Category Archives: Politics

Quote of the day—Anonymous Conservative

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The phases are Crisis, High, Awakening, and Unraveling. Here, Crisis is r-psychologies confronted by the shortage of K-selection. This turmoil produces an adaptive shift in the population’s psychology towards a more K-selected, politically Conservative psychology. High is the environment of r-selected resource excess that is produced by a majority K-selected populace, living in an environment where these rewards are enjoyed by those who produce them. Awakening and Unraveling are just the leftists gradually increasing in number due to the r-selection, and fucking up a good thing until it all falls apart, and the Crisis returns.

There is one huge difference this time, and that is our use of public debt to increase resource availability and extend the period of r-selection. This has allowed for a slight increase in the population’s shift towards the r-psychology in this cycle, and lengthened the period of Unraveling. That all will increase the magnitude of the Crisis we will face. This would have been predictable, if you had viewed the increases in national debt which began around 1980 in the context of this work . The disturbing aspect of this is that when the collapse comes, the hardcore Left will be particularly loony, since their amygdalae have essentially no adaptation to a more free, competitive environment. Today, not having free government healthcare, and free cellphones is the same to them as being tossed into Lord of the Flies. When things get so bad that there is no food or housing, they will be capable of anything. The coming Crisis will be epic.

Anonymous Conservative
June 14, 2013
Strauss and Howe’s Generational Theory, in the Context of r/K Theory
[What the author of the post claims will happen is that as society collapses the liberal psychology (“r-selected” people) will be unable to handle it and non-liberals (“K-selected” people) will physically, environmentally, and evolutionarily dominate the situation and come out of the crisis far better than the liberals.

Ry and I were discussion something a bit tangential to this yesterday and what he said is valid. Paraphrasing, “We need to be careful reading this stuff because it matches what we believe and want to believe.”

Still, I have ordered the book and look forward to listening to it.—Joe]

Criminal psychology

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I’m in the process of making a post on personality disorders, liberalism, and how to deal with them. I read a fascinating blog post about it. It is very long but awesome. I’ll get my synopsis out in a day or three.

In the mean time I engaged an anti-gun person on Twitter to do some testing. Here is the result:

@DanielHupke @_Garreth_ If only that BOOM was another #gunbully eating his gun.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@ConcldCourier @snwflk713 @_Garreth_ @PatriotTay @MomsDemand Come on baby, suck that gun, pull that trigger.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@ConcldCourier @snwflk713 @_Garreth_ @PatriotTay @MomsDemand Suck the bullets out!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

Eh. There wasn’t any bullying to be seen. There was only law-abiding citizens exercising their rights. @rosesindew @HelloPoodle

— Linoge (@linoge_wotc) November 12, 2013

@linoge_wotc @rosesindew Funny how THAT got you needing to advertise your gun-gun.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

I hate to break it to you, but I’ve been lawfully bearing arms for over a decade now. #assumption #fail @HelloPoodle @rosesindew

— Linoge (@linoge_wotc) November 12, 2013

@linoge_wotc @rosesindew So what? Why is it such a big deal that you’ve got to point your guns at people?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @linoge_wotc @rosesindew People that attempt to infringe our rights are either ignorant or criminals: http://t.co/7VZA2zFoAJ

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew You have every right to shoot yourselves. Stay in your own yard & play together.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

HelloPoodle @linoge_wotc @rosesindew We do. Our yard is called the United States of America. If you don’t like it go someplace else.

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc I love watching cunts like you get obsessed with me. Love it. Hilarious. Shows your true motives.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew Nah, I got the anchor babies on ObamaCare now. Lots of free shit, ya know? Hoo hoo ha ha #RWNJ

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc it’s called exposing gun control advocates as the bullies they are, ur doing a great job helping me!

— Christine Larios (@rosesindew) November 12, 2013

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc Nah, you’re just a cunt who wanted attention & sympathy she didn’t get. A little ego maniacal.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Keep talking about your big guns & how nobody is gunna take ’em. Paranoid much?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc Like your mom?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc again thanks for proving me right over and over

— Christine Larios (@rosesindew) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc more like you

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc Yes, we’ve proven you’re a cunt & this isn’t about guns at all. Just that you’re scum.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc My, aren’t you the attention whore. Do a cartwheel now!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc People who conspire to infringe the rights of others go to prison. You should find a good lawyer.

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Oooohh you’re being conspired against now. Tin foil hat a little tight?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc You have had EVERY opportunity to show responsibility in gun ownership. But what have you chosen to do?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc I’m just gathering evidence to be submitted at your trial.

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Public opinion is drastically rising against you. Again, it’s about the tea party crap, not guns.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc I’m a certified firearms instructor. What have you done beside commit crimes against gun owners?

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc You’re just too fucking stupid to realize you don’t point guns at soccer moms to get their support.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc I’ll alert the press. This should be good.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc What “crimes” are being done to you? Are you feeling unsafe again? They’re coming for you!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc I hope your delusions are worth it. It must be lonely in your imaginary world: http://t.co/5xI0QbHMsF

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc http://t.co/7VZA2zFoAJ

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Well, you have your guns. For now.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc That sounds like a threat. It’s going into your file.

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc You really are fucking paranoid. Not sure you should have weapons. @NewYorkFBI

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Ooooooh, the teatard is scary!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Don’t you mean FOIL? They’re out there. Whop whop! Here come the black helicopters!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

So @HelloPoodle is back to wishing death on those she disagrees with? Must suck to be that consumed by hate. @rosesindew @JoeHuffman

— Linoge (@linoge_wotc) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew You wood think a poodle would be more laid back. Must be tough having a bark & no bite

— Hal (@Hal_Maine) November 12, 2013

@linoge_wotc @rosesindew @JoeHuffman Oh, look, you’re back for more. Actually, it’s fun hating scum suckers like you. Dumb pig.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@Hal_Maine @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew Yeah, I better show everybody my gun so they’ll wonder if I might be dangerous.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@Hal_Maine @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew Gotta make sure you let everybody know you’re carrying though, right? NRA bumper sticker?

Obama legacy of success

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President Obama has a large number of critics but he also has some astounding successes. These successes are unrivaled in magnitude by any other president and perhaps any other person who has ever lived.

He attempted to ban certain types of guns and became the greatest gun salesman of all time.

He made health insurance mandatory and millions of people became uninsured.

Quote of the day—Roberta X

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Washington’s bureaucracy, at the behest of their master, has spoken: they see us as the enemy.  And we should not be at all surprised that their closest enemy is the House of Representatives, the single entity in the Federal government intended to represent The People.

Roberta X
October 7, 2013
Like An Occupying Army
[That is a very good point.—Joe]

Watch it! That slope is slippery

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This is interesting:

This case isn’t about censoring information, but about complying with French law.

Isn’t that like saying the following?

  • This isn’t about discrimination, but about complying with Jim Crow law.
  • This isn’t about rape, but about complying with the right of a man to have sex with his wife under state law.
  • This isn’t about suppressing political speech, but about complying with laws to respect the President.

People need to be careful about the rationalizations and precedent they set. It’s not very far down the slippery slope to, “This isn’t about political assassination, but about removing a tyrant from power.”

Quote of the day—Alan M. Gottlieb

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Under the First Amendment, California is not allowed to compile a list of books you can read, and under the Second Amendment the state should not be allowed to compile a list of handguns you can own.

Alan M. Gottlieb
November 6, 2013
GLOCK FILES AMICUS BRIEF SUPPORTING SAF’S CALIFORNIA CASE
[Nor is California allowed to compile a list of religions you may join, a list of crimes that you are required to confess to, or a list of people exempt from the 13th Amendment protection.

SAF, “winning back firearms freedom one lawsuit at a time”.—Joe]

Progressive violence

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I was looking at some of the mining history in Idaho and found this:

Labor unrest was a problem throughout the district in the 1890s, and martial law was declared on two occasions. In 1899 labor agitators destroyed the Bunker Hill mill with a massive explosion of dynamite (Figure 35). Attempts, often successful, to destroy property were a favorite tactic used by union organizers against companies whose management was opposed to having unions at their mines.

BunkHillAfterExplosionFigure 35. Bunker Hill mill following explosion in 1899. (Engineering and Mining Journal, v. 67, p. 648).

And from here:minewar

Business are frequently criticized for their oppression and violence against workers. Progressives/liberals/communists do not have any high ground to claim.

Well there’s your problem

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Via Sebastian we have this article whining about the lack of funding for the ATF. I only had to read as far as the second paragraph to see what the problem was:

The ATF, charged with keeping track of the nation’s 300 million guns…

Listen guys, the ATF has no more authority to keep track of the nation’s guns than it, or any other government agency, does the nation’s Bibles, Korans, and Torahs. And even if it were given the authority it would not be possible to keep track of those guns anymore than the DEA, with twice the funding, can keep track of the recreational drugs in this country.

And if you want to look at it another way try this: Our country is deeply in debt and getting worse. If the ATF isn’t doing the job you think it should be doing with the funding it is getting then let’s just get rid of it. Then put the money someplace where it would do some good. I would like to suggest paying off the debt.

Quote of the day—Emily Miller

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The only way a mandatory check would work would be if the government could track every one of the 300 million firearms in the United States. And then the criminals would ask permission before buying them.

Emily Miller
Emily Gets Her Gun: …But Obama Wants to Take Yours
[300 million guns? We have computers that could do that, right? They built a computer system that signed people up for Obamacare so they should be able to do that for gun owners, right?*

These would be necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for “universal background check to work”.

They would also have to shut off the smugglers. You should assume this would work about as well as the War on Drugs has worked.

They would also have to prevent all the 3-D printers from making new guns. You should assume this would work about as well as the peeing into the wind.—Joe]

*In fact the Canadian gun registry (disbanded after costing 2 billion rather than 2 million) was built by the same people that wrote the Obamacare website.

There’s some truth in it

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BlondeObamacare

Via email from JoeyD.

Let’s look to the UK for healthcare

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The UK has government run health care. That’s been working out well hasn’t it?

Oh! Maybe not:

A plan to create the world’s largest single civilian computer system linking all parts of the National Health Service is to be abandoned by the Government after running up billions of pounds in bills. Ministers are expected to announce next month that they are scrapping a central part of the much-delayed and hugely controversial 10-year National Programme for IT.

…

“The department has been unable to demonstrate what benefits have been delivered from the £2.7bn spent on the project so far,” Margaret Hodge, chair of the PAC, said. “It should now urgently review whether it is worth continuing with the remaining elements of the care-records system. The £4.3bn which the department expects to spend might be better used to buy systems that are proven to work, that are good value for money and which deliver demonstrable benefits to the NHS.” A further £4.4bn was expected to be spent on other areas of the vast IT project.

H/T to Adam Baldwin.

What I don’t think most people realize is that software doesn’t scale in a linear fashion from small projects to large. I can write, debug, a deliver a program to you that prints out, “Hello world!” in a minute or two. I can easily do it in five lines of code. That figures out to about 1200 lines per day* if I were to spend the entire day coding at that rate.

Yet when you look at the number of lines of code delivered on real projects it’s about 10 lines per day per developer. On a project as large as an operating system like Windows it’s much lower.

The problem is that planning, complexity, documentation, testing effort, and difficulty goes up much faster than the number of lines of code increase. You can pump out the code at a fast rate but it’s not something that is going to work well. It will be very fragile. You can find test cases where it will work correctly but as soon as you do something a little unusual or the system is under load and the timing on something changes you can end up extremely difficult to find bugs.

As the size of the project goes up communication between teams become a problem. With a poor design a small change in one part of the system affects many other parts. Communicating and coordinating this occupies increasing amounts of time and care. A change occurred “somewhere” in the system and your code stopped working. It can take an hour or a week to find the problem and get it fixed so you can continue to add features. Even worse are “build breaks”. This is when someone changed something and you can’t even build the software into something that runs so it can be tested. This can mean every single programmer on the entire project is at a standstill. As you might imagine these are very high priority events and you can have people baying for your blood. People take them very seriously and the consequences are high but they still happen.

A former roommate working on Windows NT back in about ‘99 told me she had a bug fix ready for check-in but wasn’t allowed to for months because of concerns that it was a change that could affect other people.

How many lines of code are in the Obamacare system? I don’t know for certain but there are reports that it contains 500 million lines needs to have 5 million lines rewritten. Do the arithmetic to arrive at your estimate of how many people working for how many days is required before it will be “fixed”. My best guess is that the politicians had the U.K. model in mind and that’s what they will get (see above).

Everything I see about the Obamacare web site indicates it was thrown together by someone who didn’t know what they were doing. There are very few companies that have been able to write very large complex systems successfully. Microsoft and Google come to mind. The contractor for Obamacare isn’t on anyone’s list of successfully large scale system developers.

They claim it will be working by the end of November? Did they say which November?

* Yes. Lines of code per day is a poor way of measuring productivity. For example one can be very productive while reducing the number of lines of code in a program. Yet, it is good enough for many uses and can illustrate valid points with serious error.

It’s for your own good

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Sometimes people just don’t get it unless you can present the information to them in the proper format for their brains to grasp it.

Does the following help?

From @State_Control:

CapitalistsSocialists

What if it were a business that told you to buy their product or they would send men with guns to collect the money anyway? It’s for your own good they tell you. What would you do?

Why should it be any different if it is Obama doing the same thing?

Quote of the day—Robert J. Avrech

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We return to Stalin’s omelet. Over and over, Democrats calmly and cruelly explain that only five percent of Americans will be booted off their insurance plans. And those insurance plans were substandard anyway.

First of all, five percent translates into roughly 16 million Americans. Each person whose insurance is terminated because Obama does not like his or her choice is a story of fear and panic and possible financial ruin. Further, does anyone even believe the Democrat apologists’ quote of five percent? That number will grow and grow as ObamaCare tightens its death grip.

The “only five percent” line of reasoning tells us a great deal about the utopian vision of Democrats. The individual does not count. Democrats claim to see the larger picture. But they see only a collective, a manageable herd. And once again, they know better. Forget that millions of Americans voluntarily entered into contracts they deemed right for themselves and their families. This counts for nothing to the Democrat political class. They are experts. They attended Ivy League schools. This makes the professional political class — overeducated, inbred elitists — better qualified to make decisions for us, the American people, that are truly about matters of life and death.

The core of American values is liberty, not government.

Robert J. Avrech
October 30, 2013
The Democrat-ObamaCare Purges
[You should never forget that “only five percent” line. Communists have used identical reasoning in their purges. The good of the whole is more important than the good of the individual. And if they have to “break a few eggs” they really don’t see what the problem is.

The differences between us cannot be resolved with a compromise. If they liquidate 1% or 10% it does not matter to me. They would still be committed mass evil and deserve whatever the “Nuremburg Courts” rule.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Roberta X

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Lining up armed men in uniform to say “Verboten!” to members of the public wanting to pay their respects at a revered monument (one made of hard, hard rock and solidly anchored) is utterly necessary to the continued functioning of our great republic.

Okay, then.  But they’re gonna need taller, shiner boots.

Roberta X
October 6, 2013
Fed.Gov Has Shut Down The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall?
[I think I will start stealing that last line even though it’s not the shiny boots that make the difference. It’s the guns that back them up.

What they don’t seem to understand is that we have guns too. Not only guns but numbers. Numbers of people and numbers of guns that outnumber their guns and numbers. Please stop pushing because demonstrating the guns or the numbers will be very unpleasant for all involved.—Joe]

Chilling effect

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New York City recently had its “stop and frisk” policy struck down as violating the Fourth Amendment. The city has not implemented a “monitor” of the program as the court ordered. Now New York City senior attorney Celeste Koeleveld says Judge Scheindlin’s order has had a “chilling effect” on police officers.

And her point is? Does she have a concern about the “chilling effect” of the Fifth Amendment not allowing police officers to torture suspects for confessions? How about the “chilling effect” of the Eight Amendment on Judges because of the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments in the Eighth Amendment?

The entire intent of the Bill of Rights was and is to have a “chilling effect” on the power of government. In U.S. law the phrase “chilling effect” refers to the stifling effect that vague or excessively broad laws may have on legitimate … activity. A “chilling effect” only exists when government passes laws that private citizens have to obey. Not when government is overstepping bounds that have been in place for hundreds of years. It appears Koeleveld either does not understand government is a servant of the people or she wishes to change the relationship.

One big happy family

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This ought to make you feel all warm and fuzzy.

The same company that made the healthcare.gov website (on a no-bid contract, naturally) is the same one that created the Canadian gun registry that cost roughly twenty times the original estimate and got scrapped a decade later after being found to be both useless and seriously defective.

But they want us to just trust their good intentions, ’cause they are so smart and transparent. Yeah, riiiight.

If a tree falls in the forest

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Yesterday, in reference to spying on U.S. citizens, U.S. Congressional Representative Mike Rogers and Intelligence Committee Chair insisted:

You can’t have your privacy violated if you don’t know your privacy is violated.

I can only conclude he would also insist that he hadn’t actually stolen cash from your wallet if you didn’t know it had been taken. Or that a teenage girl hadn’t been raped if she had been drugged and didn’t know what happened.

Someone should tell him that must also mean his privacy wasn’t violated if someone made of video of him having sex with a sheep and didn’t tell anyone.

Quote of the day—Daniel Greenfield

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Liberal supersessionists claim to be worried about conservative secessionists when they should be far more worried about conservative supersessionists. The consensus we all live by is a fragile thing. It is being torn apart by the radical left and once it is destroyed, it will not bind the right, in the same way that it no longer binds the left.

And then the true conflict will begin.

Daniel Greenfield
The Supersessionists of the Liberal Confederacy
October 20, 2013
[H/T Kevin Baker.

Every paragraph in this awesome post could qualify as a quote of the day or week or even month. It is very, very good.—Joe]

The government lies and people die

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FACT: Nothing in #Obamacare forces people out of their health plans. No change is required unless insurance companies change existing plans.

— Valerie Jarrett* (@vj44) October 29, 2013

I asked a friend who is in the health insurance business if the above was true. I knew the answer but thought maybe there was some narrow definition of the word “is” or maybe “in” that would make it something other than a false statement.

The response was a laugh and, “No. That’s what I have been doing for the last several weeks. We have been preparing notification letters for individuals telling them their insurance plans are no longer available. Plans they were perfectly happy with and could afford cannot be offered anymore because of ACA.”

I was a bit surprised by the laugh and the almost cheerful mood. They explained, “It’s what we deal with everyday. They constantly say things that are not true and it has gotten to the point where we joke and laugh about it.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised, it’s obvious in hindsight, but they also told me, “We can’t say anything about it though. If we do we will be audited and harassed by the regulators. It’s just not worth it. You don’t say anything bad about the regulators.”

They also told me, “It’s going to be sad. Due to “health care reform” a lot of people that used to have insurance will no longer be covered.

I could say a lot, lot more…if it weren’t for the fear of the government taking revenge upon someone for exposing their lies.

A single person losing their health insurance is a tragedy. 16 million is a statistic. https://t.co/0hgOrYnSEZ

— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) October 29, 2013

If you don’t recognize the form of the quote above; it’s from Stalin who probably actually said, “’When one man dies it is a tragedy, when thousands die it’s statistics’”.

It’s appropriate to bring Stalin into the discussion for more than just this one reason. Read this book: How Do You Kill 11 Million People?: Why the Truth Matters More Than You Think. It’s a very quick read. There is one thing that government have proved, again and again, that they are very, very good at. It’s killing people. Particularly their own people. One of the crucial links in accomplishing this is lying to their victims and to those who carry out the orders to arrest, transport, and jail them. The lie could be a black as “Arbeit macht frei” or telling the friends and relatives of those executed in the basements of the local police station in the USSR that the ‘counter-revolutionaries and traitors’ had been sent to labor and reeducation camps. It could be the lie that the crowded rail cars were carrying everyone to a place where they would have good homes, schools, and jobs. Or it could be what many would consider a white lie of a campaign promise to provide universal health care. Never mind the “health care panels” administrating the “care” would decide who were treated and who were euthanized.

Obamacare is now being recognized for the disaster so many people knew it would be. What comes next is that the failure will and is being blamed on political obstructionists. This is a lie. The system, as I explained in my previous post, cannot work because of the principles involved. But some are calling for Republicans and the Tea Party to be tried for treason.

What happens next? There is a good chance that the democrats will lose seats in the next election because of it. But that isn’t the only possible outcome. Stalin and the Khmer Rouge regimes handled the failures and criticism of their policies in a different manner without giving up control. And many in the U.S. media approved with rationalizations such as (H/T to Alan Gura):

The new government of Cambodia may have to resort to strong measures against a few to gain democratic socialism for all Cambodians. And we support the United Front in the pursuit of its presently stated goals.

The current administration has consistently lied about gun control, operation Fast and Furious, the massive spying, stopping the wars, closing Guantanamo Bay, Benghazi, jobs creation, and health care reform. But the really scary stuff is what they have told the truth about. They said they would be willing to use drones to kill U.S. citizens on American soil.

Lying is what comes naturally to them. They tell lies the people want to believe. But once you have told enough lies your brain changes and you have trouble telling or even knowing the truth.

History has some very brutal examples of what happens when government policy is to lie. We must not let that happen here.

* Valerie Jarrett (@vj44) is an official Whitehouse twitter account.

Quote of the day—Mike Konczal

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It’s important we get more sophisticated analysis of what has gone wrong with the ACA rollout to better appreciate how utilizing “the market” can be far more cumbersome and inefficient than the government just doing things itself.

Mike Konczal
October 23, 2013
What Kind of Problem is the ACA Rollout for Liberalism?
[In other words, “Our government program is such a disaster that we need a new and expanded government program to fix it.”

Monopolies are almost always a bad thing. The lack of choice creates a situation where inferior and expensive products do not get improved or replaced. Konczcal and hard-core liberals want government monopolies. The soft-core liberals want to regulate the market.

What Konczal doesn’t understand is that he, politicians, and government in general, do not have the domain knowledge to solve most problems. This includes regulating the solution providers. When I read the instruction manual for my car and it says to use a particular grade of gasoline and change the oil every 5000 miles I follow their recommendations. They know their car far better than I do. Even though I am a software engineer when a software package says it requires X megabytes of RAM Y megabytes of disk space I follow their recommendations because they know their software far better than I do.

The advocate for more government might say, “We will bring in experts and/or we will become experts.” This doesn’t work. I worked in a government lab for three years. I remember sitting in a meeting discussing how to get more research contracts. One guy said, “What we have is the ability to become experts on anything within a couple of weeks.” He was serious. I felt the blood drain out of my face. I had been working with him for over two years and I had not yet discovered anything that I considered him an expert on. They spent several years and millions of dollars coming up with a software testing and quality program for the software being developed at the lab. What they came up with was something that the industry had left behind a decade or two previously (the “waterfall model”).

The reason government cannot acquire the expertise is because they are a monopoly and expertise is like a product. It must constantly be improved and updated to remain relevant. And without the marketplace pressure it will stagnant and become obsolete.

Because of this lack of domain knowledge and the inherent inferiority of monopoly products government “doing it itself” will always be the wrong answer to a problem that doesn’t involve the use of force.—Joe]