Mark Steyn’s thoughts on the birth-control distraction.
Category Archives: Social Commentary
Decision Making
Here are six useful processes for different situations.
Free-Range Parenting
You’re going to jail. Maybe.
All these laws, in which it is almost impossible to get through a day without breaking one, and all this legal uncertainty is (as Ayn Rand and others have pointed out) a huge threat to liberty.
The Toxic Totalitarian Nanny State
My thoughts on the pre-school lunch confiscation, over at PJMedia.
Be Careful What You Wish For
Deroy Murdock follows up on my piece on rights for me but not for thee, pointing out that ObamaCare is a double-edged sword:
Imagine, as Jonah does, that Rick Santorum is elected president and becomes the reincarnation of Cotton Mather, just as Nancy Pelosi probably fears as she lays her coiffed head on her high-threadcount pillows every night. Imagine further that instead of repealing Obamacare, the former GOP senator from Pennsylvania decided to keep this law in place and modify it along much more traditionalist, even puritanical, lines.
Santorumcare could involve — say — a federally mandated, five-day waiting period before women could have abortions. This parallels the original five-day interlude that potential firearms buyers faced under the Brady Law. How could the Left object to that?
How about a requirement that every American who receives free condoms from any federally subsidized health center first must receive 30 minutes of mandatory abstinence counseling?
And why not a rule that those who visit Gay Men’s Health Crisis cannot accept any services until after completing a two-day course on gay conversion, so that they can be “cured” of their homosexuality?
I seriously doubt that President Santorum (or President Brownback or President Palin) would do such things, but then I never envisioned President Obama ordering free birth control for any and every adult female who wanted it — regardless of income — and paid for under federal orders by health insurers, over the objections of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Actually, I think that was pretty predictable.
Are Neanderthals Prepared For Modern Life?
I agree that it’s not obvious that they are any less so than Homo Sapiens sapiens. It is an interesting question as to whether cloning one would be ethical, though.
Racial Discrimination In Medical Schools
This is a problem for at least two reasons (one of them is that it is illegal, yet they continue to do it). But as the commenters indicate, it’s also a result of a lack of competition in the medical profession in general, because the industry has captured the regulators.
[Update a while later]
Link was missing, fixed now. Sorry.
The Artist
Lileks loved the movie.
Free Divers
For the record, I think that these people are nuts. But it’s a good example of a recreation that is very hazardous, but that people are allowed to engage in without federal regulators looking over their shoulders. Why shouldn’t the same be true for spaceflight at this stage of the technology? I think that any of the serious vehicles currently under development (i.e., SS2, Lynx, Armadillo whatever) will be far safer than free diving or extreme mountain climbing.
[Late evening update]
Bad link, fixed now, sorry…
How Conservatives Suck
Bill Whittle counts the ways.