Miscellaneous

The appropriate response to this story is simple: Buy your own legos, bring them in, and use them to enhance your own structures or to trade for other pieces.  When the teachers confiscate your legos, explain to the other children that their structures and legos are just as vulnerable to arbitrary rules by the unelected tyranny, and institute a Constitution defining a representive lego government of limited powers.  Exciting opportunities to discuss eminent domain, taxation without representation, the right to petition the teachers for redress of grievances, and of course the effect of capital investment on a marketplace, versus the artificially-limited zero-sum game.

Pity almost all teachers are socialists.

But then, I suppose as socialists, arguing with children from a position of absolute power is the only way to win arguments.

Introduction

A recent article on the website http://jointogether.org/ proposes to examine the similarities between two researchers on the topic of firearms and the results of allegations concerning their personal behavior and the validity of their work. It makes the claim that certain similarities exist between the case of Michael Bellesiles, an anti-gun historian and author of the controversial Arming America, and the case of John Lott, an economist and author of More Guns, Less Crime and The Bias Against Guns. In both cases, allegations about improper behavior were made, and the JoinTogether organization wishes to claim their subsequent treatment differed -- presumably the result of their differing views on gun control.

Who is John Lott?

John Lott is an economist who has studied the intersection of firearms and crime extensively, including two books on the topic (More Guns, Less Crime, and The Bias Against Guns). He is probably the most-cited authority on the issue. His opinion pieces on the subject are published in major newspapers; he freely shares his data with anyone who cares to ask for it. While a few researchers have challenged some of his conclusions, none have ever credibly accused him of falsifying data, and his responses to his critics are well-reasoned. In short, his academic credentials are impeccable. Anti-gun forces have been searching for some way to attack or discredit his work for years, and failed to find any real basis in his research itself. Unfortunately, they have found other grounds.

The first problem originated some years ago, when Lott claims to have conducted a poll on a gun-related issue, which he then cited in several editorials and interviews. When questioned, he was unable to produce the data in support of his poll; he claimed the data had been lost in a computer crash. He has been unable to produce clear evidence that the poll ever took place, but has posted evidence supporting that claim. Since that time, he has redone the poll at his own expense and produced substantially the same results.

The second issue is somewhat more recent; accusations have arisen that he used a fake online identity to post glowing reviews of his own books to bookstores (primarily amazon.com) and participate in online debates. He has admitted to doing this and responded to the criticisms (at the very end of the linked file, which is a zipped PDF).

Finally, the article quotes Chris McGrath of "Handgun-Free America" saying that Lott's The Bias Against Guns contains unsubstantiated claims, specifically regarding:

1. claims that one-third of the post-1997 public school shootings had been stopped by armed citizens before police could arrive
2. claims that concealed-carry permit holders "virtually never" commit crimes

McGrath admits that Lott provided page numbers from his book to support the first claim, but asserts that the page numbers cited don't actually support it. I don't have Lott's book available right now, so cannot verify the claim either way (I will post an update when I can do so).

But I can say that McGrath is wrong about his second accusation; "virtually never" does not mean "never", so a single counterexample is not sufficient to disprove it. Concealed-carry holders as a group commit far fewer crimes than the general population; for example, in Florida, concealed-carry permit holders have a crime rate of .02% (2 hundredths of a percent), or 2 crimes committed per 10,000 permit holders. That's "virtually never" in anyone's book.

And in late-breaking news, another controversy has appeared. This one, if accurate, does in fact cast doubt on Lott's results and integrity. Whether the accusations are accurate is still in question; Lott has posted responses here and here.

Who is Michael Bellesiles?

Michael Bellesiles was a history professor who wrote the controversial book Arming America, claiming that an examination of the historical evidence revealed that early Americans had far fewer guns than is generally thought. His research included studies of probate records (ie, inventories of possessions, typically performed after the owner dies in the course of executing a will), anecdotal accounts from the period, and similar sources. Upon initial publication, his book received rave reviews from the press, and was awarded the prestigious Bancroft Prize.

Shortly after the publication of his work, questions concerning its accuracy in certain areas begin to arise. Those questions originated primarily from independent individuals investing their personal time to check the sources Bellesiles was citing, and concerned the core of Bellesiles' work in several different areas. The most in-depth refutation of Bellesiles' work comes from Clayton Cramer.

The most significant allegations concerned the probate records. Bellesiles claimed to have spent years visiting various archives and libraries around the country, taking painstaking handwritten notes from the probate and court records by means of "tick marks" on a series of notepads. A variety of problems arose from this:

1. Bellesiles, when asked to provide his data, claimed to have lost the records. After several different excuses, he finally settled on claiming that the records were destroyed during a flood of his offices. While the flood is a verified event, university officials indicated that very little actual damage was done.
2. Independent individuals seeking to duplicate his results from the same original sources found huge errors, both misreporting firearms as "old or broken" when there was no such indication, and in simply miscounting the numbers listed. While there is room for difference in methods and interpretation from such searches, the errors found were far more substantial than could be explained in that manner, and were universally in favor of Bellesiles' premise.
3. In at least one case, Bellesiles claimed to have examined probate records that do not exist. After this was pointed out, he made several different attempts to correct his citation by changing the location of the records he had examined. After Bellesiles finally settled on the location of the records he claimed to have examined, publicizing their "rediscovery" to answer his critics, independent investigators contacted the staff of the archive. There was no record of Bellesiles' claimed first visit, and the records at that location did not match Bellesiles' description of them.
4. In cases where primary sources were cited, investigations uncovered several mis-stated quotations. Taken individually these could easily be honest mistakes; taken together, and the alterations universally supporting Bellesiles' premise, they are vulnerable to accusations of deliberate misrepresentation.

Throughout the length of the controversy, Bellesiles repeatedly denied almost all allegations (to his credit, a subsequent printing of the book did contain some minor corrections). He changed his story about his missing data (the compiled probate records) in particular several times, and focused his defenses of the work primarily on attacking his critics.

After almost two years of non-stop criticism from a number of separate sources, and increasingly poor defenses from the author himself, his employer (Emory University) opened an investigation into the accusations by a board of independent investigations. The report from that investigation indicated that although substantial errors in citations and evidence were found, there was insufficient evidence to prove deliberate misrepresentation in the areas they were asked to investigate.

In other words, the investigative committee stopped a hair short of accusing a prize-winning professor of history and nationally-known author of deliberate fraud. Reading between the lines, it is clear that they did so not because they thought Bellesiles was innocent of the charge, but rather that they felt they could not prove it. As the evidence (Bellesiles' records) had been destroyed, and the question of deliberate fraud versus inadvertent misrepresentation is a matter of intent and notoriously hard to prove in borderline cases, the committee was careful to stick to accusations it could support rather than engaging in speculation on Bellesiles' mental state.

Even without an accusation of deliberate fraud, the report amounted to damning evidence of incompetence. Shortly following the publication of the report, Bellesiles resigned, presumably under pressure from the university. While his letter of resignation, also published, did not admit wrongdoing, it also did not attempt to address any of the accusations in the report.

Telling the difference

So what is the difference between the cases? Well, the difference in outcomes is obvious; Bellesiles resigned his position and has had his work thoroughly discredited. Lott has been attacked by gun control lobbying groups, but has kept his job, continued to publish articles in newspapers concerning the implications of his research, and in general has remained a player in the debate.

But is this difference valid? The Join Together article seems to be suggesting it is not; in other words, that Lott should be subject to penalties similar to those imposed upon Bellesiles. The NRA is mentioned several times throughout the article as leading the attacks upon that historian, giving the (false) impression that it was behind most of the criticism and somehow applied political pressure to force a negative outcome. This is supposed to simultaneously vindicate Bellesiles as a victim of the gun lobby, discredit Lott by continuing to publicize the accusations, and impugn the honesty of those who support gun rights by suggesting their criticism of Bellesiles was politically motivated rather than based on the merits of the claims.

The problem with that premise is simple: it's complete nonsense.

The differences between the cases of Lott and Bellesiles derive from fundamental differences in the accusations, and are then magnified by the response to those allegations. The fact is, the allegations against Bellesiles came from a multitude of sources, independently verified several times over, and concerned the core of his work. Bellesiles' responses to the allegations have consistently been inadequate.

Moreover, rather than a single error or even a few, multiple errors were uncovered, indicating a pattern of at best sloppy record-keeping -- and at worst, deliberate deception. Bellesiles is open to the accusation of deliberate fraud because his errors are both systemic and always seemed to occur in the same direction; that is, misquotes were always misquoted in ways that favored his premise, guns in probate records were always undercounted rather than overcounted, and so on.

By contrast, Lott was accused of losing data for a single survey that did not form part of his core work. He has been consistently willing to provide the data upon which he based the majority of his work to his critics (who, indeed, have used his own dataset in their criticism). He has responded to the criticisms, and taken steps to replicate the missing data from the survey, producing substantially the same results.

In short, while Bellesiles' errors were systemic, suggestive of bias in their direction, and undermined the foundations of his premise, Lott's missing survey represents a tiny fraction of the data he used for his books. It's removal from consideration in no way damages the core premise of his work, and even his critics do not claim otherwise.

In fact, Lott's critics are generally content to debate interpretation of the data, rather than challenging the data itself or the validity of his methods; indeed, many of those critics are dependent upon Lott's own data for their criticisms, even while they refuse to provide their own.

The secondary accusation regarding Lott's creation of an internet persona to post positive reviews about his work, while not particularly flattering, does not in any way impugn the validity of the work itself. Nor does Lott's response to these accusations suggest an ongoing credibility or ethical problem. (In an recent and interesting twist, the Emory Wheel has published a story claiming Bellesiles invented his own internet persona to defend his work; as with the Lott case, this is hardly flattering but not actionable fraud).

That lack of a solid academic basis for complaint about Lott is sufficient to explain the difference in treatment, but there is another factor, perhaps equally important. That factor is the difference in response to criticism.

Lott has continually faced his critics, provided them with his laboriously gathered data set for analysis, and authored substantial replies to their criticism. In cases where his behavior was less than perfect, he's admitted what he did, admitted that it was a mistake, and explained his motives. In short, he has behaved like a credible academic participating in a legitimate public policy debate.

Bellesiles, on the other hand, has not done so. He has refused to participate in forums about the flaws in his work. He makes several differing excuses concerning his inability to provide the data he used. Upon investigation of these claims, they were found to be lacking. He has yet to substantially reply to most of the criticisms leveled against his work. His work has been investigated and found lacking by an impartial committee of historians, and the evidence was sufficient to warrant a resignation.

Conclusion

While the cases appear similar on the surface, the details differ substantially, and from those details the difference in result is derived. Had Bellesiles been revealed only to have used a fake identity to promote his work, he would have been embarrassed, no doubt; but he would not have lost his job. Had Lott failed to provide data supporting his core premise or consistently misrepresented his results, doubtless his own position would have been at risk. But the cases are not identical, and we should not be surprised when the results also differ.

The controversy surrounding Bellesiles has mostly died down. Bellesiles resigned his position at Emory, had his Bancroft Prize rescinded, and the original publisher is no longer publishing his book. With the exception of the article to which this is a response, there has been little mention of him for some time now.

However, the controversy surrounding Lott continues to evolve, with new allegations being made. Lott continues to respond to these allegations. While I can't predict what the final outcome will be, as events are developing even as this paper is written, there is a clear pattern with respect to the Bellesiles case: Lott is freely providing his data and making constructive responses to critics. Bellesiles could never manage a coherent response; just excuses.

No one should expect their statements to be taken on faith. People will check up on claims that are made to influence public policy, and they will be able to determine whether those claims are valid or not. A responsible advocate will have that information ready to have to provide to his critics, even if that provides his critics with more ammunition against him, because the search for truth is more important.

This philosophy is anathema to many advocacy organizations, primarily because they have gotten away with deceiving the public for years, supported in many cases by collaborators in the media who, as with Bellesiles, find the statements of those they agree with too comfortable a fit with their own worldview to aggressively search for the facts. But public policy is too important for comfortable assumptions.

I have listed some of the resources I used in writing this article in my weblog.

Note: This is an older article I am reposting to make it available via the weblog.

We've seen all sorts of analysis of how Moore treated the subject of firearms and gun control in his alleged "documentary" Bowling for Columbine, particularly with regard to his shameful "interview" with Charleton Heston, but less has been said about his election-year movie Fahrenheit 9/11.  Now, a lawsuit by a disabled veteran suggests that the same shady interviewing and editting tactics used in Bowling are also used in Fahrenheit 9/11 -- in particular, using footage of a interview filmed with NBC without the consent of the soldier appearing in it.  The soldier is suing for $85 million.

Less important than the legal niceties is the fact that Moore editted the interview to make it seem the soldier opposed the war:

Damon seems to "voice complaint about the war effort" in the movie, according to the lawsuit.  But what the father of two from Middleborough, Mass., was really talking about was the "excruciating" pain he felt after he lost his arms when a Black Hawk helicopter exploded in front of him.  Damon wasn't expressing any opinion about the war, the suit charges, but rather extolling the drug.

"I just want everybody to know what kind of a guy Michael Moore is, and what kind of film this is," said Damon. He has appeared in two films attacking "Fahrenheit" -"Michael Moore Hates America" and "Fahrenhype 9/11."

Amusingly enough, there's an exemption within copyright law that allows some educational institutions to avoid obtaining permission to use copyrighted works.  I don't know exactly how this sort of situation would play out legally, but I would be very amused if Moore cites some sort of educational exemption and loses the case anyway.

Hat tip to Arms and the Law for the original story.

So I went to see V for Vendetta a while ago.  It was interesting and worthwhile.  Those of you who have seen the previews can understand that the movie is fairly edgy.  For those who didn't, the "hero" is a morally-ambiguous freedom fighter / terrorist who fights a government more than a little reminiscent of the Bush Administration in the Left's continuing national nightmare. 

If you watch the movie closely, the protagonist almost never goes after innocent people, only government enforcers engaged extracurricular brutality or the officials who ordered or personally committed atrocities.  Although it saves him from truly deserving the terrorist label, there is nonetheless a distinct note of antiheroism that suggests neither side has clean hands.

Aside from the politics, the movie is very well put together.  Some reviewers have compared the combat sequences to those in The Matrix; I wasn't that impressed, although they were definitely well done and had a similar feel.  It is not, however, an action movie.  Perhaps the best comparison is to The Count of Monte Cristo; it is a revenge movie that happens to have political overtones.

seems to work. I can now report "from the scene", as if anything newsworthy ever happens where I am...

I confess that I love this movie, even as hideously bad as it is in some ways.  The television series has much better swordwork, which makes complete sense when you understand that Adrian Paul (aka Duncan McLeod) is a martial artist with a 7-year series to learn the sword, while Christopher Lambert (aka Conner McLeod) had a few months and is reportedly blind as a bat without glasses.

I can't believe that these people don't have anything better to do with their time than protest symbolic "art" objects on behalf of dinner.  I'm not much of a fan of KFC; in fact I've eaten their food exactly twice in 6 years.  One of those times was just last weekend, on an absurd impulse which I now consider almost precognitive.  Unlike Alphecca, however, I'm not going to oppose Pamela Anderson's protest by eating more chicken; I've already made a recent meal decision demonstrating the reverance I hold for our fine feathered food.  I will, however, offer a link to People Eating Tasty Animals.

... an RSS feed, that is, for KeepAndBearArms.com.  I'll make that pledge.  Count me in for $50 as soon as I can subscribe to an Atom or RSS feed to the newslinks content.

I'm not really the drinking sort, but I'm not about to stand by idly while the prohibitionist movement edges closer and closer to a comeback.  They have learned to cloak their desire for prohibition with their concern for "the children" and to pretend their measures are aimed at reducing drunk driving -- when, in reality, they just want to make life difficult for anyone who chooses to drink alcohol, and propagandize children in order to shape their attitudes towards alcohol as adults.

And I say that as someone who drinks very rarely.

UPDATE: More on this topic here.

The above was posted at my place of employment, and google found me a copy here.  Though I am no follower of christ, every man's life is a trial, even if we only judge ourselves.  Those who risk their lives in defense of others deserve to be celebrated as heros.  To fight in defense of your community is the ultimate duty of citizenship.

I honor both those veteran's with us still, and those who are no longer with us.  I do not honor them today alone, but on every day.

... or so goes the line, anyway.  If the Islamists have their way, we won't have Paris any longer; they will have burned it to the ground.  The media are trying to avoid reporting facts about the situation.  But the facts that the blogosphere can put together sound like organized guerilla warfare, not rioting; and there was a very, very telling quotation from NPR that I heard on the way home today.  Obviously I don't have the actual quote, so I'm working from memory here.  But the commenter -- who spoke English with a moderate accent and clearly identified with the rioters strongly, to the point of using "we" more than once -- described the motivation behind the rioting as:

"Maybe, in order to get people to listen, we have to scare people.  Nothing is being done about [the problems].  If people are scared maybe they will do something."

Again, that's paraphrased from memory, but I was very shocked that it was stated that boldly, and so I am quite confident that the meaning of the statement has been preserved. 

Ladies and gentleman, what is happening in Paris is the textbook definition of terrorism.

Violence against innocents in support of a political goal.

Greenpeace said Tuesday it will pay nearly $7,000 in damages after the environmental group's flagship, the Rainbow Warrior II, hit a coral reef at a world heritage site in the southern Philippines.

In reality, people don't deliberately set out to damage the environment; it's generally not a malicious thing.  It happens by accident or negligence more often than it is motivated by malice or profit, and not even Greenpeace is immune. 

Walter Gaya, one-half of The Gun Guy's Walter-Adams fund, is having citizenship troubles.  Specifically, he was wounded while serving his country, which prevented him from attending his swearing-in ceremony.  And now he's fallen between the beaurocratic cracks.  It's just not right to leave him in limbo when he has given his best for us.  I'm not sure what it's going to take to solve this problem, but I'm betting that "attention" can't hurt.

UPDATE: Looks like I was right.

Earlier this week, I received the following fairly interesting query by email:

I am in the U.S and if someone tried to break into my house and I do not know him or her and I assume their going to hurt me I have every right to kill them?  Not on purpose but at least stop them. im 15 if that has anything to do with it. I live in Texas also

I am, of course, not a lawyer, and I responded as such.  You need to ask a lawyer if you want to get a legal answer you can rely on.  But it's also possible to just read the law for yourself, and decide based on that.  That's why we have written laws.  And while I'm not going to give legal advice, when I saw Volokh's post on Texas laws concerning the use of deadly force on thieves or looters I thought it was worth mentioning.  It doesn't deal with the law on using deadly force to protect yourself or others, just on protecting property.

I should mention as well that what the law allows for is not always the wisest course of action.  You don't want to be pushing the legal envelope in court on a murder charge.  But as the saying goes, if it comes down to the decision to shoot or not to shoot, it is better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.

Identifying firearm injury as "an extremely serious health concern," the Philadelphia Bar Association's Board of Governors has strongly endorsed the Firearm Injury Center at Penn (FICAP) in a resolution unanimously adopted by the Board. The Association has called for "greater awareness of the incidence and causes of firearm injuries, particularly in at-risk communities."

Y'know, this is almost amusing. First, the doctors want firearms to be treated like "disaeases" and "epidemics", because, well, they have authority concerning diseases and epidemics but don't know a damn thing about firearms. Now, lawyers want firearms treated as a "health concern" (same thing). What do lawyers know about health concerns OR firearms?

The truth, of course, is that medical organizations have been coopted by political goals that do not reflect their membership, and lawyers just want another set of deep pockets to sue.

He said state police had "ransacked" his home and were "lying through their teeth" about the allegations. All his firearms are registered and were locked in his gun shop and his bedroom, he said. When he went to see state police for what he thought was a job orientation as an agent with Homeland Security -- it turned out to be his arrest -- his bedroom door was locked, he added.

Later, at the news conference, state police confirmed that Tabassi's basement is licensed as a gun dealership and that he has held a firearms dealer license since 1993. But they said that 17 machine guns found at his split-level home were unregistered and unsecured, and they denied doing business with him.

I'm not sure what to make of this. The police are claiming links to terrorism and unregistered machine guns; the victim is claiming the guns are legally owned and registered. No allegations of actual violence.

Who rode in the two-car motorcade that hurtled along at 90 mph Saturday night on Highway 46 East? Could it have been Gov. Gray Davis?

A Templeton-based CHP officer followed the speeding motorcade east on the narrow, two-lane highway in northeast San Luis Obispo County, which has been the site of dozens of fiery fatal car wrecks over the years. The speed limit on the undivided road is 55 mph.

According to the CHP, the officer flashed his lights and tried to pull the two cars over. But after using a radio to contact the drivers -- who were also CHP officers -- the patrolman backed off, and the motorcade continued.

Public officials are not above the law.

Police targeting gangland gunmen launched a campaign to get their own families to inform on them.

It's now 2003; the UK is 19 years behind schedule but they are catching up fast.

Here's a news item from the too-lame-to-be-true category. But it is. It seems Bill Clinton and Mikhail Gorbachev have collaborated on a retelling of Prokofiev's beloved children's classic, ''Peter And The Wolf.'' In the original, you'll recall, Peter and his friend the duck are out frolicking in the meadow when the slavering wolf shows up and embarks on his reign of terror. He gulps down the duck as his hors d'oeuvre, and has the cat lined up to follow. But fortunately, Peter gets hold of a rope and uses it as a noose with which to muzzle the wolf and take him into captivity.

In the Clinton version, you won't be surprised to hear, Peter realizes the error of his lupophobia and releases the wolf back into the wild. The wolf howls a friendly goodbye. Which is jolly sporting of him when you consider that it's all our fault in the first place. ''Forgetting his triumph, Peter thought instead of fallen trees, parched meadows, choked streams, and of each and every wolf struggling for survival,'' narrates our Bill, addressing the root causes and feeling the wolf's pain. ''The time has come to leave wolves in peace.''

I am flabbergasted. Is Clinton going senile, or does he really think this way?

The NYTimes would have us believe that health insurance is in a "crisis" because about 15% of the population do not have health insurance. Their proposed solution is for the government to step in and provide that insurance. Let's apply some reason to this proposition.

First, we must ask, why are people uninsured? There are a number of reasons, but they mostly boil down to cost; the government provides insurance for those extremely poor, private employers sometimes provide insurance, and those who are left are expected to buy insurance privately rather than through an employer. Some do, and others prefer not to.

I said "expected" because, clearly, the left-wing politicians and advocates can't imagine anyone choosing to go without health insurance. And yet, providing health insurance is a profit-making proposition if managed correctly (like other forms of insurance); that is, the insurance companies charge you more than you might expect to pay "normally" in order to have a reserve to cover your costs -- or someone else's -- when something especially expensive happens.

What does that mean? Simply that for someone to whom "something especially expensive" rarely happens, buying health insurance amounts to supporting someone else's injuries!

Now, choosing to go without coverage in the hopes that something drastic won't happen to you, personally, is a bit of a risk. But like anything else, it's a risk that can be mitigated. Most people, for example, have coverage through driver/car insurance for injuries caused to others, or injuries caused to themselves by an uninsured driver. That's the major cause of "something drastic" right there -- most people already have coverage for that eventuality.

And the other major risk factors aren't hidden; if you're young, healthy, don't have a history of any major problems in your family, and aren't an expectant mother, then your risk level is fairly low for non-traumatic problems.

For these people, NOT having health insurance is arguably a reasonable financial proposition. Many choose to have it anyway, because the cost is fairly low when provided through a typical employer-supported program -- low enough to warrant the investment as a risk-mitigator. But some don't.

And this reveals the invalid assumption behind the NYTimes' position. They believe everyone should have health insurance. And everyone should be forced to pay for it. Whether they want it, or not.

Now let's take a step back and ask, why are the costs of medical care so high that medical insurance is considered necessary? This is a more complicated proposition, but there are three driving factors.

First, human life and health are so highly valued that no doctor wants to provide second-rate, bargain-basement medical care (and even if they did, would be bankrupted by malpractice suits, malpractice insurance, or both). So doctors typically provide the most expensive services they can even for basic care.

Second, 85% of the population have health insurance, and neither see nor pay the true cost of care. In other words, the free market has been bypassed for those individuals; the famous "invisible hand" can no longer act to lower prices. In place of a free market, we have a market of insurers and providers.

Third, doctors typically operate and charge on the expert principle -- that is, "I'm the expert, do what I tell you and pay what I say you owe". The patient has no ability to know the cost in advance and little ability to bargain or dispute a recommendation. In theory, a patient with health insurance would have the insurer to play a role in keeping costs low and unnecessary procedures down; but the expert on the scene is the local doctor (who will usually be able to produce justification for what he wants to charge).

Fourth, doctors have the ability to price-discriminate based on the patient's insurance company. Since the insurance companies typically negotiate pricing with the doctors, some will get a better price, and others worse. That's not necessarily so bad -- until you realize that the 800-pound gorilla in health insurance is the government's medicare program, which sets its own prices, often as a matter of law.

So what happens? Patients with insurance get lots of health care, because they don't see the price. Government programs set the prices they are willing to pay as low as possible yet demand high-quality care (with punishment in the form of malpractice lawsuits), forcing doctors to price-discriminate in favor of government insurance while making up the cost in charges to privately insured individuals. This increases the cost of medical care to privately insured people, but they do not see the cost increase, and continue to get the same level of care. This forces private insurance companies to raise costs to employers (some of whom drop coverage), make efforts to insure only those who are already healthy (leaving the relatively unhealthy without coverage), and raise costs even more to those with little bargaining power (private individuals).

And all of this raises the cost of health care, which makes it harder to get by without health insurance, which produces NYTimes editorials demanding more government health insurance.

It may not be obvious to everyone that the TriggerFinger weblog is a shared resource. Anyone can submit an article, long or short, and one of our editors will decide whether to include it. However, few people have been taking advantage of this capability, so I thought I would call it out. Submit your articles here, and I will post them if they fit in with the theme of the site. (Spam is not a theme of the site). You'll need a user account first, which you can create here.

If you have your own blog, please feel free to submit links to your blog with a short summary of the post and why it's worth reading. TriggerFinger was originally conceived as a news site, not just a one man soapbox. Y'all are welcome to step up to the stump and have a yammer at the audience.

In the same vein, the weblog software used here allows for multiple people to have editorial roles. In theory, that means two things: vetting articles others post, and writing articles yourself. In practice, I try to cover 2nd Amendment rights as my primary concentration, because I feel those rights are the most vital and most threatened, with occasional forays into other areas such as free speech, fair elections, and so on; but I don't have to do much vetting of external submissions. C'mon, people!

I'd like to invite anyone from my audience who wants to invest a bit of time and effort keeping people informed on liberty issues to step into an editorial role. Any of the major categories on the site could use someone interested specifically in that issue to keep readers more up to date than I have time for. Although my gun-rights stance means I got mostly conservative attention, I'd take a Democrat who wanted a podium about civil rights or an apolitical techie concerned about intellectual property law. I truly believe that liberty is a unifying issue, and this is a chance to prove it.

It's an ugly night in our nation's capital. The handful of true Republican conservatives who are opposing the Medicare prescription drug bill are being hammered mercilessly to change their votes.

Do you remember how the Patriot Act was rammed down the throats of House members giving them only a matter of hours to read a 300-page bill? It's happening again tonight with the Medicare drug bill -- all 1,100 pages of it! The bill itself stinks, but the process stinks even more.

It's 9:52 p.m. ET on Friday night. The House will vote around 1:00 a.m. Saturday morning on what will undoubtedly become the largest entitlement federal program in our nation's history. This is your last chance to tell your U.S. representative to vote "NO" on this bill.

Numerous articles and commentaries vigorously opposing this never-ending "entitlement" are posted on our Web site. But please take a moment to read at least one of them before you place your call to your representative. You'll then know why your representative should oppose it and you'll know what to expect in the future should the House pass it. Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, explains it all at http://www.nationalreview.com/moore/moore200311211124.asp

After reading Mr. Moore's eye-opening commentary, call your representative tonight. Tell him to vote "NO" on this horrific legislation. Most House offices are open and will take your call. If your office is closed, leave a message. The main switchboard number at the Capitol is 202-224-3121. Call now! Tell the operator your representative's name or your Zip code. The operator will quickly connect you.

The above is straight from the Liberty Committee's email alert. I got an "all circuits are busy" when I called so be prepared to make more than one call.

Gun-rights activist Rick Stanley, a Denver businessman and former Libertarian candidate for the U.S. Senate, was sentenced to six years in prison Friday for threatening two judges.

I can't support what Rick Stanley did to get himself imprisoned. Threatening a judge is stupid. But he got into the courtroom when Denver police decided they could ignore Colorado law by arresting a man for open carry of a firearm. Rick has put a lot of effort into fighting illegal restrictions on open carry in Colorado, and he deserves kudos for that. Remember, folks, talk is cheap -- but sometimes it can still get you into a lot of trouble.

Tucked inside the Medicare bill is an assortment of provisions that have nothing to do with providing prescription drug benefits to the elderly. The energy bill and the annual spending bills for federal agencies are also stuffed with pet projects, intended to win votes for the legislation.

The two bills ? top priorities for President Bush and the Republican leaders of Congress ? provided convenient vehicles for spending narrowly focused on special interests. Hundreds of health care providers and colleges now receive such largess, and the numbers have soared in recent years.

Gee, our legislatures wouldn't ever use a sure-pass bill like this one to pad their special interests, would they?

My response to the Detroit News Special picked up enough attention for the Gun Owners of America to publish it on their website (with my permission). Thanks, guys!