Differentiation: Not Just For Products

distractedbyshinyobjects:

I’m 28. My parents’ corporate employer covered me until I was 25 even without the mandate to do so. I went from that to my own employer-provided coverage, had a year of nothing when I left that job, and now I’m on my husband’s employer-provided insurance. All of those had no problem covering everything needed or that I can imagine needing. Not that they were perfect, but I’m healthy so I don’t have big complaints.

But I’m still in favor of Obamacare. Because not everyone is as lucky as I am, and I’m not heartless enough to want them to suffer as a result. We live in too wealthy of a country for people to die and go broke because of stupid health stuff.

I love Obamacare.

That’s called differentiation. You could also call it a perk. You don’t, however, call it ‘luck’.

Treating benevolence as ‘luck’ rather than individual agency is precisely the problem I have with the left. It’s as if no good deed could possibly be the product of choice; only the faceless entity of the government, with its numerous regulations can help people, because apparently there’s something evil lurking within the human soul—no bureaucracy—which makes us selfish to the exclusion of all others’ interests (except, apparently, in the context of the government).

Austin, TX, despite our already environmentally-conscious culture, has officially banned plastic bags. I’m voting against everyone on city council out this election cycle… This is ridiculous (still not as ridiculous as putting toxic chemicals in the water, though). Although the Austin City Council passed one of the broadest bag bans in the nation early Friday , a few details remain to be ironed out. Among them is what the penalties will be for refusing to comply with the law, which will prohibit retailers from offering single-use paper and plastic bags at all retail checkout counters starting in March 2013 . Penalties and details about who will enforce the ban will be worked out over the next few months, said Jennifer Herber , a spokeswoman for Austin Resource Recovery , the city’s trash and recycling department. Only retailers, not customers, will face penalties, she said. The council also asked staffers to explore creating an “emergency option” that would allow shoppers who forget their reusable bags to pay a fee for disposable bags so that they aren’t forced to buy more reusable bags. It’s not clear exactly how that would work or whether it would simply become a loophole for customers to continue getting disposable bags. Before and after the ban takes effect, the city plans to do a $2 million education campaign to alert shoppers to the change and remind them to bring reusable bags. The council decided not to enact a fee on disposable bags before the ban takes effect. An interim fee had been discussed as a way to help shoppers and retailers begin to change their habits and prepare for a ban. Austin is the first big Texas city to pass a bag ban. More than two dozen U.S. cities have bag laws, most of them prohibiting plastic bags and imposing a fee on paper. “This is about Austin reclaiming its position as the national leader in environmental protection,” said Rick Cofer , vice chairman of the city’s Zero Waste Advisory Commission, who has pushed for a ban for five years. “This ordinance is forward-looking. It may have taken a few years, but we got it right.” The City Council came close to enacting a ban a few years ago but held off when a few big retailers agreed to try to voluntarily reduce the plastic bags they offer. Council members have said that program wasn’t effective enough, and they asked city staffers last summer to begin writing up a ban. Friday’s vote came at about 2 a.m. , after a daylong council meeting. It was unanimous, even though a few council members recently had expressed reservations about the details of the ban, including the idea of prohibiting paper bags as well as plastic. Austin retailers will still be able to offer reusable bags, defined as those made of cloth or durable materials, or thicker paper or plastic bags that have handles. Retailers will decide whether to charge for those bags, though most probably will because such bags tend to be costlier to make. Exempt from the ban will be single-use bags for bulk foods, meat, fish, produce, newspaper delivery, dry cleaning and restaurant carryout foods, and bags that charities and nonprofits use to distribute food and other items. During months of debate, members of the plastics industry argued that thin plastic bags can be easily recycled and reused, such as for lining trash cans and picking up pet waste. But city leaders said the bags often end up as litter or landfill trash and cause environmental harm. Activists urged the City Council to ban single-use paper bags as well, saying they take more energy to make and transport. The Texas Retailers Association was the most vocal opponent of a ban, saying it would discourage retailers from continuing robust programs they’ve built to accept plastic bags and plastic packaging for recycling, meaning more of those goods could end up in landfills. In recent weeks, ban opponents have urged the city to pursue a program that will allow Austin residents to put plastic bags in their curbside recycling carts. Currently, the city accepts paper but not plastic bags through its curbside collection and recycling program because plastic bags can damage recycling machinery. Austin Resource Recovery Director Bob Gedert said adding plastic bags to the curbside program would be costly and difficult to carry out. He also said Austin should focus on reducing the number of plastic bags in circulation, not simply on continuing to make and recycle them. About a dozen people stuck around late Thursday and early Friday to offer the council their thoughts on the ban; most were in favor of it. “It’s time for you folks to make history and take a huge step in cleaning up your community,” said Robin Schneider , executive director of the nonprofit Texas Campaign for the Environment . Chris Bailey told the council a ban could have unintended consequences. “People act like the solution is to just create a crime out of an everyday activity, and all of a sudden, it will go away,” he said. “You’re trying to modify behavior by creating a punishment for it, and this has not been shown to work. … I think common sense is being neglected here.”

Environmental Statism

‘Libertarianish’. Is that a double-adjective proper noun?

And somehow, Santorum manages to look both flamboyant and nauseated in that picture.

Clearly, Congress is high school and these committees are The Plastics from Mean Girls. 

…which presumably makes Ron Paul the captain of the debate team. I guess Rick Perry can be captain of the cheerleading team, even though he isn’t in the federal government.

Drug Regulation

logicallypositive:

Before I write this, I want to make something clear: compared to the previous system of straight up imprisonment for cultivation and posession of marijuana, the medicinal system is an extreme improvement and I am very thankful public policy is starting to go in that direction.

Even though it really isn’t a bad deal, it still has it’s flaws. Namely, all of the benefits derived from having marijuana legal for medicinal purposes would still exist, but the economic benefits would be greatly improved as well.

At the end of the day, marijuana is a business. I think everyone, Austrian or Keynesian, Democrat or Republican agrees that unemployment is a serious issue in the United States. Without even getting into the morality of drug use, let me tell you: I live in a state where medical marijuana is legal. Literally, growing marijuana plants for many people is what literally keeps their families fed and pays the bills. You can’t really argue against that kind of industry, especially when it’s not even dangerous. The fact that it is a legal and legitimate form of entrepreneurship in so many areas is a testament to the power of the marijuana industry to create jobs. But one of the downsides of medicinal marijuana is that it limits the number of plants people can own.

My question is why bother with this limit? Why bother placing the artificial constraints of “for medicinal use only” when we all already know people are going to smoke their pot one way or another?

I think all drugs should be 100% legal, but for those who have a difficult time accepting the idea that using heroin or cocaine should be legal, we’re not talking about the hard shit. We’re talking about pot. No matter what your thoughts of are on the personal ethics of using marijuaan or any other drugs, I think we can all agree that pot is one of the safest, least harmful drugs out there.

So why limit people to only growing 72 plants? Why not legalize the growing of marijuana like we legalize the growing of tomatoes, daffodils, sunflowers or any other sort of plant? I mean if you think about it, marijuana is nothing more than a flower. A very remarkable flower with interesting psychological qualities, but a flower nonetheless. Furthermore, it is an economically desirable flower that is difficult enough to grow well that fetches a decent price. Think of all the jobs and tax revenues this could create. If anything, think of all the young peoples whose lives will not be ruined because they choose to smoke a plant.

Honestly, what bothers me most about regulated medicine—not just marijuana—is that I have a really difficult time getting the medication I need to function at a minimal level. I have pretty bad ADHD, yet they require me to go in every month (no refills, for some reason, though I have started getting a 90 day prescription) to my doctor to pick up a script (which takes way too long, because I originally started seeing my doctor when I was 17 and she was the only doctor in the city of Austin that would prescribe amphetamines to minors, because of liability BS). So, basically, the FDA requires patients diagnosed with a disorder that impairs their ability to focus to remember, every damn month, to wait at their doctor’s office in person for a script to acquire the medication the patient needs to focus (perhaps even enough to remember to refill their medication). Being a correctly diagnosed person with ADHD, I always forget to get a script until I’m on my last Adderall and I start panicking, because it’s always the damn weekend. I started using a mail-order pharmacy, because HEB won’t fill a 90 day script, but they withheld my medication because suddenly they weren’t sure I had been diagnosed, even though I had ordered from them before (and my brain didn’t spontaneously start exhibiting more white matter, so I’m definitely still ADHD as ever).

In short, the FDA makes it difficult for patients with diagnosed illnesses and prescribed medications to get those medications, because of all of the excessive regulation. I have had to ask people I know for Adderall, because I have had it unjustifiably withheld and I honestly cannot hold a conversation without it, much less pay attention in class or read books for school. I also get co-morbid depression and OCD, because I’m really, really type-A and developed really, really ineffective coping mechanisms for my inability to be productive, so going without medication is always something that terrifies me more than most people—especially those picturing parents using Ritalin to sedate their naturally boisterous 5-year-olds—would probably understand.

I also had insurance withheld, because my mother left her job with the state (they’re d-bags) and they took away her insurance, despite it being a breach of contract. Because of the excessive regulation, once again, I figured out how much Adderall costs without insurance (this is ~99% of the reason I even have insurance): $500 for a 90 day supply. For those who don’t know, that exceeds street value by around $200. Oh, and that’s for generic; I can’t even fathom how much brand-name would cost.

The state has also removed drugs like Vioxx from the market, which was literally the only drug that has ever alleviated my mother’s chronic pain, simply because a few high risk patients were too stupid to listen to their doctors when they said, “This isn’t advised for patients  with heart problems” and got heart attacks. There are risks to all medications; patients need to make an economic decision and own up to it.