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Say you're a bazillion-copy-selling band with decades of top-notch material. Stacy McCain trashes you for insufficiently bluesy content, but never mind that.
What if, instead of having the freedom to buy your own instruments and record what's on your soul, you get handed a pre-fab system with cheap pseudo instruments and no capacity for expression.
For example, Rush, attempting to do a Rock Band version of Tom Sawyer:
As they sang on 2112, "Just think about the average, what use have they for you?" Indeed. When the Procrustean bargain of Socialism, in the name of
I hope you watched Beck tonight. While Glenn's style is frequently over the top, his substance is spot on. Last night's town hall with Jim Moran recalled a worship service at a denomination I shall not name, (as it wouldn't be tasteful) but at which the average individuality was, let us say, substantially diminished. Will Jim Moran expend any effort to halt the FCC's diversity czar? If his apparatchik performance last night was an indicator, the answer is NO, with an optional expletive prefix.
Faux drums and fake guitars are the like the cheap substitutes for liberty proffered by those who'd like to own you, dearest reader.
"He counted on America to be passive. He counted wrong."
Ok, I realize that I am not the target audience for this blog, being Swedish, i. e. socialist, etc. However, the particular analogy above can quite easily reversed. Would not a system that provides everyone with cheap, pre-fab instruments be more likely to catch the talent that otherwise would not have had the possibility for self-expression at all? This system is indeed to a large extent in effect in what I imagine to be your nightmare vision of socialist hell, Sweden. And I think you would be hard pressed to find a country that has had a more successful music industry in recent years...
ReplyDelete@JoeZ,
ReplyDeleteSweden is great. I'm not attacking Sweden, asserting that the US should become Swedish, or that Sweden should emulate the US.
The point you make with
be more likely to catch the talent that otherwise would not have had the possibility for self-expression at all? is what I'm getting at with the "regression to the mean" link.
When you look at the blooming statism in the US, the situation translates into something like Daniel Hannan points to with the NHS: half the people employed are nothing but bureaucratic inertia.
So we all have our little Rock Band gadgets, and we all get to play from the same database of carefully managed tracks. Woo hoo.
Such a life isn't even wrong. I support the right of some to choose to live that way. Where the US is currently crossing the Rubicon on this is that those who'd live that way are attempting to force ME down their road.
I shall not go quietly, sir.
Yes, but I am not sure that Hannan's analysis of the NHS is on point in the first place. His own party, as well as the rest of the UK policracy seem to disagree. Cameron is falling over backwards trying to distance himself from Hannon (who is, quite frankly, a fringe player over here) as we speak. The NHS certainly has its flaws, like any system. And it is a concern that most European systems suffer from certain systemic weaknesses, such as long waiting times, etc. I don't know, for most Europeans it just seems backwards to defend a system that does not provide a basic level of care for everyone. What is the problem with that? Especially if the average insurance costs are likely to drop across the board. I'd say, provide basic care for all and allow for those who wish to sign up for higher premium policies. Eat the cake and have it. I honestly do not see why you guys get all worked up over this. I'd say there are more honourable fights than opposing unversal health care...
ReplyDelete@JoeZ,
ReplyDeleteit just seems backwards to defend a system that does not provide a basic level of care for everyone. What is the problem with that?
...
I'd say there are more honourable fights than opposing universal health care...
Indeed, I'll name such a fight: The US Constitution. While the Commerce Clause has been a vehicle for widespread federal intrusion, there was a bit of wisdom included, now wholly honored in the breech:
Amendment X: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
So, the argument is not against anything at all, except general attempts by the Congress to legislate around inconvenient law. The argument is for the Constitution.
Now, sure, there is copious precedent for the current course of action. Social Security and Medicare, for example. But what do those pesky numbers look like over time?
It kind of looks like a time bomb to me. At some point, these entitlement programs consume the budget, and all is reduced to Ponzi scheme. So where is th honour in setting up a system that has a reasonable liklihood of failure? Furthermore, look at the gross manner of the cram down through which it's been pursued. 1000+ pages which none of the elected representatives had actually read, much less analyzed and understood, but were to vote in favor of anyway? Bollocks, say I, and quite a few others as well. This has been a high pressure sales pitch from beginning to the current propaganda ploy to "do it for Ted Kennedy," may heaven forgive and rest the fellow.
So, Joe, what you need to understand about a country with ~33 times the population of your own is that the argument is not about "provid[ing] a basic level of care for everyone", it's at what level that provision should be managed. A huge (heretofore relatively quiet) chunk of that population has taken a "wait and see" attitude about the entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare. The results have been predictable: those that feel entitlements are something against which no reasonable person can argue will allow that, yeah, there may be imperfections but we can just tweak and cure those. The skeptical (me) feel that we're in a magic show, and the magician is attempting to use shiny things to distract, and hide the systemic problems.
The compromise would seem to be to let the states figure out what their populations want, and delegate to the federal government the task of overseeing and minimizing those imperfections, and harmonizing standards such that citizens can clearly understand what's offered where. Monoculture bites; why not support diversity, and allowing people to vote with their feet in favor of the system with which they are most comfortable?
So much of this debate seems to blend Procrustes and Orwell that, if I could, I should like to excuse myself entirely, dying in my medical sins should they overtake me. It is a sad occurrence that, in other debates (not this one), various guilt and fear arguments are trotted out in an attempt to coerce people, where the "I don't see the problem" argument fails. The mask slips, and an authoritarian face is revealed.
And that is precisely what the US Constitution was written to preclude, sir.
Look, I am neither a particular patriot, nor am I naive enough to be convinced that any of the European wellfare systems is directly transposable to the US situation. The reference to Sweden and music was mainly to illustrate that state-sponsored activities indeed can create breadth as well as peaks. It all depends on how it is done. In Sweden a tax payer funded music education for kids has helped spur a pretty quirky and independent music scene, as well as a range of commercially successful acts. Entertainemet and music now ranks as one of the top Swedish exports. At the same time there is a buzzing "underground" scene that is pretty large considering the size of that tiny arctic country. This is not to suggest that any other country should necessarily copy this model. It just goes to show that "the socialized hits" may not always be steeped in the same depressing mold
ReplyDeleteWith regard more specifically to the health care issue, I am certainly sympathetic to claims based on the consitution. I am a lawyer after all. Although not a US constitutional one. However, one of the original rights stemming from your Declaration of Independence is the right to life, right? And the constitution does mention the promotion of the general welfare, or something to that effect. And that is not even going into the Commerce Clause, which I think we can agree has been so watered down over time that if you start challenging one program under it, you would end up with a tsunami. I think you would have to be more or less an originalist to be able to effectively challenge it under the constiution. But then again, I am not an expert.
I am also sympathetic to the issue of State's rights in general. We have a bit of the same issue in the EU, where the Member States retain the power to legislate on issues relating to social security and health care. The difference here is that every Member States actually has issued some sort of generally applicable health care system. Plus, the only reason that the Member States have retained the power over health care is that they already had these systems in place when they joined the EU and they are extremely different and difficult to harmonize. I think if you start from scratch it is definitely preferable from an efficiency point-of-view to have a unified and equially applicable system in place, in order to avoid the tedious, expensive and extremely time consuming problems that ensue when the systems overlap, do not overlap, etc.
So, in sum, I certainly think there is a moral case to be made in favour of health care for all, but I also think that there is a serious economic case in favour of it. But, I guess this is not my fight... Although I do enjoy a bit of a scrap when I can get it...
Look, I am neither a particular patriot, nor am I naive enough to be convinced that any of the European wellfare systems is directly transposable to the US situation. The reference to Sweden and music was mainly to illustrate that state-sponsored activities indeed can create breadth as well as peaks. It all depends on how it is done. In Sweden a tax payer funded music education for kids has helped spur a pretty quirky and independent music scene, as well as a range of commercially successful acts. Entertainemet and music now ranks as one of the top Swedish exports. At the same time there is a buzzing "underground" scene that is pretty large considering the size of that tiny arctic country. This is not to suggest that any other country should necessarily copy this model. It just goes to show that "the socialized hits" may not always be steeped in the same depressing mold
ReplyDeleteWith regard more specifically to the health care issue, I am certainly sympathetic to claims based on the consitution. I am a lawyer after all. Although not a US constitutional one. However, one of the original rights stemming from your Declaration of Independence is the right to life, right? And the constitution does mention the promotion of the general welfare, or something to that effect. And that is not even going into the Commerce Clause, which I think we can agree has been so watered down over time that if you start challenging one program under it, you would end up with a tsunami. I think you would have to be more or less an originalist to be able to effectively challenge it under the constiution. But then again, I am not an expert.
I am also sympathetic to the issue of State's rights in general. We have a bit of the same issue in the EU, where the Member States retain the power to legislate on issues relating to social security and health care. The difference here is that every Member States actually has issued some sort of generally applicable health care system. Plus, the only reason that the Member States have retained the power over health care is that they already had these systems in place when they joined the EU and they are extremely different and difficult to harmonize. I think if you start from scratch it is definitely preferable from an efficiency point-of-view to have a unified and equially applicable system in place, in order to avoid the tedious, expensive and extremely time consuming problems that ensue when the systems overlap, do not overlap, etc.
So, in sum, I certainly think there is a moral case to be made in favour of health care for all, but I also think that there is a serious economic case in favour of it. But, I guess this is not my fight... Although I do enjoy a bit of a scrap when I can get it...