Tuesday, September 18, 2007

I'm sorry, but...

I'm sorry, but...
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I'm sorry, but...
09/18/2007 | Philistone

Posted on 09/18/2007 9:39:52 AM PDT by Philistone

I'm sorry that your child was killed by a drunk driver, but that doesn't give you the right to pull my car over at random and search me or it.

I'm sorry that your father died of lung cancer at the age of 60, but that doesn't give you the right to tell me I can't smoke in my own house or car.

I'm sorry that your best friend died of a heart-attack after eating nothing but Big Macs all his life, but that doesn't give you the right to tell me that I can't eat fats if I want to.

I'm sorry that you were raised to be squeamish at the sight of blood, but that does not give you the right to force me to eat only vegetables or wear only plant fibers.

I'm sorry that you can't afford health insurance, but that does not give you the right to force me to provide it for you.

I'm sorry that over 150 years ago people with the same color skin as me enslaved people with the same color skin as you, but that doesn't give you the right take the hard-earned efforts of my labor for yourself.

I'm sorry that your homeland is corrupt and your culture has no work ethic, but that doesn't give you the right to come here illegally and burden our schools and emergency rooms with your presence.

I'm sorry that your parents chose to come here illegally, but that doesn't give you the right to force me to fund your college education.

I'm sorry that you find it fashionable to ride your bike to work, but that doesn't give you the right to take away my car.

I'm sorry that your lack of intelligence and attention through high school and college left you fit only for a job as a public school teacher, but that doesn't give you the right to inflict your anger and ideology on my child.

I'm sorry that you are mentally and physically unfit to serve in our nation's Armed Forces, but that does not give you the right to disparage those who are fit and do serve.

I'm sorry that your parents and teachers continually told you that you are unique and special, but you are not.

I'm sorry that the jocks stuffed you in your locker in high school, but that doesn't give you the right to equate my President with Hitler.

I'm sorry that you failed Trigonometry, but that doesn't give you the right to equate Sociology with Engineering

I'm sorry that you are not as attractive as other women, but that does not give you the right to impose your feminist idiocracy on me, my company or my family.

I'm sorry that your nervous system is so exquisitely sensitive that you can be hurt by minute variations in air pressure caused by sound waves, but that doesn't give you the right to determine what I can and can not say.

I'm sorry that your enormous ego coupled with a complete lack of self-esteem, lack of any sense of self-worth and ignorance about how the real world works has led you to becoming a Liberal, but... Well, no buts. I'm not really sorry.

Remember: Anyone who tells you "it's for the children" believes that YOU are a child.
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1 posted on 09/18/2007 9:39:53 AM PDT by Philistone
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To: Philistone

‘I’m sorry that your child was killed by a drunk driver, but that doesn’t give you the right to pull my car over at random and search me or it. ‘

You don’t have a ‘right’ to drive. Sorry, your just wrong about this one. The others I tend to agree with. But driving is not a ‘right’ under any interpretation of the Constitution.

2 posted on 09/18/2007 9:41:39 AM PDT by Badeye (You know its a kook site when they ban the word 'kook')
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To: Philistone

In sort you’re just plain sorry.

3 posted on 09/18/2007 9:41:58 AM PDT by usmcobra (I sing Karaoke the way it was meant to be sung, drunk, badly and in Japanese)
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To: traviskicks

ping!!

4 posted on 09/18/2007 9:42:07 AM PDT by bamahead (Few men desire liberty; The majority are satisfied with a just master. -- Sallust)
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To: Philistone

Perfect

5 posted on 09/18/2007 9:42:52 AM PDT by wastedyears (George Orwell was a clairvoyant.)
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To: Philistone
You have named your post “Hillary's World”.
6 posted on 09/18/2007 9:43:21 AM PDT by OKIEDOC (Kalifornia, a red state wannabe. I don't take Ex Lax I just read the New York Times.)
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To: Philistone

This is a sorry thread.....

7 posted on 09/18/2007 9:44:08 AM PDT by caver (Yes, I did crawl out of a hole in the ground.)
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To: usmcobra
In sort you’re just plain sorry.

Or more properly, "In Collate, You're just plain sorry."
8 posted on 09/18/2007 9:44:12 AM PDT by w1andsodidwe (Jimmy Carter allowed radical Islam to get a foothold in Iran.)
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To: Philistone

I’m sorry that life has left you so bitter and angry. That doesn’t mean you I have to wallow around in the anger with you. I choose to make my life the best I can, while ignoring those that disagree with me. Mostly, I choose to not be bitter.

9 posted on 09/18/2007 9:44:18 AM PDT by SoftballMominVA (Never argue with an idiot. He will bring you down to his level and beat you with experience)
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To: Badeye
You don’t have a ‘right’ to drive. Sorry, your just wrong about this one.

But he does have a right of protection against unreasonable search and/or seizure...
10 posted on 09/18/2007 9:44:42 AM PDT by Snardius
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To: Philistone
I'm sorry that your homeland is corrupt and your culture has no work ethic, but that doesn't give you the right to come here illegally and burden our schools and emergency rooms with your presence.

Amen, FRiend!
11 posted on 09/18/2007 9:44:47 AM PDT by Millee (Tagline free since 10/20/06)
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To: Philistone

Can I print this on another website?

12 posted on 09/18/2007 9:45:04 AM PDT by OCCASparky (Steely-Eyed Killer of the Deep)
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To: Philistone

Well put - too bad it won’t fit on a bumper sticker. Then again, most folks who need to read it don’t have the attention span anyway.

13 posted on 09/18/2007 9:45:35 AM PDT by ProfoundMan (Money is the mother's milk of politics but righteous indignation is the drug of choice.)
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To: Philistone
Nice little synopsis.

Too bad the intended recipients will hear everything before the word "but" and nothing after.
14 posted on 09/18/2007 9:46:07 AM PDT by Madame Dufarge
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To: Philistone

Well-done!!

15 posted on 09/18/2007 9:46:25 AM PDT by Former Dodger ( "Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." --Einstein)
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To: Philistone

“I’m sorry that the jocks stuffed you in your locker in high school, but that doesn’t give you the right to equate my President with Hitler.”

I laughed a the locker part, but it’s the 1A that gives them that right to run their mouths.

16 posted on 09/18/2007 9:46:35 AM PDT by Rb ver. 2.0 (Reunite Gondwanaland!)
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To: Badeye
But driving is not a ‘right’ under any interpretation of the Constitution.

Neither is walking down the street.
17 posted on 09/18/2007 9:47:34 AM PDT by ElkGroveDan (Take the wheel, Fred.)
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To: Badeye

“You don’t have a ‘right’ to drive. Sorry, your just wrong about this one. The others I tend to agree with. But driving is not a ‘right’ under any interpretation of the Constitution.”

I think he was talking about unreasonable searches, you know amendment four, not the ‘right’ to drive.

18 posted on 09/18/2007 9:48:12 AM PDT by CJ Wolf (Tagline space for rent. FRmail me for prices and terms and conditions. willing to barter...)
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To: Snardius; Badeye
Kinda’ like that Breathalyzer hidden in the HP’s flashlight?

Sticks it in the window as he says “Good evening folks” followed by “OK, who’s been drinking?”
19 posted on 09/18/2007 9:48:20 AM PDT by PeteB570 (Guns, what real men want for Christmas)
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To: Badeye

Has nothing to do with safety; it’s about the cops “showing” that they’re “doing something”, and about money — getting people on anything they can to generate revenue for the city or town. They could care less about you or your children.

20 posted on 09/18/2007 9:48:22 AM PDT by Clock King (Bring the noise!)
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To: Badeye
‘I’m sorry that your child was killed by a drunk driver, but that doesn’t give you the right to pull my car over at random and search me or it. ‘

You don’t have a ‘right’ to drive. Sorry, your just wrong about this one. The others I tend to agree with. But driving is not a ‘right’ under any interpretation of the Constitution.

Under common law you have a right to use your own property. We weakened that right by telling people that driving is a privilege. That still does not give you the right to use that property in an unsafe manner, as in being drunk. Just as the right to bear arms does not give you the right to shoot people.

Using your own car is a common law right we have given up.
21 posted on 09/18/2007 9:48:28 AM PDT by Dominick ("Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought." - JP II)
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To: Badeye

“You don’t have a ‘right’ to drive.”

When you are in possession of a valid license, you damn well DO have the right to drive. Nobody claimed that right was Constitutionally protected one. The Constitution does not grant rights, bud. It protects them.

22 posted on 09/18/2007 9:48:40 AM PDT by L98Fiero (A fool who'll waste his life, God rest his guts.)
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To: Badeye
You don’t have a ‘right’ to drive. Sorry, your just wrong about this one. The others I tend to agree with. But driving is not a ‘right’ under any interpretation of the Constitution.

Regardless, we still have a Constitutional protection from illegal search and seizure. . .
23 posted on 09/18/2007 9:48:55 AM PDT by Filo (Darwin was right!)
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To: Snardius

You don’t have a ‘right’ to drive. Sorry, your just wrong about this one.
But he does have a right of protection against unreasonable search and/or seizure...

Its not unreasonable, given when it occurs, and the number of dead each year as a direct result of drunk drivers, and the fact that driving is not a right.

24 posted on 09/18/2007 9:49:01 AM PDT by Badeye (You know its a kook site when they ban the word 'kook')
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To: ElkGroveDan

But driving is not a ‘right’ under any interpretation of the Constitution.
Neither is walking down the street.

Hmmmm.

How many people die from drunk walkers?

25 posted on 09/18/2007 9:50:08 AM PDT by Badeye (You know its a kook site when they ban the word 'kook')
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To: Badeye

Your right. Driving is not referred to in the Constitution; neither is abortion.

26 posted on 09/18/2007 9:50:11 AM PDT by mosaicwolf
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To: Badeye
You don’t have a ‘right’ to drive. Sorry, your just wrong about this one. The others I tend to agree with. But driving is not a ‘right’ under any interpretation of the Constitution.

No, but being secured in one's person, possessions, and papers against unreasonable search and seizure is a right. I don't give a damn if the car is on a public road. You don't forfeit your Constitutional rights when you start your car.
27 posted on 09/18/2007 9:50:11 AM PDT by JamesP81
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To: Badeye

He never claimed driving was a right.

28 posted on 09/18/2007 9:50:57 AM PDT by packrat35 (PIMP my Senate. They're all a bunch of whores anyway!)
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To: Philistone
I am sorry that Bush is bringing in so many Muslims to this Christian country. He is Balkanizing the United States. The future does not look bright. The man destroyed the USA.
29 posted on 09/18/2007 9:52:19 AM PDT by GinaLolaB
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To: Philistone
I'm sorry that your lack of intelligence and attention through high school and college left you fit only for a job as a public school teacher

Come on that's overstating things a bit no? There are more than a few public school teachers here.
30 posted on 09/18/2007 9:52:22 AM PDT by Borges
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To: Badeye
How many people die from drunk walkers? You are changing the subject. The question was regarding forms of travel that are specifically mentioned in the Constitution.
31 posted on 09/18/2007 9:52:56 AM PDT by ElkGroveDan (Take the wheel, Fred.)
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To: Badeye
Its not unreasonable, given when it occurs,

If he doesn't have a warrant, or really strong probable cause, it's unreasonable. Random stops and searches are illegal. Period.
32 posted on 09/18/2007 9:53:00 AM PDT by JamesP81
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To: Badeye

“Its not unreasonable, given when it occurs, and the number of dead each year as a direct result of drunk drivers, and the fact that driving is not a right.”

Sorry but you are wrong, when it’s a random stop with no probable cause it’s wrong.

33 posted on 09/18/2007 9:53:16 AM PDT by CJ Wolf (Tagline space for rent. FRmail me for prices and terms and conditions. willing to barter...)
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To: CJ Wolf

“You don’t have a ‘right’ to drive. Sorry, your just wrong about this one. The others I tend to agree with. But driving is not a ‘right’ under any interpretation of the Constitution.”

I think he was talking about unreasonable searches, you know amendment four, not the ‘right’ to drive.

Given the stats related to the percentage of drivers drunk at very specific times (after 11PM any day of the week) its not ‘unreasonable’.

And I think the courts have ruled along this line repeatedly when its been challenged.

Disclaimer; One of my childhood friends, who was to be in my wedding party as an usher was killed by a drunk driver.

While sitting on his COUCH in his LIVING ROOM.

Hence, I’m a bit hardcore about drunk driving. Its my personal belief the third time your caught driving drunk, the state should surgically remove your eyesight to protect the rest of us.

Yes, I know its Draconian. Then again, I held my friends six month old daughter while we buried him...

34 posted on 09/18/2007 9:53:26 AM PDT by Badeye (You know its a kook site when they ban the word 'kook')
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To: Froufrou

Ping

35 posted on 09/18/2007 9:54:09 AM PDT by JamesP81
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To: Badeye

Any search without reasonable suspicion that the individual targeted is guilty IS UNREASONABLE. WAYR?

36 posted on 09/18/2007 9:54:12 AM PDT by American_Centurion (No, I don't trust the government to automatically do the right thing.)
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To: Philistone

I have grown sick of the “ its for the children “ crap

because that is all it is, crap

37 posted on 09/18/2007 9:54:20 AM PDT by sure_fine ( • not one to over kill the thought process)
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To: Philistone

For most of a lot of those things, I’m glad.

38 posted on 09/18/2007 9:54:51 AM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (NYT Headline: Protocols of the Learned Elders of CBS: Fake but Accurate, Experts Say)
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To: Philistone

Excellent points, all of them. I didn’t care for the tone though. Saying, “I’m sorry that, but” 30 times in a row leaves me with the impression that you’re not really sorry, you’re just being sarcastic. I’m not saying that to flame you, it’s just my gut reaction.

39 posted on 09/18/2007 9:55:42 AM PDT by highimpact (Abortion - [n]: human sacrifice at the altar of convenience.)
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To: Philistone

I’m sorry that your husband was killed on the Long Island Railroad by an insane Colin Ferguson, but that doesn’t give you the right to take away my guns and therefore make me as vunerable as your husband was on the train.

40 posted on 09/18/2007 9:56:59 AM PDT by Alas Babylon!
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To: JamesP81

Its not unreasonable, given when it occurs,

If he doesn’t have a warrant, or really strong probable cause, it’s unreasonable. Random stops and searches are illegal. Period.

No problem you holding a personal opinion like that. The courts have said otherwise, repeatedly.

I’m happy with those rulings. We kill more in a single year due to idiots driving drunk than we’ve lost since 9/11 in the war...by quite a bit actually.

41 posted on 09/18/2007 9:57:37 AM PDT by Badeye (You know its a kook site when they ban the word 'kook')
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To: Philistone
Bush’s father instituted the “war on drugs” therefore suspending all of our rights not to be searched and set up for that matter. The best bet is to get off the streets by 9 pm and stay inside and lap up CNN and eat Chinese wheat glutton and get fat.
42 posted on 09/18/2007 9:58:25 AM PDT by GinaLolaB
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To: Badeye

The number of people who are actually killed by drunk drivers each year is very small. And I am not talking about “alcohol related fatalities.” All this Government hysteria is not justified.

43 posted on 09/18/2007 9:58:31 AM PDT by Enterprise (Those who "betray us" also "Betray U.S." They're called DEMOCRATS!)
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To: CJ Wolf

‘Sorry but you are wrong, when it’s a random stop with no probable cause it’s wrong.’

In your opinion. In the real world, its law thats been affirmed repeatedly.

44 posted on 09/18/2007 9:58:38 AM PDT by Badeye (You know its a kook site when they ban the word 'kook')
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To: Badeye

Random searches cannot be reasonable, as there is no probable cause.

And I would argue that driving IS a right, by the way.

45 posted on 09/18/2007 9:58:52 AM PDT by Sloth (You being wrong & me being closed-minded are not mutually exclusive.)
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To: Philistone

I like turtles.

46 posted on 09/18/2007 9:59:45 AM PDT by isom35
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To: Enterprise

‘The number of people who are actually killed by drunk drivers each year is very small.’

Really? Whats the total?

Second question. How many is ‘enough’ for you?

47 posted on 09/18/2007 10:01:00 AM PDT by Badeye (You know its a kook site when they ban the word 'kook')
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To: Badeye

One can drink. One can drive. But it’s incredibly stupid to do them at the same time.

48 posted on 09/18/2007 10:01:25 AM PDT by auboy
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To: Sloth

‘Random searches cannot be reasonable, as there is no probable cause.’

I think the statistics available undermine this claim. Just my opinion.

‘And I would argue that driving IS a right, by the way.’

Sorry, thats established fact that it is not a ‘right’ by court precedent.

49 posted on 09/18/2007 10:02:21 AM PDT by Badeye (You know its a kook site when they ban the word 'kook')
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To: highimpact
Excellent points, all of them. I didn’t care for the tone though. Saying, “I’m sorry that, but” 30 times in a row leaves me with the impression that you’re not really sorry, you’re just being sarcastic. I’m not saying that to flame you, it’s just my gut reaction.

Well there may have been just the slightest tad bit of sarcasm in there... ;-)
50 posted on 09/18/2007 10:02:33 AM PDT by Philistone (Your existence as a non-believer offends the Prophet(MPBUH).)
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Friday, September 14, 2007

Thursday, September 13, 2007

September 13, 2007, 5:00 a.m.

Keep ’Em Out
Higher education has been oversold.

By George Leef

In one of his New York Times columns earlier this year, David Brooks lamented that “Despite all the incentives, 30 percent of kids drop out of high school and the college graduation rate has been flat for a generation.” Brooks, like many spokesmen for the higher-education establishment, worries that the United States is falling behind in the international race for brainpower.

That is why we keep hearing politicians talk about the need to stimulate a higher rate of college attendance and completion. We’re in a global “knowledge economy,” and whereas America used to be tops in the percentage of workers with college degrees, we have now fallen behind a number of other nations. At a big education conference I attended back in February, former North Carolina governor Jim Hunt called this situation “scary.”

Sorry, scaremongers, but there is nothing to worry about. If anything, America now puts too many students into college, and we certainly don’t need any new subsidies to get more there.

Here are my reasons for holding that contrarian view.

First, it isn’t true that the economy is undergoing some dramatic shift to “knowledge work” that can only be performed by people who have college educations. When we hear that more and more jobs “require” a college degree, that isn’t because most of them are so technically demanding that an intelligent high school graduate couldn’t learn to do the work. Rather, what it means is that more employers are using educational credentials as a screening mechanism. As James Engell and Anthony Dangerfield write in their book Saving Higher Education in the Age of Money, “the United States has become the most rigidly credentialized society in the world. A B.A. is required for jobs that by no stretch of imagination need two years of full-time training, let alone four.”

Second, the needless pressure to get educational credentials draws a large number of academically weak and intellectually disengaged students into college. All they want is the piece of paper that gets them past the screening. Most schools have quietly lowered their academic standards so that such students will stay happy and remain enrolled. Consequently, they seldom learn much — many employers complain that college graduates they hire can’t even write a coherent sentence — but most eventually get their degrees.

Third, due to the overselling of higher education, we find substantial numbers of college graduates taking “high school” jobs like retail sales. It’s not that there is anything wrong with well-educated clerks or truck drivers, but to a great extent college is no longer about providing a solid, rounded education. The courses that once were the pillars of the curriculum, such as history, literature, philosophy, and fine arts, have been watered down and are usually optional. Sadly, college education is now generally sold as a stepping stone to good employment rather than as an intellectually broadening experience. Sometimes it manages to do both, but often it does neither.

Fourth, it’s a mistake to assume that the traditional college setting is the best or only way for people to learn the things they need to know in order to become successful workers. On-the-job training, self-directed studies, and courses taken with a particular end in mind (such as those offered in fields like accounting or finance at proprietary schools) usually lead to much more educational gain than do courses taken just because they fill degree requirements.

“But wait,” I hear readers saying, “isn’t it true that people with college degrees earn far more than people with only high-school diplomas?”

That is true on average — an average composed to a large degree of very bright and ambitious people who would be successful with or without a college degree, and also of people who earned their degrees decades ago when the curriculum and academic standards were more rigorous. It simply doesn’t follow that every person we might lure into college today is going to enjoy a great boost in lifetime earnings just because he manages to stick it out through enough courses to graduate. The sad reality is that we now find many young people who have spent years in college and have piled up sizeable debts serving up Starbucks coffee or delivering pizza for Papa John’s.

A perennial trope among politicians is that more education will make everyone better off. Having a more efficient educational system — one that taught the three Rs well in eight years rather than poorly in 16 — would indeed be a benefit. Simply putting a higher percentage of our young people into college, however, makes just as much sense as spreading more fertilizer on a field that’s already been over-fertilized.

— George Leef is the director of the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy and a blogger at NRO’s “Phi Beta Cons.”
National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NGY0NmY3MzMzOWU1NDZmYmE0MTE0NGJkZGVmYzNiZWU=

Friday, September 07, 2007

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Lest we forget that freedom is not free and that you CAN'T get something for nothing:


No 'Health Care'?
By Thomas Sowell
September 4, 2007

During the first 30 years of my life, I had no health insurance. Neither did a lot of other people, back in those days.

During those 30 years, I had a broken arm, a broken jaw, a badly injured shoulder, and miscellaneous other medical problems. To say that my income was below average during those years would be a euphemism.

How did I manage? The same way everybody else managed: I went to doctors and I paid them directly, instead of paying indirectly through taxes.

This was all before politicians gave us the idea that the things we could not afford individually we could somehow afford collectively through the magic of government.

When my jaw was broken, I was treated in an emergency room and was given a bill for $50 -- which was like a king's ransom to me at the time, 1949. But I paid it off in installments over a period of months.

Like most young people, I was lucky enough not to have any heavy-duty medical expenses that would have required major operations or a long hospital stay.

That is still true for most young people today, which is why many people in their twenties do not choose to pay for medical insurance, even when they can afford it.

They know that, in an emergency, they can always go to an emergency room. And today the idea that you ought to pay for that out of your own pocket is considered almost quaint in some quarters.

It is not uncommon -- especially in California, with its large illegal immigrant population -- for hospitals to have to shut down because so few people pay for the emergency room care they receive.

There are, of course, people with huge medical bills that they cannot possibly pay. Believe it or not, that also happened back before the modern welfare state.

Some hospitals -- whether public or private -- could absorb such costs, with the help of donors. There were people with polio living in iron lungs, which is why rich and poor alike gave money to the March of Dimes.

But that is very different from hospitals being stiffed every day by emergency room users whose only emergency is that they want to keep their money to spend on fun, instead of on doctors.

The biggest of the big lies in the "health care" hype is that a lack of insurance means a lack of medical care. The second biggest lie is that health care and medical care are the same thing.

Doctors cannot stop you from ruining your health in a hundred different ways, so statistics on everything from infant mortality to AIDS are not proof of a need for government to take over medical treatment.

Few people show the slightest interest in what has actually happened in countries with government-controlled medical care.

We are apparently supposed to follow those countries' example without asking about the months that people in those countries spend on waiting lists for medical treatments that Americans get just by picking up a phone and making an appointment.

It is amazing how many people seem uninterested in such things as why so many doctors in Britain are from Third World countries with lower medical standards -- or why people from Canada come to the United States for medical treatment that they could get cheaper at home.

Government price controls on pharmaceutical drugs are more of the same illusion of something for nothing.

People who are urging us to follow other countries that control the prices of medications seem uninterested in the fact that those countries depend on the United States to create new drugs, after they destroyed incentives to do so in their own countries.

Since it takes more than a decade to create a new drug, a politician can be elected president by hyping price controls on drugs, spend eight years in the White House, and be living in retirement before people start to notice that we no longer get the kinds of new medications that successively conquered deadly diseases in the past.

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Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His Web site is www.tsowell.com.

COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.