(cross posted under my revdbh screen name at EcuProphets)
SCHIP II didn't get enough votes to override a Bush veto, and once again Reps. Tom Reynolds and Randy Kuhl were the lone New York NAY votes.
It's instructive to visit the mind of Randy Kuhl. The most recent entries in his own blog show that he didn’t like the idea that some of his California colleagues were in California due to the wildfires and that he didn’t feel he had enough time to study the modified bill. Principles. This was a principled vote, as when the Repubs had the majority and gave the Dems all the time they needed to study legislation and come to the floor. So to hell with kids.
Actually Kuhl tipped his hand in his blog on October 4th, when he wrote:
Democrats are using the reauthorization of the SCHIP to usher in and promote a government-run, government-mandated health care system.
And of course, to Kuhl and his ilk, "government-run, government-mandated," BAD. Market-based, GOOD. It’s the principle that matters! The problem with standing on principle against manifest reality has always been the corpses. That’s why Mill’s ethics have an edge over Kant’s, in my view. And so the 20th Century has taught me.
Randy Kuhl’s paranoia about SCHIP embodying the threat of "a government-run, government-mandated health care system" got me thinking about other government run, government mandated systems, and what the market alternatives might be. Ready, class?
(Click here for field trip)
See the pretty countryside? And the happy people? They don’t need a government run, government mandated police system, do they? Why, Michael can afford protection of his own! What a place to meet a pretty young woman, fall in love, and get married. And to be sure, Michael respects traditional values in doing so.
Of course there is the unpleasantness with the automobile a few scenes later. But hey! It’s a free market system in this movie’s Sicily. It’s only fair that one of the bodyguards went with somebody who bid higher for his services.
Next time you’ll keep on your toes, right, Michael?