link It’s About Government, Not Health Care – Mark Steyn – National Review Online.
Steyn has always been one of my favourite writers because he is able to incisively dissect an issue favored by the left and expose the truth with a skewering wit. This is a very thoughtful piece on what the real issue is behind almost any program offered by governments. They are always launched under the disguise of the common good, but wind up being an apparatus for statists who then use the mechanisms for ratcheting up spending and taxation.
As we have seen in many of our modern institutions, dismantling them once erected becomes almost impossible as entrenched participants carve out their turf like so many fiefdoms. Think even of the institution of government itself, of the never decreasing bureacracies and regulations to navigate in order to do anything. Unlike private sector businesses which have to constantly justify and rationalize their existence, government institutions have no incentive to improve or become efficient. Their source of funds are captive and guaranteed.
The great fear in the U.S. is the very noticeable and alarming trend of the government taking over control of some of their biggest industries, from banking, to autos, to now health care and insurance. Extrapolating this trend points to an economy entirely dependant on bureaucrats making decisions that were once made by a dynamic and free industrial culture. It’s possible that the entire economy will be controlled by unelected assignees. We all know how that works. Think Post Office. As Steyn distressingly points out, the people in power make very little difference once the machinery is built. Right now, it appears the most massive machinery in history is being assembled down there. Only a few seem to get it.
link Comic will face tribunal today.
Had no idea this was going on until this popped up in the news links. It looks like we’ve actually crossed the line into state sanctioned speech, not just dangerously approaching it. So a tribunal, strangely a word combining tribal and urinal, is going to determine if what this comic did that fateful night is considered discriminatory in the provision of services based on sexual orientation and if it can be considered hate speech. Seriously.
Apparently, Guy Earle, the erstwhile comic made some remarks to the complainants who had been loudly disrupting and heckling other comics, himself included during the evening’s performances. I’m guessing something about the complainants demeanor screamed ” lesbian!” and Earle couldn’t help but heckle back. Hey, what do you expect? You heckle in a comedy club, expect to get slapped back down. Unless the heckler is known to the performer, all they have to go on is appearances. Word of warning to bald, fat ugly people; if you don’t want to draw attention to yourself , ixnay on the emarksray.
I have no idea whether in fact the remarks by Mr. Earle were witty or particularly funny, which to my mind is a greater crime. As well, from the article, it doesn’t appear that the complainants were sought out specifically to be insulted, they were the ones throwing the barbs. Consider the scenario of a couple of guys getting over refreshed at a bar and picking fights with the bar owner. My guess is that there’s a one in three chance of the guys being called some kind of insult, homophobic or otherwise and being ejected from the bar. Would these guys have the right to complain to a tribunal?
Comedy clubs are going to be are going to be a rare entity if all they’re allowed to perform are politically correct knock knock jokes. Will comics of the future have to be regulated? Will they have to take a course on proper topics of humor? Will there be a list of verboten topics that they must memorize? What about bizarre looking people that just beg to be ridiculed? What happens to my treasured collection of lawyer jokes? This is all going downhill in a big way. Next up on the PC chopping block, the Mimes!