Curtis Dahlgren
There is no free lunch or free beer, nor is medical care ever "free"
By Curtis Dahlgren
"In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is." — Yogi Berra
IT'S CALLED "UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES." How many times do we need to be reminded that good intentions do not necessarily bring good results when the government interferes? It was the Carter administration's attempt to make the home mortgage market "fairer" for high-risk borrowers that began the inevitable slide to the current "banking" crisis. Some people never learn.
The "tolerant" post-modernists teach us that no man's opinion should be less "valid" than anyone else's opinion. The mainstream media is described as simply looking at the world through their own "prism," which could be harmless when writing about sports or something, but their worldview could be very dangerous. There's only one "right way" to look through a pair of binoculars, and the VIEW of the Left seems to be like looking through the wrong end. When it comes to perceiving the future, they never learn!
The government keeps breaking our limbs and then offers us a crutch — with a splint on it. One of the first places the government interfered was down on the farm. The USDA offered "price supports," which gave bankers incentives in giving loans to farmers. The Department of Agriculture even got directly involved in giving loans. None of these things actually helped slow down the death of the family farm. It increased both the "crop surpluses" problem and the migration of rural people to the city.
Few recall, but President Kennedy's proposed solution to the "surplus" problem was acreage allotments for all crops — a totally centrally-planned farm economy. His plan was never adopted because it sounded too much like the USSR's 10-year "plans."
Hillary Clinton's 1993 plan to take over the world's highest quality medical system also failed. HOWEVER, the liberals never give up. They have such "HI — I- I HOPES"! Medicare and litigation by their trial lawyers keep messing up the system worse, so they still have "hope." For some voters, that's enough for them, but I just remembered a lawyer joke:
Q: In what position to lawyers sleep?
A:: First they lie on one side and then they lie on the other side!
Ha! So beware of lawyer-politicians who speak out of both sides of their mouths at the same time — and are fanatically supported by trial lawyers. Do we really need more of this?
You've heard of doctors who move from one state to another to get away from an especially bad litigation hell, but some doctors are giving up their practices altogether. A friend of mine has a brother who did just that (and he wasn't even a ob/gyn). He had to spend so much of his spare time doing paperwork ordered by red tape (not to mention unnecessary tests on patients) that he took a job in hospital administration.
Liberals look at the "market-place" through the wrong end of the binox, so is it any wonder that the mortgage industry kept being ordered to give bad loans?
"The FBI is now investigating 24 large mortgage lenders for alleged abuses. But who will investigate the pols and the lobbyists and the community agitators who made the bad decisions that ultimately forced businesses to make their 'bad decisions'?"
— Investor's Business Daily editorial, 9/18/08
I just got my first copy of TOWNHALL magazine, and Fred Thompson has an excellent back-page column entitled, "The Dangers of Government Guarantees." That September issue has so many great articles that I want to plug some of them:
- "Entitlements threaten defense," by Brian Braden
- "Life on the Border; Landowners — our last line of defense"
- "Is fatherhood becoming extinct? Saving society one man at a time," by Kathleen Parker
- "Racism in the Islamic World"
- "Obamageddon"
There's a reason that Congress has a much lower "approval rating" than President Bush, and yet those who have run it for the last two years keep on digging in the same hole (finger pointing at any other scapegoat that they can think of).
Well, let me tell you something: There was a whole lot of scapegoating going on in Germany in the 1930s, but that never solved a single problem, did it?
And if you don't like my column, maybe I can the government to pay me for not writing columns. They pay farmers for stuff like that, don't they?
P.S. Big news from the U.P. of Michigan:
My latest book, "MASSEY-HARRIS 101"; A letter to Generations X, Y, and Z: quotations for the ages" has just gone into print and is available from (among other places) www.AuthorHouse.com (book store).
I'll probably say more about the book next week. I think it is not an exaggeration to say that it's "important," but I must give it some careful thought, being reminded of an old joke:
A Protestant girl and a Catholic boy fell in love, but he told her he couldn't marry her unless she got "converted," and she said "Tell me more." So the young man made a "110 percent effort" to convince her.
A week later, the young man ran into a friend of his who said, "What's the matter?" — as he seemed to be extremely distraught — and the guy says:
"I oversold her. She's going to become a nun!"
Personally, I think that one of the presidential candidates oversold himself on the idea of becoming the world-messiah ("This is the moment the world began to heal," etc.).
I do want to promote my new book, so long as I don't oversell it like that!
© Curtis Dahlgren
"In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is." — Yogi Berra
IT'S CALLED "UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES." How many times do we need to be reminded that good intentions do not necessarily bring good results when the government interferes? It was the Carter administration's attempt to make the home mortgage market "fairer" for high-risk borrowers that began the inevitable slide to the current "banking" crisis. Some people never learn.
The "tolerant" post-modernists teach us that no man's opinion should be less "valid" than anyone else's opinion. The mainstream media is described as simply looking at the world through their own "prism," which could be harmless when writing about sports or something, but their worldview could be very dangerous. There's only one "right way" to look through a pair of binoculars, and the VIEW of the Left seems to be like looking through the wrong end. When it comes to perceiving the future, they never learn!
The government keeps breaking our limbs and then offers us a crutch — with a splint on it. One of the first places the government interfered was down on the farm. The USDA offered "price supports," which gave bankers incentives in giving loans to farmers. The Department of Agriculture even got directly involved in giving loans. None of these things actually helped slow down the death of the family farm. It increased both the "crop surpluses" problem and the migration of rural people to the city.
Few recall, but President Kennedy's proposed solution to the "surplus" problem was acreage allotments for all crops — a totally centrally-planned farm economy. His plan was never adopted because it sounded too much like the USSR's 10-year "plans."
Hillary Clinton's 1993 plan to take over the world's highest quality medical system also failed. HOWEVER, the liberals never give up. They have such "HI — I- I HOPES"! Medicare and litigation by their trial lawyers keep messing up the system worse, so they still have "hope." For some voters, that's enough for them, but I just remembered a lawyer joke:
Q: In what position to lawyers sleep?
A:: First they lie on one side and then they lie on the other side!
Ha! So beware of lawyer-politicians who speak out of both sides of their mouths at the same time — and are fanatically supported by trial lawyers. Do we really need more of this?
You've heard of doctors who move from one state to another to get away from an especially bad litigation hell, but some doctors are giving up their practices altogether. A friend of mine has a brother who did just that (and he wasn't even a ob/gyn). He had to spend so much of his spare time doing paperwork ordered by red tape (not to mention unnecessary tests on patients) that he took a job in hospital administration.
Liberals look at the "market-place" through the wrong end of the binox, so is it any wonder that the mortgage industry kept being ordered to give bad loans?
"The FBI is now investigating 24 large mortgage lenders for alleged abuses. But who will investigate the pols and the lobbyists and the community agitators who made the bad decisions that ultimately forced businesses to make their 'bad decisions'?"
— Investor's Business Daily editorial, 9/18/08
I just got my first copy of TOWNHALL magazine, and Fred Thompson has an excellent back-page column entitled, "The Dangers of Government Guarantees." That September issue has so many great articles that I want to plug some of them:
- "Entitlements threaten defense," by Brian Braden
- "Life on the Border; Landowners — our last line of defense"
- "Is fatherhood becoming extinct? Saving society one man at a time," by Kathleen Parker
- "Racism in the Islamic World"
- "Obamageddon"
There's a reason that Congress has a much lower "approval rating" than President Bush, and yet those who have run it for the last two years keep on digging in the same hole (finger pointing at any other scapegoat that they can think of).
Well, let me tell you something: There was a whole lot of scapegoating going on in Germany in the 1930s, but that never solved a single problem, did it?
And if you don't like my column, maybe I can the government to pay me for not writing columns. They pay farmers for stuff like that, don't they?
P.S. Big news from the U.P. of Michigan:
My latest book, "MASSEY-HARRIS 101"; A letter to Generations X, Y, and Z: quotations for the ages" has just gone into print and is available from (among other places) www.AuthorHouse.com (book store).
I'll probably say more about the book next week. I think it is not an exaggeration to say that it's "important," but I must give it some careful thought, being reminded of an old joke:
A Protestant girl and a Catholic boy fell in love, but he told her he couldn't marry her unless she got "converted," and she said "Tell me more." So the young man made a "110 percent effort" to convince her.
A week later, the young man ran into a friend of his who said, "What's the matter?" — as he seemed to be extremely distraught — and the guy says:
"I oversold her. She's going to become a nun!"
Personally, I think that one of the presidential candidates oversold himself on the idea of becoming the world-messiah ("This is the moment the world began to heal," etc.).
I do want to promote my new book, so long as I don't oversell it like that!
© Curtis Dahlgren
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(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
