What Beagles Wants

I don't think that I'm as much of a right wing nut as I used to be. I still tend to vote for right wing nuts, mostly to balance out the left wing nuts that many others are voting for. Although I am no longer a card carrying Libertarian, I think that I'm still a libertarian at heart. I would like us to have the maximum individual liberty that is consistent with law and order and public safety.

The most important thing that the government can do for us is protect our lives and property from violence and fraud. They can also do things that facilitate commerce and trade, like building roads and bridges. Many Libertarians would like to see that privatized, but I disagree. Private property is useless unless you have access to it. You shouldn't have to kiss somebody's ass to get permission to cross their property in order to access your own. Other things, like police and fire protection should also remain in the public domain. When you need a cop or fire truck, you need it right now, and you shouldn't have to negotiate a deal with some private contractor while your house is being robbed or burned down. A fire or crime at your house puts all your neighbors in jeopardy too, so the public has a legitimate interest in suppressing things like that.

I'm beginning to believe that the same things might be said about health care. When you need it, you need it and, if you can't get it in a timely manner, the consequences can reach beyond your individual person. Now the government doesn't guarantee absolute protection from fire and crime. They do the best they can with what they've got to work with, and anything beyond that is up to you. You can install security cameras, a sprinkler system, and stock your home with fire extinguishers and firearms. Nobody tells you that you have to take such measures, but nobody tells you that you can't either.

The Canadian public health system doesn't cover everything, but they guarantee that a certain minimum level of care is available to everybody. Canadians can still buy private insurance that fills in the gaps. They aren't required to, but they aren't prohibited from it either. Doctors are allowed to choose whether or not they want to participate in the public system. People who want to, and can afford to, are free to go to one of the doctors that choose to remain in private practice. It think the Canadian system strikes a reasonable balance between individual liberty and public responsibility.

I have heard some liberals say that a single payer system is what they really wanted, but they knew that would never pass, so they settled for Obamacare. How do they know that it would never pass when it has never been formally proposed? It might indeed be a hard sell, but so was Obamacare. I have heard a few people say that Obamacare was deliberately designed to fail, hoping that people will get so fed up with it that a single payer system will look good by comparison. Maybe, but that seems like a lot of trouble to go through. If they had put the same effort into selling the single payer plan, we might have it by now. Maybe not, but how can they know if they've never tried it?

Oh yeah, Syria....... The last I heard, Syria had backed down and promised to destroy all their chemical weapons and the equipment that is used to produce them. The United Nations or somebody was invited in to witness that this was being done. So far, the equipment has been dismantled, but nobody is sure what to do about the existing stockpile of chemicals. Syria is still in the middle of a civil war, and it has been deemed too hazardous to move the chemicals while that is going on. Unless they can figure a safe way to destroy them where they sit, the chemicals might be around for a long time yet.