The question of just what is a “conservative” remains one that people are still asking. It goes beyond just a question of “what is a conservative” and “what is means to be a conservative” towards the question of “how to be a conservative”.
The late, great Sir Roger Scruton addresses just this question.
One of the things that many foreigners, as well as some Americans, belittle the United States about is that there is no “free” socialized healthcare that the people have an explicit “guarantee” to, and further belittle the idea that ultimately we should expect people to be responsible for taking care of themselves.
Such people seem to assume that if the government says the people will receive “healthcare” for “free”, that people will get all the treatment they need in a timely manner, and that people in the United States without insurance are left to either die to go bankrupt.
The latest outrage is shock, shock I tell you, in stating the basic fact that mere demand will not spontaneously generate needed supply right this very second, and that hypothetically maybe we won’t have all the necessary medical equipment to treat everyone who needs it when they need it in all cases.
President Trump would not explicitly guarantee that anybody in the US who needs a ventilator to combat coronavirus would have access to one https://t.co/4Ma1hlR4vN
— CNN (@CNN) March 28, 2020
Why doesn’t this prove that the free market system is a failure, and that a socialized alternative that “puts people ahead of profits” will and, unlike tat icky free market, have everything they need for all the people because the government explicitly guarantees it—because, after all, if the government guarantees a right to something, the that something will always be there? After all, Italy, France, and the U.K. all explicitly guarantee healthcare as a basic human right, and their promise of socialized healthcare magically makes it so, which is why everyone who needs all the proper medical treatment to fight Corona-chan are getting all the healthcare they were told they have an explicitly guaranteed right to, yes?
No.
In Italy, the elderly will be denied intensive care, with respirators denied for those aged sixty or over.
In France, in some areas, anyone over seventy-five will no longer be intubated, with the only help to the eldest involving helping those patients die.
And what about that vaunted paragon of free healthcare that guarantees the bestest of healthcare that the British are sooo lucky to have (for free!!1!)? Doctors will just write off patients that they don’t want to waste money on those who need it most, by restricting ventilators to those that the NHS deems to have a “reasonable certainty” of surviving. But then, the NHS considers it reasonable to torture kill children by dehydration/starvation.
And that’s is why government “explicitly guaranteeing” free stuff in the guise of a “human right” is such a scam. With socialized systems as in socialized healthcare, you a “right to healthcare” does not actually mean you have an actual right to actual healthcare; all it means is that you only have a “right” to whatever the government decides to let you have. That is not liberty or freedom; it is dependency and slavery.
News of the Week for Mar. 29th, 2020
In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.
B. F. Skinner is well known, even now, for his influence, but few realize that he was as advocate of personal freedom these days, despite just how much his ideology has triumphed, within, the hallowed halls of academia and all that is wrought therein.
Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.
The focus this time: Doubleplusungood naughty naughty!
First, a little (WTF) mood music:
Carrying on…
Equality can mean a lot of things. In Australia, “equality” means making sure that it more important to have a demographic balance than the best minds necessary to prevent bridges and buildings from collapsing.
“Equality? No thanks. Women at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) will be able to enter engineering and construction degrees with a lower score on an admissions test than their male counterparts.
“The Sydney Morning Herald reported that UTS will allow women to enter engineering and construction degrees with a lower score on the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) than male students. Women can score 10 points lower than men and still be admitted into the degree programs.
“As the Herald reported, many universities in the country ‘allocate adjustment points based on disadvantage or illness,’ but UTS appears to be the first one to make the adjustment based on gender. As one can guess, the move to lower the entry bar for women is being done in an effort to get more women into engineering.”
There is hope, and some early tentative evidence, that chloroquine and hydroxyclhoroquine might possibly be effective, especially in combination with other drugs. So of course the Governor of Nevada thought it was a bright idea to ban new prescriptions for these drugs for use against the Coronavirus.
Today, I signed an emergency regulation limiting the prescription & issuance of two drugs that have unproven results with treating COVID-19. While these drugs serve necessary medical purposes, this regulation protects the Nevadans who need them and prevents unnecessary hoarding. pic.twitter.com/dGMDJfdNAW
— Governor Sisolak (@GovSisolak) March 24, 2020
However, it was subsequently clarified that those already on either of the drugs, or “inpatient[s] in an institutional setting” as it applied to a “chart order” (i.e. someone who is already so bad that they’ve been admitted to a hospital can still be proscribed them). In other words it isn’t a full blanket ban, but a partial infringement on a doctor’s prerogative to treat their patient under their guidance with a legitimate medicine.
3.24 RX Regulation by ThePoliticalHat on Scribd
Governor Sisolak suggested that Texas had gone further, when it did not since according to the article the Governor linked there was no proscribing limitation to chart orders of inpatients in a hospital.
While hoarding and a shortage hurting those who needed these drugs for other purposes is a legitimate concern, a blanket ban on non-hospital prescription to help fight the Coronavirus because there is no “concensus” about their efficacy is still a restriction that leaves the decision in the hands of the government, and not with actual doctors—troubling ineed.. Even if their efficacy is overstated, to outright ban outside of crowded hospitals is troubling.
Beyond the statistics, recriminations, and talking heads on T.V., there are clear reminders that maybe, juuust maybe, we are living in the decline of civilization, and not in its continued ascendance.
Naked lady, rat in mouth, running through the streets of downtown L.A. We have reached civilisational collapse!! pic.twitter.com/dVdBF0VGrC
— David Vance (@DVATW) March 19, 2020
The stock market crashing, people being laid off, and small businesses shuttering for good. The measures needed to combat the COVID-19 Xinnie the Flu’s Wuhan Bat Soup Death Plague Bio-Weapon of Doom (with Sprinkles*) have caused massive economic damage—and a shortage of toilet paper—around the globe. While the People’s Republic of China is solving their problem with slave labor from pesky ethnic groups, there are signs that the free market, even in this over-regulated age of ours, can adapt, provide, and serve far better than the centralized machinations of some bureaucratic apparatchik, to combat Corona-chan.
BREAKING: General Motors to partner with Ventec Life Systems to increase ventilator production.”
"With GM's help, Ventec will increase ventilator production," said Chris Kiple, Ventec Life Systems CEO. "This partnership will help save lives." pic.twitter.com/wpNlBuQ76Y
— Mark Cavitt (@MarkCavitt) March 21, 2020
While one could, as your humble author would, that the continued production and sale of liquor is a vital sector of the economy, a Maryland distillery has switched from whiskey and rum to mass-produced hand sanitizer.
NEW: Twin Valley Distillers in Rockville, Md. has turned its production line of whiskey and rum into a hand sanitizer factory.
The idea started as a joke but has now become a reality.
It'll begin selling four and eight-ounce bottles of hand sanitizer by Friday. @TwinValleyDist pic.twitter.com/96668Q4XRE
— Kevin Lewis (@ABC7Kevin) March 17, 2020
News of the Week for Mar. 22nd, 2020
In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.
With the increasingly more personal and less abstract question of the impact of the Corona Virus on the economy and how it affects us all, let us look back at a now ironically-archaic yet presciently-modern question of how we deal with “The Economic Crisis”.
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