YesMinister – ILANA MERCER

Why Government ‘Care” Will Never, Ever Work

Ilana Mercer — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 07:42:12 +0000

Entrusted with the administration of assets you don’t own, have no stake in; on behalf of people you don’t know and who have no real recourse against your mismanagement—how long before your on-the-job performance mirrors that of the government? ~ilana

At every opportunity, Jedediah Bila, a regular among the pig-ignorant panelists paraded on the Fox News and Business channels, parroted Bill O’Reilly’s “not ready for prime time” line. The premise of that fatuity is that given time, Obamacare could be readied for prime time.

A “scandal” bleated another cipher in a skirt—a Republican, naturally—about the error-riddled Obamacare website, when she should have been explaining that HealthCare.gov not working is no more a “scandal” than waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid, perpetrated by program administrators, program recipients, elected and unelected officials alike.

Failure and fraud is business as usual in government.

Liberals are incapable of grasping economic truths. That goes without saying. But why are “conservatives” every bit as dumb about the dynamics in a nationalized enterprise as opposed to the workings of a market society? Republicans appear incapable of articulating why it is that centrally planned systems fail.

The gold standard for stupid is this Republican riff: “Government would work much better if it were run like a business.” It is in violation of the Law of Identity. A is A. Things are what they are. Government is government; it is not business. The task of a rational man, advised Ayn Rand, is to perceive reality, not to create or invent it.

Rep. Fred Upton does Jedediah Bila one better. “Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars [have been] spent for a system that still does not work,” complained the Republican from Michigan.

Wrong. Government spends trillions of taxpayer dollars on systems that don’t work (the military included). That’s what government does by definition; by virtue of being government.

The problem is not so much the 55 contractors involved in designing Barack Obama’s signature Web portal, but the Central Planning Board that selected inept coders—and the kinky incentives to which any federal agency in charge will subject any and all contractors under its control. The same web developers generally do a great job on each of our personal computers; in other words, when handling private property. If they don’t, we withhold payment until they do, sue them, seek arbitration against them, or turn to the competition, causing the offenders to shape up or go belly up. In a word, when they work for us, contractors work well, because they’re not administered by a collective and bankrolled in perpetuity by taxpayers whose property has been forcibly seized by the same coercive collective.

As private property owners, we control the purse strings.

A monopolist, moreover, doesn’t have to please consumers, because he has them cornered. Therefore, in a politburo, political decisions trounce considerations that would win out in the market place. Consider: HealthCare.gov was coded with the goal of harvesting sensitive information from applicants while concealing rip-off prices from them. Why would the Central Planning Board (aka the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in charge of Obamcare) care that such coding has created a hacker’s dream, when their wet dream is to share data culled through HealthCare.gov with the IRS, the DHS, the TSA, on and on?

Like the communist elite, the Congress elite seldom subjects itself to the same health care or the same laws as the people. Unsurprisingly—and by legislative sleight of hand—lawmakers have used their privileged positions to pass laws exempting themselves and their lackeys from liability. “Governmental immunity” is designed to “stop people from suing the government and government employees and officials in many cases.”

With taxpayers ponying up for any surgical slip of the scalpel, and responsibility collectivized—fear of being fired or penalized is non-existent among the ruling class. Government failure will never see the closing of a government agency, or the firing of nasty, inefficient, over-paid, affirmatively appointed official.

In the bureaucracy, incentives will forever be inverted. Failure results in success: in more funds, more training, more time off. “We don’t have profits and losses in the civil service. Success in the civil service is measured by the size of our staff and budget. A bigger department is more successful than a smaller one,” smiled the marvelously sardonic Sir Humphrey Appleby, superstar of the satire “Yes, Prime Minister.”

Since it “manages” money not its own, government has no real incentive to conserve resources, ensure a job is properly done, or deliver on its promises. Entrusted with the administration of assets you don’t own, have no stake in; on behalf of people you don’t know and who have no real recourse against your mismanagement—how long before your on-the-job performance mirrors that of the government?

Republicans can vaporize all they like. There’s nothing they can do to change the perverse incentives that are at work in public works. Peace and prosperity follow when, as Ludwig von Mises counseled, private property owners are at liberty to exchange goods and services for money.

Failure to keep health care services out of the hands of socialist central planners will see all Americans pinned down like butterflies by “service providers,” whose sadistic displays of power are honed in a state monopoly.

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Make Me Thankful: Don’t Enlist!

Ilana Mercer — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Instead of tough, immediate action against every cog in the military machine that promoted, pampered and palliated the mass murderer Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, victims got a commission of inquiry.

Or in Pentagon Speak, “a broad 45-day review.”

The state’s response to the slaughter at Fort Hood of 13 of its own by a Muslim Army psychiatrist, who also wounded more than 30 in the shootings at the Texas military post on Nov. 5, will be met, first, with more bureaucracy — more salaries for more slackers — and, thereafter, with a brick-thick report!

When asked what he would do if he were in charge of a soldier who was making radical statements, Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs ─ and an adherent of the military’s look away doctrine ─ mumbled about the need “to ensure that we treat everybody fairly.”

Everybody but the good guys. For his part, Attorney General Eric Holder has since promised to “work with this committee on ways in which we can prevent such a tragedy from occurring again.” And Tom Rooney, a Republican congressman from Florida, has begun the “difficult” work of exculpation: “telltale signs that [Hasan] was a disgruntled major were not as apparent as the rumors you’ve heard,” he informed reporters.

Was the Congressman referring to Hasan’s attempts to convert his patients to Islam? Or maybe to his hobnobbing with known Jihadists online? How about Hasan’s praise of suicide bombers, and the Soldier-of-Allah embossed calling card? Maybe Rep. Rooney means to imply that Hasan delivering lectures on Islam, instead of on the requisite course work, was no “telltale sign.”

Besides, if the military cares so much about the psyche and soma of the neediest of its men and women ─ why did it knowingly inflict on them an all-round, lousy student and practitioner?

If Rep. Rooney has some comforting news for the guinea-pig grunts the military forsook to Hasan’s ministrations, he had better be more specific.

Back at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Hasan’s psychiatric supervisors ─ they practice a faith even more wicked than his own ─ had surmised, in their infinite wisdom, that he was probably delusional but not dangerous. These experts decided to give Hasan … time.

Sure, Maj. Scott Moran ─ he runs the residency program at Walter Reed ─ cautioned about “a pattern of poor judgment and a lack of professionalism.” Maj. Moran nevertheless recommended that Major Nidal go on to graduate. Apparently, he felt that Nidal would, in the fullness of time, experience a spontaneous improvement.

While it promotes and grants inordinate privileges and protections to incompetent Muslim miscreants ─ you don’t believe Hasan is an exception? ─ the military machine moves swiftly and speedily against patriotic Americans.

For coming out, Dan Choi, West Point graduate, Arabic linguist, and a Lieutenant in the United States Army, was fired in no time at all. No sooner did it become known that Choi was gay than he was dismissed. The same goes for “Sandy Tsao, who was booted from the military after telling her superiors she was gay back in January.”

When it comes to discharging gays and lesbians, the military is one fast and efficient bureaucracy.

You’ll be equally relieved to know that the same bloated behemoth is proceeding at full throttle against three U.S. Navy SEALs. Petty Officers Matthew McCabe, Jonathan Keefe and Julio Heurtas are accused by Ahmed Hashim Abed ─ thought to be behind the premeditated murder and mutilation of four U.S. contractors in Falluja in 2004 ─ of punching him.

As I’ve argued since September of 2002, Americans have no business in Iraq. But so long as our servicemen are there, they should not be hobbled in defending themselves, which is precisely what is happening. Before they are permitted to detain their attackers, soldiers are required to double up as cops, and go through a CSI-like protocol.

“Circumstances permitting,’ states a memo CNN obtained from the military, “evidence of criminal activity should include ‘photographs of the physical evidence,’ ‘photographs of the detainee at the crime scene or place of capture,’ as well as ‘photographs of the detainee next to the evidence.’ Other evidence should include a sketch of the crime scene, all physical evidence of the crime, and ‘statements written by first-hand witnesses to the criminal activity.'”

About the frustration of being forced to release most captured combatants, a soldier said this: “We’ve repeatedly found ourselves fighting the same enemy again and again.”

Thinking of enlisting? You’ll be fighting not for country and countrymen; but will be granting a banal bureaucrat a lien on your life.

As for the inquiry cobbled together to stop future Hasans: Permanent Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby, a fictitious, but oh-so-real character in the brilliant British satires “Yes Minister” and “Yes Prime Minister,” would agree with me when I say that government commissions are where accountability goes to die.

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