Leftism

The Illusion of Government Competence

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Here’s three posts from Instapundit this morning:

ENVIRONMENTAL SOLUTION  becomes environmental problem.  D’oh!  — Chemicals used to replace CFCs due to CFCs’ theoretical  degradation of the ozone layer now seen as a significant greenhouse gas.  

IF THIS HAPPENED IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR, WE’D BE HEARING ABOUT “GREED:”  DC subway crash: Regulators had warned to replace aging fleet. — The DC Metro system fails to take unsafe cars out of service.  

SACRAMENTO BEE:  Dan Walters: Pension hike of a decade ago backfires.  — Government-managed pension investment implodes.

What do these stories all have in common? They all demonstrate that government organizations do not systematically make better  decisions in the same circumstance than do private organizations.  

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Where Is Everyone?

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An article in the Israeli publication Ma’ariv wonders: Where are all those demonstrators who so loudly denounced Israel during its Gaza operation? Why aren’t they out there protesting the beatings and killings of Iranians at the hands of the Iranian government?

All the peace-loving and justice-loving Europeans, British professors in search of freedom and equality, the friends filling the newspapers, magazines and various academic journals with various demands for boycotting Israel, defaming Zionism and blaming us and it for all the ills and woes of the world—could it be that they have taken a long summer vacation? Now of all times, when the Basij hooligans have begun to slaughter innocent civilians in the city squares of Tehran? Aren’t they connected to the Internet? Don’t they have YouTube? Has a terrible virus struck down their computer? Have their justice glands been removed in a complicated surgical procedure (to be re-implanted successfully for the next confrontation in Gaza)?

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A source who is connected to the Iranian and security situation, said yesterday that if Obama had shown on the Iranian matter a quarter of the determination with which he assaulted the settlements in the territories, everything would have looked different. “The demonstrators in Iran are desperate for help,” said the man, who served in very senior positions for many years, “they need to know that they have backing, that there is an entire world that supports them, but instead they see indifference. And this is happening at such a critical stage of this battle for the soul of Iran and the freedom of the Iranian people. It’s sad.”

via Robert Avrech and Soccer Dad.

There are More Ways to Go Wrong Than to Go Right.

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Megan McArdle makes a very good general point in her post on the illusion that socialism will reduce health-care costs:

We have been trying to control health care costs since the 1970s made it clear that Medicare was going to get really, really expensive.   And any idea that you care to name, from comparative effectiveness research to healthcare IT to preventive medicine . . . these have all been on the table for more than thirty years, under one name or another.   They haven’t happened.
 
The answer that those promising magical cost reductions need to ask is “Why haven’t they happened?” and “What has changed to make them feasible now?”   But when I ask this question, I get angry demands that I put forward my plan for cost control, rather than merely critiquing everyone else’s.   This seems rather like demanding that I put forward my design for a perpetual motion machine before I am allowed to point out problems in the US energy market.

I was reminded of this style of argumentation by  Harry Angstrom’s comments in my previous post, where he makes this exact argument. In thinking about it, I realized that a lot of debates with leftists often come down to this type of, “I have an idea and you don’t, therefore I must have the best plan,” argument.  

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Some Obama Infomercial Predictions

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Allow me to make some predictions about how ABC will make sure its Obama infomercial  examination of health care issues will be “  informative and fair, thoughtful and thought-provoking.” [h/t Instapundit]

ABC will frame the entire infomercial in leftist terms. They will use leftist definitions of what is and is not a health-care problem and they will present only  leftist  solutions to those problems. The “balance” will come when they deign to let non-leftists  argue within the  bounds that leftists set.  

It will go something like this:

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Another Obama/Ayers Connection

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Here’s another example of Obama and Ayers running in the same political circles.

I’ll say it again:

…, the real troubling aspect of the Obama-Ayers relationship is that Obama comes from a political subculture in which Ayers is an accepted and unremarkable individual. Looking at Ayers, one is forced to ask exactly what kind of leftist extremism would be considered unacceptable by Obama and his cohorts.

Ayers  clearly wasn’t an outsider in leftist circles in Chicago. In this case, no one found it odd that an  Illinois  state senator was sharing a forum with an unrepentant, stalinist terrorist. One has to wonder how an political culture so  accepting  of Ayers shaped Obama’s world view.

Clearly, Obama has to have had some sympathy with Ayers or he would not have shared a forum with him or endorsed his work.  In any other context, everyone would find this a highly questionable decision. I don’t think that Obama would let off the hook a Republican that shared a forum with someone who tried to kill abortion doctors and never expressed any regret for doing so. I doubt it would matter to Obama whether or not the anti-abortion terrorist went on to do humane work in another field. Obama would view a political culture that embraced an  unrepentant  anti-abortion terrorist as immoral and any politician that came out of that culture as strongly suspect.  

We should hold Obama to the same standard.