Right to Opine

There were a number of grandiose promises made during the push to pass ObamaCare, among them that millions of uninsured Americans would gain access to health insurance and that those who were underinsured would receive comprehensive insurance. Not so fast.

The health law passed in March says insurers must have a medical-loss ratio of between 80% and 85%, meaning they must spend at least that proportion of their revenue on actual care.

A couple months ago, McDonald’s and a few other large employers were granted waivers to the medical-loss ratio rules under threat of tens of thousands of employees losing their medical coverage entirely. Now the Department of Health and Human Services has announced

the agency plans to release “a special methodology that takes into account the special circumstances of mini-med plans in determining how administrative costs are calculated” for medical-loss ratio purposes.

So HHS is now changing the rules so that mini-meds can continue to operate as is. Did we really need to pass a trillion dollar healthcare bill just to leave the underinsured underinsured? Brilliant legislative work, that.

Two American companies have announced plans to create around 60 “high calibre” jobs in Ireland (approx. $50-60K/year). That’s not really the big story here, though, as 60 jobs is just a drop in the 9.6% unemployment bucket.

In recent weeks, there have been several jobs announcements from US companies investing in Northern Ireland.

Now why would American companies be interested in creating those jobs overseas instead of here? It’s simple, really. Our current administration and its lackeys in Congress are anti-business. Every time Republicans have suggested cutting the corporate tax rate in order to encourage business expansion on our shores, the left lobs accusations that Republicans: are in the pocket of the ueber-evil big business, favor Wall Street over Main Street, etc., ad nauseum. The truth is that Ireland has a corporate tax rate of 12.5% compared to our 39%. Sometimes economic reality is stunningly obvious.

Two U.S. Postal Service employees were fatally shot in TN. The perp is still at large. Think he would have been as bold if he thought half the people in the building were armed instead of knowing they weren’t?

Not content with the fact that Muslims do indeed enjoy religious freedom in America, expatriate Michael Goldfarb lectures us for not being tolerant of Islam. So much is wrong with this editorial. Let’s begin at the top.

The plan to build Park 51, a Muslim community centre a few blocks north of Ground Zero in New York City, has re-kindled resentment smoldering since 9/11 against the Muslim community in a significant portion of American society.

Consider that originally the building was to be called the “Cordoba House.” Anyone who knows anything about Muslim history knows the name was chosen deliberately. If you’re unaware of its significance, educate yourself. From the beginning, this project was an intentional poke in America’s eye.

Goldfarb notes that a New York Times poll showed that while 62% of New Yorkers believed backers of the center had the right to build it near Ground Zero, 67% said it should not be.

The question raised by the poll is, people have religious freedom but where did the toleration go?

The underlying problem here is that Goldfarb, like many on the left, confuses the freedom or legal right to perform an act with the wisdom or moral correctness of doing so. You may have the legal right to be an idiot, but I do you no great favor by tolerating your idiocy.

Picture a “Christian” group blowing up the Kingdom Centre in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, slaughtering thousands of innocent Saudis. Can you even imagine the outrage that would follow if any other group of Christians—even a legitimate and widely-accepted group—were to propose building a Christian community center on or near the site? That outrage would be justified…and so is ours. The issue is not one of “(legal) right to” but of “ought to.”

(Oh, wait. I forgot. Even having a Bible in your possession in Saudi Arabia is a crime punishable by imprisonment. Converting to Christianity—from, er, Islam—is a capital offense. Ah, yes…we certainly are the intolerant ones.‚

Regarding religious freedom and tolerance, Goldfarb then ponders,

Where do those values of religious tolerance come from? Are they uniquely American?

What follows is a couple paragraphs on John Locke followed by a brief explanation of how France has dealt with the issue. I’m not entirely sure why Goldfarb bothers with these, as they both point out exactly how good minority religions have it in America. Locke, taken in context, never suggested that society should tolerate all religions in the way Goldfarb and the modern left would have it—a full and approving embrace. I’m OK. You’re OK. Kumbayah, etc. (Read it. I’m not sure Goldfarb did. The bulk of the essay deals with how Christians of various sects treat each other, an issue deserving as much attention now as when he wrote, but irrelevant to the topic at hand.) Locke argued that the government itself should not play favorites and should view adherents of all religions equally—something America has done at least as well as any other nation on the planet.

And France? They’ve recently banned the full Muslim veil in public. To my knowledge (and a lengthy Google search) no serious American political leader has suggested we do the same. Yes, there have been a few legal cases involving Islam, e.g., requiring Muslim women to unveil in order to have drivers license photographs taken, but there is no great push in the U.S. to curtail Muslims’ religious freedom.

In the furor over Park 51, the more thinking members of the anti-mosque brigade have invoked French reasoning without using the word France, reminding the project’s prime mover, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, that tolerated minorities have reciprocal responsibilities not to tread to [sic] heavily on the feelings of the majority.

Where equality fits into their reasoning is not clear.

That is because the issue is not one of equality. It is completely and solely about the morality or “rightness” of the project.

Curiously Britain, which had no 18th Century revolution and which still bans a Catholic from taking the throne, has had in these times of tensions between Muslims and their fellow citizens, fewer problems.

Mr. Goldfarb must read an entirely different web site than the BBC (for which he writes) I visit daily. Browse their site and determine for yourself whether his assessment of the situation in England is warranted.

Disappointingly, Goldfarb then descends into the all-too-common ploy of simply denigrating America.

…America is on the verge of exploding with intolerance towards Muslims…

…most Americans…don’t know or think much about the world outside the US.

And so on. Ignorant, navel-gazing, intolerant, bigoted Americans. Yada, yada, yada.

The truth is, religious freedom as it is fiercely defended in America is uniquely American. There is no other country which so amicably plays host to the bewildering array of religions as is found here. It’s one of the many distinctive characteristics which make this the number one destination of immigrants from all over the world and, as Michael Medved is fond of saying, “The greatest nation on God’s green earth.”

Elementary schools are limiting the activities boys can use to productively channel their innate aggression and competitive drives, for example eliminating such useful games as dodgeball. Youth sports associations hand out trophies to every kid for the sheer act of breathing and their parents’ ability to pony up the $100 registration fee instead of reserving accolades for those who actually accomplish something on the field of play. Schools hand out awards for good behavior and “citizenship” (i.e., being nice to classmates) instead of mandating them and rewarding academic performace. After all, we don’t want to hurt anyone’s self-esteem by leaving them out as we hold up exemplary achievement as a mark to be emulated. Now we’re being told that modern superheroes are bad role models.

“There is a big difference in the movie superhero of today and the comic book superhero of yesterday,” said Professor Lamb.

“Today’s superhero is too much like an action hero who participates in non-stop violence; he’s aggressive, sarcastic and rarely speaks to the virtue of doing good for humanity.

“When not in superhero costume, these men exploit women, flaunt bling and convey their manhood with high-powered guns.”

Now I’m not sure what movies and TV shows she’s watching, but today the only “superheroes” that wear costumes are either parodies or remakes of classic comic book mainstays. We just don’t do the whole tights-and-capes thing anymore. Further, I’m a big fan of action movies and TV shows—even the cheesiest—and I guess we’re simply seeing completely different images. Virtually every successful action hero of late follows the same model that has sold well on screen for nearly 100 years: chivalrous, confident but modest (except when it’s necessary to fling a good one-liner at the bad guys), and motivated to fight for the helpless and powerless.

In a second presentation, Dr Carlos Santos, from Arizona State University, examined 426 middle school boys’ ability to resist being emotionally stoic, autonomous and physically tough – stereotyped images of masculinity.

When, exactly, did these qualities become viewed as harmful to boys’ development? Our nation was made possible by the stoicism, autonomy, and physical toughness of generations of men (yes, and women) who lived hard, often brutally short, lives in an effort to tame a wild and dangerous continent. While most of the specific dangers they faced are gone, they have been replaced by others which can only be met by men of equal character.

Unfortunately, academics would have us believe there are no significant differences between the genders, and consequently have us raise the next generation of boys to be women. Such nonsense can only be perpetuated to the detriment of society.

A former employee of Emcore Corporation forced his way past “security” with a handgun and killed two people inside.

[Police Chief Ray] Schultz called the Emcore campus a “very secure facility”

Yep. Very secure.

It wasn’t known how Reza got past security at Emcore Corp.

Um…he had a handgun. I’d bet dollars to donuts the “security”—if it’s like most such corporate mall cops—didn’t. Brilliant idea. Disarm your employees for “safety” and post Paul Blart at the front door. As long as companies can’t be held legally responsible for the safety of their employees when they disallow personal protection, most workplaces will remain safety-free. The notion that they are gun-free would be laughable if it weren’t so often tragic.

In a hit piece, William Grigg trashes the entire police profession for the misdeeds of a few, concluding:

it’s difficult to see how things would be noticeably worse if we simply did away with it outright.

Let’s look at each incident he cites individually.

In the first case, the officer’s punch was arguably excessive, but…what he did was legal; what the girl did was not. She was interfering with a lawful (if stupid) arrest. Should he have handled it better? No question. But you can’t just shove a cop because you don’t like the fact that he’s enforcing a law you and your friend have just broken, no matter how silly you think the law (jaywalking in this case) may be. (What this officer really needs is a complete refresher in restraint techniques. If that girl had been more savvy she’d have taken him out. His performance was truly pitiful.) Both the officer and the girls acted stupidly.

In the second case, Wright should have pulled over immediately and explained the situation. It’s very likely Daves would have assisted by loading Wright’s wife into his squad car and getting her to the hospital even more quickly than Wright could. What Wright did was illegal and dangerous. He’s lucky Daves didn’t get more squad cars involved. A blockaded street or spike strips would have slowed him down a lot more—and critically endangered his wife—and would have been completely justified. Once at the hospital did Daves act stupidly? Yes. He obviously should have gotten the woman into the ER and sorted out the details later.

Third case…completely indefensible, really. The head EMT even asked the officer to escort them to the hospital first, then take whatever actions he thought necessary. What was he going to do? Evade a police cruiser in an ambulance? The officer shouldn’t just be canned but criminally prosecuted if at all possible. The only question I have is why the ambulance wasn’t running its lights and siren if it was a critical transport. It wouldn’t even have been an issue then.

In addition to a weak analysis of the incidents, Grigg’s article is, unfortunately, also sprinkled with outright fallacies. For example, the notion that police are no different than other citizens—they’re just paid to do what all good citizens should do—doesn’t hold up in any society on the planet. When I’m allowed to carry a handgun in courtrooms, federal buildings, public schools,…I’ll begin to buy that argument. And to quote a (19th century) Brit regarding police authority? Please. The recent shooting spree in the UK could have been stopped by no less than three police officers…if they had been armed. Instead, they were no better than eye witnesses, helpless to stop the killings. If you read the BBC web site, you’ll find examples of UK police futility and uselessness every week. The truth is that our police are, and must be, allowed to do things everyday civilians can’t because they are asked to do things we don’t.

It’s obvious Grigg isn’t a big fan of the police, but cherry-picking a few examples of “Cops Gone Wild” isn’t exactly fair. Even a hundred such examples would not be representative of the thousands of officers who do take their job—with the accompanying ethical and moral imperatives—very seriously. The unlawful or excessive use of force by police should not be tolerated at all, but smearing the entire profession with the abuses of a few, as his conclusion does, is patently dishonest.

How does a single mom, home alone with her infant child, protect herself from a knife-wielding attacker? Here in the U.S., she has the option of arming herself for her own protection. In the U.K., she just screams while the assailant stabs her and her child to death.

Remind me again how that gun ban’s working out for ya’.

From the only-in-California file, the state’s legislature has passed a law banning violent felons from owning body armor. Not surprisingly, the Gubernator signed it yesterday:

“Violent felons wearing body armor pose a dangerous threat to our communities and especially to our men and women in law enforcement,” Schwarzenegger said.

You know, Arnie, the real problem ain’t the body armor…it’s the violent felons. The law was apparently inspired by the infamous North Hollywood bank robbery of 1997.

In 1997, two bank robbers wearing body armor exchanged hundreds of rounds of gunfire with LAPD officers in a takeover robbery at a Bank of America in North Hollywood. Some of the bullets fired by police were deflected by the body armor worn by the robbers. The battle left 11 officers and seven civilians wounded. The two robbers were eventually killed by police during the shoot-out.

Let’s see here. Robbing a bank is already illegal. Robbing a bank with guns is, um, armed robbery, which is double-illegal. Now robbing a bank with guns and body armor will be triple-illegal. So the nutjobs who run CA believe that criminals who are willing to commit an armed felony are going to hear about this law and think, “Yeah, I’m all for using my rifle to rob a bank, but, gosh! I can’t wear body armor, ’cause it’s illegal. Guess I’ll skip the body armor today.”

This is what happens when you hand over your legislature to the far left—a bankrupt state that’s drowning in red ink, unemployment, and punitive taxes (all three of which are very closely related) wherein law-abiding citizens find it almost impossible to arm themselves for protection but have representatives whose idea of keeping them safe is passing yet another law that criminals are going to ignore.

In a townhall meeting with NJ Governor Christie, a teacher whined that, “You’re not compensating me for my education, and you’re not compensating me for my experience.” His response was simply sublime: “You know what? Then you don’t have to do it.”

Ma’am, step away from the left and join us in the real world.

You see, out here in the real world, we don’t get automatic pay increases based on the number of years we’ve worked, how many degrees we hold, or the number of initials and acronyms that follow our names. We get paid based on two things: perceived value and scarcity of skill. Until there are more teacher openings than applicants, the law of supply-and-demand is going to hold your salary down. And until the taxpayers believe you are providing something of increased value, they aren’t going to pony up more of their hard-earned cash.

Like those of us in the real world, you—along with the rest of us who haven’t had pay raises in years—have two basic options: find a higher-paying career, or quit whining and be thankful that in an economy running 10% unemployment you still have a job. Me? I live here in the real world. I choose the latter.