Tag Archives: liberty

When Liberty Met Bacteria (UPDATED)

Posted on by
Reply

Freedom doth not reign supreme in the restrooms of food service establishments all over these great United States, at least according to one Republican senator (h/t Bob):

A freshman GOP senator argued this week that the government should not require food workers to wash their hands after using the toilet, saying “the market will take care of that.”

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) called routine hygiene rules an example of government overreach at an event hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center on Monday.

“I don’t have any problem with Starbucks if they choose to opt out of this policy as long as they post a sign that says, ‘We don’t require our employees to wash their hands after leaving the restroom,’ ” Tillis said to audience laughter in a clip captured by C-SPAN.

“That’s probably one where every business that did that would go out of business,” he conceded, “but I think it’s good to illustrate the point, that that’s the kind of mentality we need to have to reduce the regulatory burden on this country.”

Three observations about this:

1. He might have just been kidding, in which case my only definitive beef with him is that his sense of humor is terrible.

2. In a truly laissez-faire free market, he’s probably right that the market will take care of businesses with poor sanitation, because no one would want to eat at an establishment whose customers keep getting sick. Please note, however, that this requires people to get sick before market forces kick in, and it assumes that consumers have access to accurate information about restaurant cleanliness. That leads me to my third point. Continue reading →

Share

Health Insurance is Not Being “Forced on You,” but Your Health Care Might Be Forced on the Rest of Us

Posted on by
Reply

By Thierry Geoffroy (Thierry Geoffroy) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsThe individual insurance mandate originated as a conservative, free-market alternative to the single-payer system, with the significant support of the Heritage Foundation, and it was one of the signature achievements of Romney’s term as MA governor. It acknowledges that health insurance should principally be an individual and family responsibility, not something employers should be required to provide en masse, and it takes into account the fact that a person who declines to obtain health insurance becomes a drain on society when they become sick or injured. Republicans, and conservatives in general, were mostly on board with it until the instant that President Obama supported it.

So please, spare us the “forced upon people” *%#@*!#. People who refuse to obtain health insurance because of liberty, if they are otherwise able to do so, ought to agree in advance to decline all health care that they do not pay for out-of-pocket. Otherwise, they are the drain on society, because many hospital emergency rooms cannot turn them away for inability to pay for services. This means that, if you are in a traumatic accident, have no health insurance, and don’t have enough cash on hand to pay for the emergency room, you agree in advance that you’re probably going to die and the taxpayers are not going to help you. You should probably wear a wristband or something so people will know that you do’t want to participate in the social contract.

Here’s the thing, though. If a person refuses to obtain insurance because they think that the individual mandate infringes upon their freedom to do…..whatever it is they think is being infringed, I would still support them receiving medical care in the emergency room regardless of their ability to pay. I would support this because I am not a monster. I just wish that those people would have the courage of their convictions and agree to risk dying rather than accept the government-mandated healthcare that is (to them) such obvious tyranny.

Photo credit: By Thierry Geoffroy (Thierry Geoffroy) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Share

Whose Liberty?

Posted on by
Reply

Senator Ted Cruz’s not-quite-filibuster today has the goal (I presume) of making the nation so sick of Ted Cruz that we’ll agree to do anything—e.g. “defund Obamacare”—in exchange for his promise never to speak in public again. I have to admit, it’s the best plan Republicans have come up with so far.

Anyway, during the festivities, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) reportedly added this nugget of wisdom:

Whenever government acts, it does so at the expense of our own individual liberty. (Emphasis added.)

For someone who has been denied coverage due to a “pre-existing condition,” or who has not been able to access any healthcare, it seems clear that the new law will increase their liberty, by allowing them the opportunity to be healthy and not die avoidable deaths.

But I don’t think Sen. Lee is talking about those people when he talks about “our own individual liberty.” It would be nice if he would be more honest about who he actually means. Then we could ask him how much personal convenience is worth another person’s death from a pre-existing condition.

Share

Let Freedom Ring All Throughout North Dakota

Posted on by
Reply

A bunch of libertarians ranked the fifty states based on “freedom.” Fox Nation reported on the results under the headline “Report: Americans Are Migrating to More Free Republican States.” The article contains gems like:

Americans are migrating from less-free liberal states to more-free conservative states, where they are doing better economically, according to a new study published Thursday by the George Mason University’s Mercatus Center.

The “Freedom in the 50 States” study measured economic and personal freedom using a wide range of criteria, including tax rates, government spending and debt, regulatory burdens, and state laws covering land use, union organizing, gun control, education choice and more.

So, if Fox Nation is to be believed, people are departing oppressive states for places where they can stockpile weapons, miseducate their children, and do with their employees as they please. What magical wonderland is this, I wonder…

The freest state overall, the researchers concluded, was North Dakota, followed by South Dakota, Tennessee, New Hampshire and Oklahoma. The least free state by far was New York, followed by California, New Jersey, Hawaii and Rhode Island.

Oh, I see…

Look, no disrespect to North Dakota, but what. The. F*********.

People are leaving California, New York, and New Jersey for the Dakotas? Does Fox Nation think we’re stupid? Does Fox Nation think at all?

I could link to evidence showing that Californians are not doing a reverse-Steinbeck in droves back to Oklahoma, but honestly, what’s the point?

Share