Tag Archives: politics

Guild Monopolies

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They live on in France, especially in the medical profession.

It seems that Thomas Mesnier, a La République En Marche! National Assemblyman, has committed the unpardonable sin of proposing that pharmacies(!—not even establishments like grocery stores) be allowed to sell over-the-counter medicines without the buyer first consulting a doctor and getting a prescription.  The medications Mesnier has proposed be salable without prescription include such dangerous drugs as paracetamol (the French version of acetaminophen), ibuprofen, non-codeine-containing cough medicines, cold medicines, allergy medicines, and the like.

The horror.

Here’s Guild Master National Order of Physicians President, Patrick Bouet:

We are not improving the health system by taking skills away from physicians and giving them to professionals who do not have their training. There comes a time when things have to stop.

No, what improves the health system is no longer wasting time and resources of guild members doctors on minor ailments that half the developed world considers their citizens smart enough and capable enough to deal with on their own, including purchasing minor medicaments for those minor ailments.  What improves the health system is leaving those otherwise wasted time and resources free to deal with the truly sick.  What improves the health system is no longer wasting time and money of those citizens—directly or through tax dollars—on consulting doctors in order to get access to minor medicaments for minor ailments.

What improves the useless sense of self-importance is the reservation of such trivial decisions to doctors.

Potty-Mouth Minds

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Misbehaving HOAs strike again, this time one whose board members have dirty minds.  See this image.

A resident stuck with this HOA was threatened with a serious fine over this snow shadow in her parking space.  It seems her car was parked there during a snowfall, and when she drove away, this shadow was left (no tire tracks because the snowfall continued for a time after she drove away.  A “concerned” fellow resident squawked to the HOA.

The shadow, it seemed to some with pornography on their minds, resembled a phallus.  The HOA board members apparently shared that obsession.

The resident, refusing to be cowed by potty-mouths, pushed back, threatening legal action, and the obsessed ones folded, withdrawing their threats and dropping further action.

Phallus?  Right.  It looks like a cartoon’s version of a dog bone to me.

Hyperbole?

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Donny Deutsch, Chairman of Deutsch Inc, a “marketing communications agency,” offered this nugget on the MSNBC program Morning Joe after Michael Cohen’s “testimony” in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform Wednesday:

When he thought he was going to lose, he was teeing it up for a few days. It’s easy to forget that now.  If impeachment starts to happen, even if he loses an election, whatever inner move you think this guy is capable of doing to create a civil war, he will [do]… I’m not speaking hyperbole.

No, not hyperbole.  Just manufactured hysteria.

Work…Works

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Sam Adolphsen, Foundation for Government Accountability’s Vice President of Executive Affairs, writing for Fox Business, commented on that in a piece about Medicaid’s work requirement in Arkansas—about which Progressive-Democrats in Congress are in an uproar.

Those Progressive-Democrats have complained that work requirements

“threaten[]” Americans…work [is] a “restrictive condition.”

These politicians of the Left ignore two things. One is the trivial one: no one is forcing anyone to work; the only “restriction” is that, in order to get any of Arkansas’ OPM, recipients must go to work in Arkansas or make a good faith effort to do so.

The other thing is the critical item in the affair.

Since the requirement was implemented, thousands of adults have left the welfare program.
…
…when people go back to work after work requirements are implemented, their incomes double or triple in just a year or two.

And this fallout from that second thing:

Getting these able-bodied adults back to work also frees up resources for the truly needy—the very people that the Medicaid program was designed to help.

It also increases Arkansas’ tax collections that go to the State’s Medicaid program.

Here’s where Adolphsen missed the mark, though.  He wrote

Why are Democrats so against work?
…
It’s an indication of how out of touch these progressive leaders are with everyday Americans.

No, Progressive-Democrats are the smartest kids on the block—just ask them.  They know what they’re doing with their objections to imposing a measure of personal responsibility on welfare recipients, personal responsibility that brings with it personal prosperity.

Those folks getting work and raising their standard of living aren’t actual human beings; they’re just votes spilling out of the Progressive-Democrats’ welfare box.

It Isn’t Pro-Choice, Anymore

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Now it’s pro-infanticide.  That’s the position of the Progressive-Democratic Party after Party Senators voted—unanimously—to kill a bill that would have outlawed immediately post-birth infanticide.

Senator Ben Sasse’s (R, NE) bill, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, would have required doctors to work to save a baby’s life if an abortion attempt failed and the baby was born alive despite the attempt.  All Progressive-Democrat Senators, every single one of them, voted to kill the bill and thereby to let abortion doctors finish killing the baby.

As Sasse put the situation after those Progressive-Democrat Senators had had their way,

I want to ask each and every one of my colleagues whether or not we’re OK with infanticide[.]

Indeed.

On the other hand,

Opponents, noting the rarity of such births and citing laws already making it a crime to kill newborn babies, said the bill was unnecessary.

How cynical. Statistica reports that

There were a total of 17,284 reported murder and non-negligent manslaughter cases in the US in 2017.

Out of a population of some 325 million, that works out to about 0.005%.  That’s pretty rare, too.  Maybe we don’t need those other anti-murder laws, either.

Never mind that the bill would have been an easy way to reduce the post-failed abortion infanticide rate even further.  It still would have been too much like moral work.

Remember this in the fall of 2020.