September 2007 Archives

Another silly Web 2.0 visualization of connectivity on the web. Click on the image below for the full size version.

Finally we see what it takes to get the Right Wing of American Politics fired up: John Edwards proposing mandatory health care checkups! Because if there's anything that gets freedom loving, apple pie eating conservatives up in arms is the government making anything mandatory.

James Joyner steps in to fill his usual role with the provocative headline Edwards Opposes Medical Choice. This is kind of a head scratcher because Edwards' actual proposal doesn't prevent anyone from making a medical choice. No, what appears to get Dr. Joyner's billy goat in a gruff is that John Edwards' plan would make getting checkup mandatory. Wow. That's some horrible, life wrenching, freedom oppressing proposal, I'll tell you what! Imagine! Having to get a checkup by a real doctor! The freedom being impinged upon is simply the freedom to become a burden on the rest of us by refusing to go see a doctor!

The horror. The horror.

And over at Poliblog, Dr. Steven Taylor is calling this proposal out for what it is: Big Government! Using a much less inflammatory and a far more accurate post title than James, Dr. Taylor asks

For that matter, there are some practicalities to be considered here If one doesn’t go to one’s annual whatever, will there be a fine? Will the CDC dispatch agents to your house to force the tests on you? Will there be reminders and free transportation to make sure everyone remembers and gets to their appointments? What if someone managed to avoid their preventative care and then they get sick, will they then be denied care? For example, what if a woman avoids the mammograms and then gets breast cancer, how will the system deal with such a person?

All good questions, I'm sure. But let's just look around at all the other freedom hating, apple pie poisoning laws that require that most evil of all adjectives, mandatory.

What about mandatory drug testing? Seems to me that the crime hating, drug busting, politically correct loving right wing was fully behind that one. As I seem to recall, if you don't take those mandatory drug tests then you're out on your ass without a job. Wow. How about states with mandatory car insurance? You simply can't drive if you ain't got it and if you let it lapse then you're hauled in front of a judge. Double wow - that's potential jail time, as in "curtailing your civil liberties" kind of mandatory. Then there's the venerable law requiring mandatory helmets if you're going to be driving a motorcycle. Seems to me that such horrible big government (at the state level, that most holy of governmental bodies enshrined in the civil war, 'natch) practices make it mandatory that kids! our own children for god's sake! wear helmets when riding their bikes!

What's the world coming to?

Mean while, back on planet earth, we have not a potential presidential candidate but a real live executive proclaiming they can spy on anyone without warrant or reason - heck, they have already proudly admitted to actually doing so! We have a real live big brother who claims the right to arrest citizens and non-citizens alike, lock them up indefinitely and deny them access to counsel. Fuck habeas corpus! Naturally, I could fill up a zillion more column inches with the out right Orwellian big brother that we already have occupying the white house, but I get tired of typing the same depressing thing over and over.

Further, a look at every single one of the Republican presidential hopefuls - save one, the libertarian nut case - we find that they not only endorse this Orwellian state of existence we currently live in, they want to do it even more! More torture! More rounding up of people to hold indefinitely! More spying without warrant and without limit!

Personally, I don't know where on earth I stand on Edwards' health care platform and suggestion of mandatory health checkups. But what I do know beyond a shadow of a doubt that comparing mandatory health checkups and the Orwellian state we currently have - which is considered wimpy by the Republican candidates - is a sign of mental illness of almost biblical proportions.

Seriously guys. In the larger scheme of things, I'd take being required to go see a doctor regularly - something that I already do, btw - over being spied on by my government while they torture the citizens and non citizens they're holding without access to counsel and no hope of even the basic right of habeas corpus.

Mandatory checkups endorsed by a Democratic candidate? Bad. Wide scale violations of the constitution endorsed by Republican candidates? Good.

Perspective.

I don't think you have it.