Musings of a Patriot

Tag: issues

  • Hillarycare and the Media

    This post is not intended to mock or even evaluate the positions espoused by Hillary Clinton now or in the past. I chose the title to be short and to grab attention. The purpose of this post is to summarize and evaluate how the news media covered the issue of health care reform during the…

  • FOCA

    My sister-in-law suggested that her generally apolitical blog was not the place to engage in a  debate on abortion. She’s probably right, but such a debate fits just fine here. In many ways the debate on abortion is settled. An absolute ban on abortion is not likely to ever be a reality in this nation…

  • Our Tranquil Times

    I’m glad that our country has so few problems that, in order to feel useful, we have a Representative proposing a bill to end the BCS system. I’d hate to think what kind of legislation we would be getting out of such a Congress if we were living in turbulent times with a depressed economy,…

  • “Free Market” Health Care

    The call for Lawyers to join health-reform efforts was a not so subtle reminder to me about how "free" our health care market is currently. We can’t really pretend that the cost of services or the services rendered are determined by patients and providers. In fact, they are not even determined by a combination of…

  • Make “the Silent” a Minority

    Recently my niece approached me to ask questions about politics. She’s a young teenager, years short of being able to vote, but she wants to become informed and involved so that she could positively participate by the time she can vote. The conversation served as a reminder to me of how important it is for…

  • Willing Suspension of Disbelief

    Reports from the CBO that a Universal Health Coverage Bill would be budget neutral are obviously based on the third kind of lie (namely statistics). Could someone please point out to me where this plan gives health care providers an incentive to provide efficient, high-quality care? It seems to me that insuring all our uninsured…

  • Government is a Tool

    LaVarr Webb asks Utah Policy readers if they think government is always a necessary evil or if it can be a force for good. Since my answer to that question goes directly to the heart of what my blog is about I thought I’d share my answer here. Government is not always necessary (an isolated…

  • Free Marketer’s Dilemma

    I’m a proponent of the value of free markets and their ability to enrich people. The problem is that the free market only works in a closed system, in other words a free market is not favored when intersecting with markets which are being manipulated. The issue of how to compensate for intersecting our supposedly…

  • Rhetoric Overshadows Facts

    The well titled post, The World Is Not Going To End This Weekend, illustrates how easily an issue can be skewed simply by blurring the facts. Quoting from a post at the Politico which contains the rhetoric surrounding the debate about extending the Protect America Act Timothy Lee goes on to show the truth: .…

  • Feeling Bloated

    As if the Republican party (thanks largely to the current administration) had not long ago lost any credibility to apply the “tax and spend” label to the Democrats, the American Enterprise Institute has now published a report on just how fat our favorite Elephant is. (hat tip Cato @ Liberty) Allowing for our military expenditures,…