Via Instapundit, I found this EXCELLENT PIECE by Victor Davis Hanson concerning the "crisis" status of the medically uninsured in the United States:
"And while none could speak English, two extremely competent young hospital employees not only translated for them, but also went out to the general waiting room and helped patients fill in the forms. I was envious inasmuch as the lengthy questionnaire sometimes confounded me. I doubt very much, should I immigrate to rural Mexico and do so illegally, that my local clinic there would offer me quality health care, treat me in English, provide an English interpreter to fill out my Spanish-language government forms—and do it all at no cost to me, new car, cell phone, and all. And that truth, it seems, makes all the difference in the world to some 12 million who come north rather than go south."
"In any case, if the emergency room in one of the poorest towns in this nation is a litmus test of horrific poverty and neglect, then it is a strange sort of poverty that about 5 billion on the planet outside our borders could only envy."
That's exactly right. America = obviously the most humane country in the history of the world. The Left in this country is so blinded by their love of any dictator they can find that they tend to ignore the plain facts.
Matt Yglesias has a PERPLEXING POST up in which he basically openly advocates socialism. Taken by itself, that's basically par for the course. However, we are also treated to this actual nugget of observational insight:
"Infrastructure in this country is all crappy -- if you go outside a gated community or major business district where the private sector is (at least partially) financing basic things like keeping the streets clean and non-broken and trimming the goddamn tree branches, everything is all messed up."
So, in other words, private enterprise is good at keeping things clean and "non-broken" and therefore the answer is for MORE money to be poured into government?
Now I know Matt would argue that the problem is simply that not enough money is being spent by the government to keep infrastructure healthy and vibrant. But isn't that logic belied by his own givens? Is he really asserting that when private business "at least partially" finances basic things, the little bit of extra money they provide is actually the sole reason things are better? Throwing good money after bad will only get you so far. I thought we'd already learned this lesson in the field of education.
posted by Nick 8:40 PM
Friday, March 12, 2004
Spanish Bombing: Let's Not Forget About Clinton
Now that we are 3+ years out from the last days of Bill Clinton's presidency, the analysis of his legacy has begun in earnest. I remember being amused by the media reaction to Clinton's repugnant pardon of Marc Rich. Only then, when the object of their affection was safely out of office, did the elites begin to decry Clinton and wonder if maybe he wasn't such a great guy. There was even a fair amount of faux soul-searching amongst the journalists who had so artfully excused their man.
But now, the default position of the intelligentisia seems to be to regard Clinton with a kind of chic humor in which we are supposed to think that it's obvious that the man was merely a ribald rogue who wasn't capable of generating much harm. We're treated to Maureen Dowd-esque sly nods and winks whenever the notion arises that Clinton was a true scumbag who did great damage- in human terms.
Which brings me to yesterday's horrific bombing in Madrid. As I mentally prepared myself for the usual spate of leftists defending the terrorists, I realized that until recently, our country was decidedly unserious about preventing such incidents on our own soil.
For those of you who have forgotten (or never knew), President Clinton pardoned 16 terrorist bombers in 1999. FALN, a Puerto Rican separatist group, bombed over 100 locations on American soil durng the 70's and 80's: Terrorists, by virtually any measure of the term. And yet they were freed as if it were some trivial afterthought.
The reason? Well, it was about the most cynical political ploy one could possibly envision: The Clintons figured such an act would garner Mrs. Clinton the Puerto Rican vote in New York City for her Senate campaign. (Let's forget for a second just how disturbing it is that they were probably right and that somehow releasing terrorists from prison is actually seen as a positive within the Puerto Rican community in New York).
It was Clinton's decided lack of seriousness for 8 years that helped to create the landscape upon which these retrograde murderers now operate. It makes me sick to think that the bombing of innocent civilians in Spain will somehow be blamed on a policy of actually taking the fight to the terrorists. It makes me downright nauseous to think that our former president continues to escape any and all culpability in these affairs.
posted by Nick 3:58 PM
