The great essayist (and physician) Theodore Dalrymple writes in the Wall Street Journal:

If there is a right to health care, someone has the duty to provide it. Inevitably, that “someone” is the government. Concrete benefits in pursuance of abstract rights, however, can be provided by the government only by constant coercion.

People sometimes argue in favor of a universal human right to health care by saying that health care is different from all other human goods or products. It is supposedly an important precondition of life itself. This is wrong: There are several other, much more important preconditions of human existence, such as food, shelter and clothing.

Everyone agrees that hunger is a bad thing (as is overeating), but few suppose there is a right to a healthy, balanced diet, or that if there was, the federal government would be the best at providing and distributing it to each and every American.

Where does the right to health care come from? Did it exist in, say, 250 B.C., or in A.D. 1750? If it did, how was it that our ancestors, who were no less intelligent than we, failed completely to notice it?

If, on the other hand, the right to health care did not exist in those benighted days, how did it come into existence, and how did we come to recognize it once it did?

When the supposed right to health care is widely recognized, as in the United Kingdom, it tends to reduce moral imagination. Whenever I deny the existence of a right to health care to a Briton who asserts it, he replies, “So you think it is all right for people to be left to die in the street?”

When I then ask my interlocutor whether he can think of any reason why people should not be left to die in the street, other than that they have a right to health care, he is generally reduced to silence. He cannot think of one.

Moreover, the right to grant is also the right to deny. And in times of economic stringency, when the first call on public expenditure is the payment of the salaries and pensions of health-care staff, we can rely with absolute confidence on the capacity of government sophists to find good reasons for doing bad things.

The question of health care is not one of rights but of how best in practice to organize it. America is certainly not a perfect model in this regard. But neither is Britain, where a universal right to health care has been recognized longest in the Western world.

Not coincidentally, the U.K. is by far the most unpleasant country in which to be ill in the Western world. Even Greeks living in Britain return home for medical treatment if they are physically able to do so.

The government-run health-care system—which in the U.K. is believed to be the necessary institutional corollary to an inalienable right to health care—has pauperized the entire population. This is not to say that in every last case the treatment is bad: A pauper may be well or badly treated, according to the inclination, temperament and abilities of those providing the treatment. But a pauper must accept what he is given.

Universality is closely allied as an ideal, ideologically, to that of equality. But equality is not desirable in itself. To provide everyone with the same bad quality of care would satisfy the demand for equality. (Not coincidentally, British survival rates for cancer and heart disease are much below those of other European countries, where patients need to make at least some payment for their care.)

In any case, the universality of government health care in pursuance of the abstract right to it in Britain has not ensured equality. After 60 years of universal health care, free at the point of usage and funded by taxation, inequalities between the richest and poorest sections of the population have not been reduced. But Britain does have the dirtiest, most broken-down hospitals in Europe.

There is no right to health care—any more than there is a right to chicken Kiev every second Thursday of the month.

Getting it right and making us laugh again, here is Mark Steyn on nationalizing health care:  

Health care is a game-changer. The permanent game-changer. The pendulum will swing, and one day, despite their best efforts, the Republicans will return to power, and, in the right circumstances, the bailouts and cap-&-trade and Government Motors and much of the rest can be reversed. But the government annexation of health care will prove impossible to roll back. It alters the relationship between the citizen and the state and, once that transformation is effected, you can click your ruby slippers all you want but you’ll never get back to Kansas…

Government-directed health care is a profound assault on the concept of citizenship. It deforms national politics very quickly, and ensures that henceforth elections are always fought on the left’s terms. I find it hard to believe President Obama and his chums haven’t looked at Canada and Europe and concluded that health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture. He doesn’t say that, of course. He says his objective is to “control costs”. Which is the one thing that won’t happen. Even now, health care costs rise far faster under Medicare than in the private sector.

By the way, to accept that argument is to concede a lot of the turf: Why is the cost of my health care Barack Obama’s business? When he mused recently as to whether his dying grandmother had really needed her hip replacement, he gave the game away: Right now, if Gran’ma decides she doesn’t need the hip, that’s her business. Under a government system, it’s the state’s business – and they have to “allocate” “resources”, and frankly at your age your body’s not worth allocating to. Why give you a new hip when you’re getting up there and you’re gonna be kicking the bucket in a year or two or five or twenty?…

Please do yourself the favor of reading the whole thing here. 

Mark Steyn writes in ‘the corner’ of the National Review Online:

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades are “very upset” about Sacha Baron Cohen’s new film Bruno, and have issued a statement attacking it:

“We reserve the right to respond in the way we find suitable against this man,” it said. “The movie was part of a conspiracy against the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades…”

The group is alleged to be responsible for dozens of suicide bombings and shootings. It has been designated as a terrorist organisation by the European Union and the United States. Baron Cohen’s Austrian character ridicules the Martyrs’ Brigades when he attempts to get himself kidnapped during a meeting with Ayman Abu Aita, who is identified in the film as the leader of the organisation.

Oddly enough, for a guy who heads an organization of martyrs, Mr Abu Aita is complaining that Bruno has endangered his life:

Mr Abu Aita’s lawyer, Hatem Abu Ahmad, said that he is preparing a legal action against Baron Cohen and Universal Studios alleging that the Martyrs’ Brigade reference could get his client in trouble with the Israelis and the homosexual association could get him killed by the Palestinians.

Can’t wait till that winds up in front of our new empathetic Supreme Court: Isn’t it Islamophobic to characterize Palestinians as homophobic?

Sarah Palin does not have the gift of the gab. She is not glib. It was to a large extent Obama’s glibness that got him elected. But what Palin has that Obama doesn’t are  policies based on sound principles well worth carrying out, and the competence to do so.   She knows how to value and use freedom, and she is honest, decent, and efficient. These are qualities of gold.  Obama has none of them.

The speech she made last Sunday when she stepped down as governor of Alaska was not well crafted. It probably sent no thrills up anybody’s leg. She struck no poses. She did not give the impression of being ‘above it all’. (The Huffington Post sneered at it.) But it testified to her strong character, her bold vision, and her solid achievements.

She listed the promises she’d made – and fulfilled: ethics reform; a fair return for Alaskans on the exploitation of their natural resources; protection of the environment; increased funding for, and improvements in education, including better opportunities for special needs students; managing fish and wildlife for abundance; producing energy solutions, getting a natural gas pipeline underway; and defending the constitution.  She was able to report in truth to Alaskans, ‘WHAT I PROMISED, WE ACCOMPLISHED.’ (Notice the ‘we’ – she gives credit to the many who helped her achievement.)

She went on:

So much success! And Alaska there is much good in store further down the road, but to reach it we must value and live the optimistic pioneering spirit that made this state proud and free. We can resist enslavement to big central government that crushes hope and opportunity. Be wary of accepting government largesse. It doesn’t come free , and often accepting it takes away everything that is free. Melting into Washington’s powerful “care-taking” arms will just suck incentive to work hard and chart our own course right out of us, and that not only contributes to an unstable economy and dizzying national debt, but it does make us less free.

I resisted the stimulus package. I resisted the stimulus package and we have championed earmark reform, slashing earmark requests by 85% to break the cycle of dependency on a stifling, unsustainable federal agenda, and other states should follow this for their and for America’s stability. We don’t have to feel that we must beg an allowance from Washington, except to beg the allowance to be self-determined. See, to be self-sufficient, Alaska must be allowed to develop – to drill and build and climb, to fulfill statehood’s promise. At statehood we knew this. At statehood we knew this, that we are responsible for ourselves and our families and our future, and fifty years later, please let’s not start believing that government is the answer. It can’t make you happy or healthy or wealthy or wise. What can? It is the wisdom of the people and our families and our small businesses, and industrious individuals …

Alaskans will remember that years ago, remember we sported the old bumper sticker that said, “Alaska. We Don’t Give a Darn How They Do It Outside?” Do you remember that? I remember that, and remember it was because we would be different. We’d roll up our sleeves, and we would diligently sow and reap, and we can still do this to carve wealth out of the wilderness and make our living on the water, with strong hands and innovative minds, and now with smarter technology. It is what our first people and our parents did. It worked, because they worked. We must be prudent and persistent and press for the people’s right to responsibly develop God-given resources for the maximum benefit of the people.

And we have come so far in just 50 years. We’re no longer a frontier outpost on the periphery of the world’s greatest nation. Now, as a contributor and a securer of America, we can attain our destiny in the promise of our motto “North to the Future.” See, the pressing issue of our time, it’s energy independence, because there is an inherent link between energy and security, and energy and prosperity. Alaska will lead with energy, we will prove you can be both pro-development and pro-environment, because no one loves their clean air and their land and their wildlife and their water more than an Alaskan. We will protect it.

Yes, America must look north to the future for security, for energy independence, for our strategic location on the globe. Alaska is the gate-keeper of the continent…

We don’t agree that the resources are ‘God-given’, but we know what she means: they are there freely to be used.

She vowed ‘to fight harder for what is right’. She never felt, she said, that it was necessary to have a title to do that.

True, she needs to learn more about foreign affairs (as do Obama and Hillary Clinton). And she needs a good speech writer. But these are lacks that can be supplied. She already has what is essential for a great political leader – vision, confidence, competence, integrity, an ability to inspire others, and a profound understanding of what has made America the greatest and freest nation, along with the determination to keep it so. And that means she could be a worthy candidate for the presidency.

Jillian Becker   July 28, 2009

Thomas Sowell writes against the notion that Obama is a ‘post-racial’ president:

For “community organizers” … racial resentments are a stock in trade. President Obama’s background as a community organizer has received far too little attention, though it should have been a high-alert warning that this was no post-racial figure.

What does a community organizer do? What he does not do is organize a community. What he organizes are the resentments and paranoia within a community, directing those feelings against other communities, from whom either benefits or revenge are to be gotten, using whatever rhetoric or tactics will accomplish that purpose.

To think that someone who has spent years promoting grievance and polarization was going to bring us all together as president is a triumph of wishful thinking over reality.

David Solway writes:

I will say this bluntly and without equivocation. Obama is a disaster of the first magnitude, bowing to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, smiling benignly on Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and cuddling up to Dimitry Medvedev—and by extension Vladimir Putin—of neo-Soviet Russia. He still maintains a flaccid negotiating stance toward an oppressive Iranian regime repudiated by its own people and rapidly closing in on nuclear capability. He would no doubt parley amiably with Hu Jintao of communist China should it launch an invasion of Taiwan, another small democratic nation in approximately the same “straits” as Israeland Honduras.

No less and perhaps even more frightening is Obama’s now undeniable intentions vis à vis his own country, imposing his own brand of demagogic politics upon the people he ostensibly represents. Unimaginable budgetary deficits, fiscally unsustainable policies, redistribution of honestly come by income, severe cutbacks in defence, bills hastily rammed through Congress affecting an entire population, soaring unemployment, opacity rather than transparency in the decision-making process, rule by charisma and fiat, the spectre of restrictions on freedom of expression—these are Obama’s gifts to his country. The new direction which American foreign policy has taken, alienating its democratic allies and mollifying tyrannical and illicit governments, renders the U.S. even more vulnerable to what we might call the expropriation of its destiny. Its enemies will not hesitate to seize the opportunity when it presents itself to undermine American interests and security.

“We are living at the edge of a catastrophe,” warned Newt Gingrich, addressing the Heritage Foundation onJuly 20, 2009. Whatever one may think of Gingrich, he is speaking truth to power, and truth to the powerless as well. Gingrich is concerned about the prospect of a massive terorist attack for which Americais manifestly unprepared, but the attack of its own administration on the nation’s traditional liberties and endangered solvency is equally menacing. This is the calendar of events envisaged by the international Left whose program, however  improbably, has now taken root in the United States, the presumed bastion of freedom in the world. The enemy is within the gates and the outlook for the future is perturbing, to say the least. But there is a certain ironic justice at work. What Israel and Honduras are now discovering, America too will learn in the course of time.

 I do not fear Abbas, Zelaya, Putin, Chavez or the rest of that disreputable bunch. I am alarmed when I consider Ahmadinejad and Khamenei. But I am scared to death of Obama.

How was it possible that some of us could see  clearly that the election of Obama would be disastrous, yet a majority of voters could not see it at all?

The egregious Robert Gibbs, the most inarticulate spokesman that ever spoke, manages never to answer a question, which is probably what makes him valuable to Obama. In a way one has to admire him for his power of evasion, his sheer slipperiness. He’s almost made an art of it. 

Here’s a good example from Power Line:

On Fox News Sunday this morning, Robert Gibbs was asked whether President Obama had prepared to be asked about the Henry Gates controversy at his press conference last week. The colloquy is interesting:

BAIER: Presidents, before prime time news conferences, usually have detailed preparation sessions. And President Obama has already had four time prime time news conferences.

Before Wednesday’s news conference, did you prepare him for a question about Henry Gates’s arrest in Cambridge?

GIBBS: Well, look, let’s just say, it’s safe to say we went over a whole lot of topics that we thought might come up, and certainly, this was a topic that was and has been in the news.

I think the president, on Friday, spoke about the fact that he hadn’t calibrated his words well probably unnecessarily added to the media frenzy around what was going on in Cambridge, so much so that even the police officer, Sergeant Crowley, that he talked to, from Cambridge, asked him for advice on how to get the press off of his — off of his lawn, and the president said, “I’m trying to figure out how to get the press off my lawn, too.”

BAIER: You know, you — so you prepared him for the question, or at least made him aware that it could come up. Did he read the police report beforehand?

GIBBS: I don’t know if the president read the police report. I think the president was clear in discussing the fact that he did not know all the details of what had transpired in Cambridge.

My guess is that only a very few people know exactly what happened in every instance in that. Again, I know the president…

BAIER: I guess my question is, early on, did he determine that he was going to take sides to back his friend to the extent that he did Wednesday?

GIBBS: Well, again, I think the president discussed the notion that saying beforehand that he knew Professor Gates, that he didn’t have all the details, and in hindsight understands that his words were not calibrated as they should have been.

Of course, what got Obama into trouble was not saying that he knew Gates, but claiming that the Cambridge Police “acted stupidly” in arresting him. Although Gibbs doesn’t come out and say it, it appears that Obama’s “acted stupidly” line was not a spur of the moment blunder, but rather scripted commentary that he worked out in advance with his aides. Gibbs went on:

And, look, Bret, it’s our hope that, as the president said, there can be — this can be part of a teachable moment, that we can create a better communication and a dialogue between communities and police and help everyone do their job a little bit better.

Like the President, Gibbs doesn’t seem to understand that the person in need of “teaching” is Obama. And who is supposed to “do their job a little bit better”? The police, I guess; but some would say the incident suggests that the President needs to do his job a little bit better. The dialogue continues:

BAIER: In fact, accepting that invitation for the beer, Mr. Gates wrote this. He said that he hopes it helps. Quote, “my unfortunate experience will only have a larger meaning if we can all use this to diminish racial profiling.”

So does the president believe, as Mr. Gates clearly still does, that this was an instance of racial profiling?

GIBBS: Well, I think that’s an issue that the president has worked on and been concerned about. I don’t think the president has come down on one side of that or the other. Again, I think he would tell you he doesn’t know all the details of this.

But, if what we can do is bring Professor Gates and Sergeant Crowley together to discuss some of the issues and the events that surrounded that day in Cambridge, and if that helps communities and law enforcement work together as they did in Illinois on this important issue with then-state senator Barack Obama; if communities and law enforcement throughout the country can do that, I think we’ll all be a little bit better off.

And that’s what this is really all about.

It’s hard to tell, sometimes, whether Gibbs’s incoherence is deliberate. Often, I think it is; perhaps that’s the case here. The “issue” that President Obama “has been concerned about” and that “communities and law enforcement work together” on is apparently racial profiling. The conversation that Obama intends to have with Gates and Crowley over a beer could get a little tense if Gates (and Obama?) think they are working on the issue of racial profiling, while Crowley thinks they are working on the issue of privileged people with connections in high places acting abusively toward police officers who are trying to do their jobs.

Read all of the article by Robert Fulford in the National Post from which we quote this:

Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein, an angry Khartoum journalist who works for the UN in Sudan, has started a campaign against shariah law by elevating a local police matter into an international embarrassment: She’s invited the world to witness her judicial flogging, thus making her case part of the struggle between religious traditionalists and independent women … 

In Khartoum, the General Discipline Police Authority patrols the streets, charged with maintaining shariah standards of public decency. Recently it raided a restaurant and arrested 13 women, including al-Hussein, for the crime of … wearing trousers.

Since 1991, that’s been a violation of the Sudanese criminal code. More precisely, it is classified as a violation of public morality. While erratically enforced, the rule is serious enough to carry a penalty of 40 lashes. Ten of the women arrested with al-Hussein pleaded guilty and received a reduced sentence of 10 lashes. But al-Hussein and two others demanded their day in court and al-Hussein decided to provoke a scandal by distributing 500 personal invitations to her trial. She expects to be found guilty (she won’t be allowed a lawyer or a chance to speak), so she informed her guests that they’ll also be expected at her flogging.

The French government has condemned the law, and in Cairo the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) has launched a campaign to defend al-Hussein and the others. ANHRI also protested a suit brought by the police against another journalist, Amal Habbani, for an article praising al-Hussein ( “A Case of-Subduing a Woman’s Body”). The police claim that the mere act of defending female pants-wearing also violates General Discipline.

When stories such as al-Hussein’s flash around the world, there’s usually a missing element: The feminist movement rarely [never – JB] becomes part of the narrative. The rise of shariah law constitutes the major global change in women’s status during this era, yet Western feminists remain pathetically silent.

Feminist journalists like to speculate about the future of activism among women today, but you can leaf through a fat sheaf of their articles without encountering a mention of Muslim women. Feminist professors, for their part, show even less interest. Trolling through the 40-page program of the European Conference on Politics and Gender, held in Belfast last winter, I found feminist scholars (from Europe, the United States and Canada) dealing with women’s political opportunities, the implications for women of new medical technology, the politics of fashion and even women’s response to climate change. What I couldn’t find was even one lecture or discussion devoted to so-called “honour killing.” Nor was there any mention of the thousands upon thousands of women routinely flogged, raped, imprisoned or stoned to death, often with the tacit or explicit agreement of Islamic governments.

Mark Steyn, interviewed by Hugh Hewitt, says of Obama’s comment on the arrest of Professor Gates:

I think the President of the United States has absolutely no business intervening in a matter for the Cambridge Police Department, and should it happen to come to that, whatever court in the city of Cambridge it comes down to. This was disgraceful by him, and he should be ashamed of himself in intervening in that in a national press conference. It’s unbecoming to the President, and it was a disgusting moment.

We urge you to read Mark Steyn’s column in OCregister on this same subject, above all for the pleasure of its humor:

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/gates-professor-black-2506786-racism-sgt

Gary Aldrich, a former law enforcement officer, writes at Townhall about the arrest of Professor Gates of Harvard, and how he and President Obama chose to make a racist incident out of it:  

Obama and his administration have already maligned the military by suggesting that returning veterans may be closet terrorists. Now the president himself makes numerous unfortunate statements that suggest behind every police badge may hide the evil soul of a racist. He says and I quote, “you know, race remains a factor in this society.”

I assure you, sir, the race factor may remain in your heart – but not in mine. And, not in the hearts of the thousands of police officers who protect all citizens regardless of race, gender, or any other difference, even if you and your college professor friend choose to believe otherwise.

Frankly I find your position on race matters to be disappointing, repugnant, and threatening to the health of our culture which is, by its very nature, both generous and diverse. I think the millions of black families who have their homes and persons protected by the police every night and day of the week would disagree with your ugly characterization of all police officers.

What we are witness to here is the amazing spectacle of a black man elected to the highest office in our land, continuing the claim that America is a nation plagued with racism. Surely only the most gullible would continue to believe race baiting claptrap like that. The fact is, the professor’s hatred for “Whitey” overwhelmed his judgment and he lost his temper – and that is all that has happened here.

That is, until the president decided to weigh in. When he did, he revealed his heart on the matter of race and it’s sad to find out where he really stands on race relations. It appears that he will not be an agent of change, and that is a real shame.