obama from bragging about how the government will get all of its money back on its GM investment. Perhaps his whopper will be a lot less apparent to most of the People most of the time if a sexy Cadillac can be driven at 193 mph! That should make GM stock much more valuable in a hurry. This administration needs to leave GM behind long before the 2012 election so its losses will be old news by then.
Showing posts with label Nanny State. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nanny State. Show all posts
21 June 2011
23 February 2010
The Government Poisons Alcohol -- Lessons for Socialized Medicine
Prohibition began on 1 January 1920 and was intended as an act of the Nanny State to bring on an improvement of the human race. But, Americans were not willing to give up their drinking. Insurance companies believed that alcoholism increased three-fold during the Prohibition! By 1930, there were about 30,000 speakeasies in New York City. The federal government became desperate to force the People to stop drinking. They had greatly decreased the smuggling trade from Canada and other countries, but by the mid-1920s, the U.S. Treasury estimated that about 60 million gallons of industrial alcohol was stolen each year to be converted into drinking alcohol. This industrial alcohol became the primary source of drinking alcohol.
Beginning back in 1906, the government had required that industry must denature alcohol or pay the drinking alcohol taxes on it. But, during Prohibition, the well-paid chemists of the bootleggers became very skilled in removing the poisons from denatured industrial alcohol so they could make it potable. The federal response in 1926 was to force the addition of still worse poisons into industrial alcohol so that they would be much harder to remove. They frankly knew that many people would die, but they expected that those deaths would finally force most drinkers to stop drinking. The social engineering objective of these progressives justified the means. It always starts with the use of force and to make that force credible, it must be brutally applied whenever anyone gets out of line.
The deaths started showing up at Christmas time in 1926. Bellevue Hospital in New York City treated 60 people on Christmas day who were desperately ill from alcohol poisoning. But this was not the usual alcohol poisoning that had become common in the earlier 1920s. Eight of those people died. Over the next two days, another 23 people died of alcohol poisoning in NYC. The doctors came to learn that these deaths were caused by the U.S. government and its new and deadlier denaturing requirements for industrial alcohol.
Deborah Blum tells this story in The Poisoner's Handbook and here. She describes the new poisons:
At this point, this is an interesting American history note. But we are supposed to learn from history. In this case, we ought to relate this Prohibition experience in social engineering and the Nanny State to the present day proposals of the socialist, progressive leaders of the Democrat Party who so badly want to take over all medical services. There are clearly movements afoot among these elitist progressives to force the People to change their eating habits, exercise habits, and drinking habits. If they take over medical services entirely, this will lead to promotion of even more social engineering in the name of reducing costs to the government due to the higher health care costs of obese and sedentary people.
If the government was once willing to add ever more deadly poisons to alcohol it knew people would drink as an inducement to get them to drink less, can we be sure that there really will be no panels of bureaucrats and doctors in their grip who will be forced to identify obese and sedentary people as being unworthy of medical effort when they have a medical crisis? Might the government even resort to poisoning products they do not want people to eat or drink again? During the Prohibition, the progressives were very cavalier about the deaths of those who bought spirits from those who broke the 18th Amendment. This despite the fact that the 18th Amendment did not actually make drinking alcohol unconstitutional. That amendment only prohibited its manufacture, sale, and transportation.
For instance, diabetes is a disease which mostly afflicts people who are overweight and sedentary. Will a government-run medical services industry in time decide that anyone who has diabetes asked for it and is not worthy of the expenditure of federal tax monies? Might this not lead to under-treatment of diabetes? You may think your mother who has diabetes is worthy of treatment, but will the panel of government bureaucrats and their captive doctors who decide how much money will be spent on her treatment and how much limited doctor time and limited equipment time? Will the government say of those who have stress-related illnesses, "You worked too hard and/or you tolerated a stressful family life, so you do not deserve much of our limited funds for treating your stress-induced illness."? Of course, we already know that the progressives believe less money should be spent on saving the lives of babies and young children and also on the elderly, both of whom they believe to have less social value and to be of less human capital.
The very fact that the progressives will not let their very unpopular health services takeover plan go and they keep desperately trying to revive it, makes it clear they do not care what the People think of it. They want badly to force the People to give up control over their own health care and cede that control to the government. He who controls the money, dictates the terms of the transaction. With the government controlling the flow of money to pay for all medical services, the government will soon dictate what those services will be and who will get them. This is a certain fact.
The government will have no pressure to behave reasonably, once the private sector health care and insurance industries are prostrate at its feet and begging for every dollar of their income. We the People will be nothing more significant than our Social Security number. Mao wanted to change every Chinese person into a number. The Democrat socialized health care system will turn every American into just a body with a number identifying it. That body will be expected to toe the line, or the government just will not offer it any medical services and may even put it out of any resulting pain and misery with drugs. This is what is already widely being done in the socialized medical system in Great Britain.
Our most fundamental individual right is that to the ownership of our own body. If government will not respect that right, then it will not respect any individual right. If we give up this one right, then we have given up all of our rights. We must fight against the Democrat health care takeover as a life and death issue on which we will make no compromise. The progressive (fascist) Democrats will not give up on their socialized medicine plan because they have a bloodthirsty hunger for this supreme power over each and every American. I can see the future. The amount of medical care provided will be dependent upon the same criteria now used to get into most graduate schools, namely, how much of your life was invested in activities the progressives approve of, such as what they consider to be social services. How much of your life did you dedicate to sacrificing your interests to others? The more you sacrificed, the more value they see in your life and the more worthy you are of rationed medical services. Heaven forbid, you dedicated your time to your private sector profession for income and to your own family!
Beginning back in 1906, the government had required that industry must denature alcohol or pay the drinking alcohol taxes on it. But, during Prohibition, the well-paid chemists of the bootleggers became very skilled in removing the poisons from denatured industrial alcohol so they could make it potable. The federal response in 1926 was to force the addition of still worse poisons into industrial alcohol so that they would be much harder to remove. They frankly knew that many people would die, but they expected that those deaths would finally force most drinkers to stop drinking. The social engineering objective of these progressives justified the means. It always starts with the use of force and to make that force credible, it must be brutally applied whenever anyone gets out of line.
The deaths started showing up at Christmas time in 1926. Bellevue Hospital in New York City treated 60 people on Christmas day who were desperately ill from alcohol poisoning. But this was not the usual alcohol poisoning that had become common in the earlier 1920s. Eight of those people died. Over the next two days, another 23 people died of alcohol poisoning in NYC. The doctors came to learn that these deaths were caused by the U.S. government and its new and deadlier denaturing requirements for industrial alcohol.
Deborah Blum tells this story in The Poisoner's Handbook and here. She describes the new poisons:
By mid-1927, the new denaturing formulas included some notable poisons—kerosene and brucine (a plant alkaloid closely related to strychnine), gasoline, benzene, cadmium, iodine, zinc, mercury salts, nicotine, ether, formaldehyde, chloroform, camphor, carbolic acid, quinine, and acetone. The Treasury Department also demanded more methyl alcohol be added—up to 10 percent of total product. It was the last that proved most deadly.Charles Norris, the New York City medical examiner, blamed the federal government for the deaths and did everything he could to publicize them. In 1926 in NYC, 1200 people were made sick by poisoned alcohol and 400 died. In 1927, 700 people died in NYC of alcohol poisoning. Many people were also blinded by the poisons. The Prohibition Amendment was finally repealed in December 1933 and this evil experiment upon the American People ended. The death toll due to government-required alcohol poisoning has been estimated to be greater than 10,000 Americans.
At this point, this is an interesting American history note. But we are supposed to learn from history. In this case, we ought to relate this Prohibition experience in social engineering and the Nanny State to the present day proposals of the socialist, progressive leaders of the Democrat Party who so badly want to take over all medical services. There are clearly movements afoot among these elitist progressives to force the People to change their eating habits, exercise habits, and drinking habits. If they take over medical services entirely, this will lead to promotion of even more social engineering in the name of reducing costs to the government due to the higher health care costs of obese and sedentary people.
If the government was once willing to add ever more deadly poisons to alcohol it knew people would drink as an inducement to get them to drink less, can we be sure that there really will be no panels of bureaucrats and doctors in their grip who will be forced to identify obese and sedentary people as being unworthy of medical effort when they have a medical crisis? Might the government even resort to poisoning products they do not want people to eat or drink again? During the Prohibition, the progressives were very cavalier about the deaths of those who bought spirits from those who broke the 18th Amendment. This despite the fact that the 18th Amendment did not actually make drinking alcohol unconstitutional. That amendment only prohibited its manufacture, sale, and transportation.
For instance, diabetes is a disease which mostly afflicts people who are overweight and sedentary. Will a government-run medical services industry in time decide that anyone who has diabetes asked for it and is not worthy of the expenditure of federal tax monies? Might this not lead to under-treatment of diabetes? You may think your mother who has diabetes is worthy of treatment, but will the panel of government bureaucrats and their captive doctors who decide how much money will be spent on her treatment and how much limited doctor time and limited equipment time? Will the government say of those who have stress-related illnesses, "You worked too hard and/or you tolerated a stressful family life, so you do not deserve much of our limited funds for treating your stress-induced illness."? Of course, we already know that the progressives believe less money should be spent on saving the lives of babies and young children and also on the elderly, both of whom they believe to have less social value and to be of less human capital.
The very fact that the progressives will not let their very unpopular health services takeover plan go and they keep desperately trying to revive it, makes it clear they do not care what the People think of it. They want badly to force the People to give up control over their own health care and cede that control to the government. He who controls the money, dictates the terms of the transaction. With the government controlling the flow of money to pay for all medical services, the government will soon dictate what those services will be and who will get them. This is a certain fact.
The government will have no pressure to behave reasonably, once the private sector health care and insurance industries are prostrate at its feet and begging for every dollar of their income. We the People will be nothing more significant than our Social Security number. Mao wanted to change every Chinese person into a number. The Democrat socialized health care system will turn every American into just a body with a number identifying it. That body will be expected to toe the line, or the government just will not offer it any medical services and may even put it out of any resulting pain and misery with drugs. This is what is already widely being done in the socialized medical system in Great Britain.
Our most fundamental individual right is that to the ownership of our own body. If government will not respect that right, then it will not respect any individual right. If we give up this one right, then we have given up all of our rights. We must fight against the Democrat health care takeover as a life and death issue on which we will make no compromise. The progressive (fascist) Democrats will not give up on their socialized medicine plan because they have a bloodthirsty hunger for this supreme power over each and every American. I can see the future. The amount of medical care provided will be dependent upon the same criteria now used to get into most graduate schools, namely, how much of your life was invested in activities the progressives approve of, such as what they consider to be social services. How much of your life did you dedicate to sacrificing your interests to others? The more you sacrificed, the more value they see in your life and the more worthy you are of rationed medical services. Heaven forbid, you dedicated your time to your private sector profession for income and to your own family!
09 April 2008
Do You Beat Your Neighbor?
In America today we have a great many citizens who either believe the government should enforce Christian Bible morality or that the leaders of the Nanny State should see to it that the helpless masses are taken care of. These people are now being joined by some who say that American law must be determined by Sharia Law, which is the only true law, the law of Allah. All of these people believe that they are good and kind-hearted people who care greatly about their fellow man, while those who believe in Constitutionally limited government, individual rights, and laissez faire capitalism are monsters who do not give a fig for their fellow man.
I have had this charge leveled against me since I was a teenager. The equation is simple: If you think you know how your neighbor should live his life and you think you can make his life choices better than he can, then you try to gain a democratic majority and impose your way to live his life upon him. If you try to do this, whether you succeed or not, you are a very virtuous person who cares about his neighbor, his fellow man. Those who resist you are bad guys. The resisters are bad whether they think that they want simply to manage their own lives or because they think that most other people are better qualified to manage their own lives than the resister is or than the government life management service is.
Of course there are some people who wish that others would manage their lives for them. There are not very many, but there are many elitists who think that there are many people who need to have them provide life-management services to the needy and unable. As I have often observed, it is a funny thing to consult with those whom the elite think are the dependent ones. Most of them think that they themselves are not dependent, but that there are others who are. Talk to the others who are and you find the story repeating itself in most cases. Strangely, most people would rather run their own lives, but they think that there are many more people who want help via a one-size fits all government mechanism than there actually are. But believing this and wanting to care about their fellow man, they push for laws to provide government programs to compel people to contribute their time and income to the needy recipients of the law.
The needy have a very special status. They are to be treated well and provided for. This is the means by which those who favor the laws to help them become virtuous. Meanwhile, the fact that the law requires that individuals give up their rights to their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness does not make the law proponent feel like a bad person. The fact that the law requires that if any particular individual does not provide the tax money to be used or does not provide the service free or at below market cost, then government force will be used to see that he does, does not make the law proponent feel bad. Government employees will be dispatched to seize the resisters property or to garnish his wages. If the recalcitrant individual is so foolish as to try to defend his individual rights, well, shoot him! He obviously did not care about the community enough. He was obviously suffering from a severe mental illness, social Darwinism or is an anti-social sociopath.
Would anyone even think to look into this individual's life to see how charitably he treated people that he knew and cared for? Very unlikely. Almost everyone would simply say he broke the law and he had to be compelled to submit or to be put away. So, our good people who care so much for their fellow man are now fully prepared to kill their fellow man and their neighbor in the interest of The Law, despite the fact that the law was not Constitutional and was not necessary to accomplish the mission it supposedly had. After all, the mission could have been accomplished very well by private charity. Any private charity with the enthusiastic support of a majority of the voters should be able to care for a great many needy people.
So why must the people who wish to help the needy use the force of law to do so? Why do they not put their money and time into what they themselves say they believe in? Doesn't one have to conclude that they do not really believe in helping the needy enough to put much effort into it? Don't we have to deduce that they are eager to gain their virtue on the cheap? But, it is a virtue that threatens any individual who believes that he has an individual right to choose his charitable acts himself with death. How do these people who claim they are virtuous for caring about their fellow man square this with hiring government law enforcers and sending them off to kill the individualists among them. Why do they want to beat their neighbor? Why are they so violent? Yet they pretend to be good and to care. Is this not transparently false? Are these not clearly evil-doers?
If you want to help the needy, by all means go and do it. Just have the common civility not to force everyone else to commit their lives to your charity. They may not have any charity they wish to commit to. If so, that is their right. On the other hand, they may be very committed to charitable acts which are simply different from those which you have a commitment to. If you really have a commitment to helping others, then put your money and your time where your mouth is. Don't shove a gun down someone else's throat to make them give their money and their lives to your value. They have the right to choose their own values. It is by choosing our own values that we develop and manage our own lives. Without that freedom, there is a clear violation of a man's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of his happiness.
I have had this charge leveled against me since I was a teenager. The equation is simple: If you think you know how your neighbor should live his life and you think you can make his life choices better than he can, then you try to gain a democratic majority and impose your way to live his life upon him. If you try to do this, whether you succeed or not, you are a very virtuous person who cares about his neighbor, his fellow man. Those who resist you are bad guys. The resisters are bad whether they think that they want simply to manage their own lives or because they think that most other people are better qualified to manage their own lives than the resister is or than the government life management service is.
Of course there are some people who wish that others would manage their lives for them. There are not very many, but there are many elitists who think that there are many people who need to have them provide life-management services to the needy and unable. As I have often observed, it is a funny thing to consult with those whom the elite think are the dependent ones. Most of them think that they themselves are not dependent, but that there are others who are. Talk to the others who are and you find the story repeating itself in most cases. Strangely, most people would rather run their own lives, but they think that there are many more people who want help via a one-size fits all government mechanism than there actually are. But believing this and wanting to care about their fellow man, they push for laws to provide government programs to compel people to contribute their time and income to the needy recipients of the law.
The needy have a very special status. They are to be treated well and provided for. This is the means by which those who favor the laws to help them become virtuous. Meanwhile, the fact that the law requires that individuals give up their rights to their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness does not make the law proponent feel like a bad person. The fact that the law requires that if any particular individual does not provide the tax money to be used or does not provide the service free or at below market cost, then government force will be used to see that he does, does not make the law proponent feel bad. Government employees will be dispatched to seize the resisters property or to garnish his wages. If the recalcitrant individual is so foolish as to try to defend his individual rights, well, shoot him! He obviously did not care about the community enough. He was obviously suffering from a severe mental illness, social Darwinism or is an anti-social sociopath.
Would anyone even think to look into this individual's life to see how charitably he treated people that he knew and cared for? Very unlikely. Almost everyone would simply say he broke the law and he had to be compelled to submit or to be put away. So, our good people who care so much for their fellow man are now fully prepared to kill their fellow man and their neighbor in the interest of The Law, despite the fact that the law was not Constitutional and was not necessary to accomplish the mission it supposedly had. After all, the mission could have been accomplished very well by private charity. Any private charity with the enthusiastic support of a majority of the voters should be able to care for a great many needy people.
So why must the people who wish to help the needy use the force of law to do so? Why do they not put their money and time into what they themselves say they believe in? Doesn't one have to conclude that they do not really believe in helping the needy enough to put much effort into it? Don't we have to deduce that they are eager to gain their virtue on the cheap? But, it is a virtue that threatens any individual who believes that he has an individual right to choose his charitable acts himself with death. How do these people who claim they are virtuous for caring about their fellow man square this with hiring government law enforcers and sending them off to kill the individualists among them. Why do they want to beat their neighbor? Why are they so violent? Yet they pretend to be good and to care. Is this not transparently false? Are these not clearly evil-doers?
If you want to help the needy, by all means go and do it. Just have the common civility not to force everyone else to commit their lives to your charity. They may not have any charity they wish to commit to. If so, that is their right. On the other hand, they may be very committed to charitable acts which are simply different from those which you have a commitment to. If you really have a commitment to helping others, then put your money and your time where your mouth is. Don't shove a gun down someone else's throat to make them give their money and their lives to your value. They have the right to choose their own values. It is by choosing our own values that we develop and manage our own lives. Without that freedom, there is a clear violation of a man's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of his happiness.
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