Let The Healers Heal And The Killer Kill

by Joe Siano

This week a New Jersey grandmother became on one of the first “beneficiaries” of New Jersey’s physician assisted suicide law.

Moral and ethical arguments aside, using doctors to terminate life is a misallocation of resources.

The Association of American Medical Colleges projects a shortage of “up to nearly 122,000 physicians by 2032 as demand for physicians continues to grow faster than supply”.  They assert that about 96,000 additional doctors are needed right now.

Training a physician takes between 7 to 15 years and costs more than $1.1 million .  This not include the opportunity cost of them working in alternative professions.

It seems shameful to put these precious individuals, so assiduously trained in in the science and art of healing, to work killing people.  America is awash in well-schooled killers.

The United States Armed Forces employs nearly 2.2 active duty and reserve military personnel.    This includes some 72,000 Special Forces warriors. 

In contrast to physician training, Special Forces training takes a little over a year plus boot camp.  These highly trained warriors eventually cycle back to civilian life – many in search of gainful employment.

America’s Finest could easily relieve America’s healers of life termination chores.  In fact, I am sure that they would do it swiftly, quietly and painlessly.  That’s what they do.

Is using our plentiful armed forces personnel to kill civilians any less ethical than using our precious healers?  I say not.

Since assisted suicide is regarded as a humanitarian enterprise, it is logical extension of America’s policy of humanitarian intervention.

Humanitarian intervention is the War Party’s sales tool for soft selling invasion and killing – all in the name of protecting foreign peoples from their own governments. 

If soldiers killing people abroad is a humanitarian endeavor, how can it be less so here at home?

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"Half the people are stoned and the other half are waiting for the next election.
Half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong direction." 
- Paul Simon

King George, Honest Abe & LeBron

by Joe Siano

This past week King James was roundly excoriated for coddling the successors to Chairman Mao.

I am no fan of Communism and neither is the King.  What Beijing is doing in Hong Kong has nothing to to do with Communism and everything to do with Statism.

What the People's Republic of China is doing to its most prosperous city is nothing different than what King George did to his rebellious Colonies and what President Lincoln did to the seceding Southerners.

Britain’s thirteen American Colonies had enjoyed over a century and a half of self-government when the King and Parliament endeavored to meddle in America’s affaires.  Until then, Parliament had neither legislated for nor taxed the Colonies.  When they did, the colonials chaffed and resisted.  The British pushed back.  This led to more resistance, more pushing and ultimately war and bloodshed.

Edmund Burke recognized that the Colonies had evolved their own culture, traditions and modes of  governance.  They deserved independence if they wanted it, he maintained.  The King saw things differently.  He was jealous of his domain and waged eight years of war killing tens of thousands to hold onto what he believed was rightfully his.

The beloved Abe Lincoln was a sectional president.  He won 40% of the popular vote and carried no Southern States.  As President, Lincoln pursued the interest-based policies of his party.  His government imposed tariffs which disproportionately fell on the South.  The tariffs paid for public investments which typically benefited the North.

Southerners saw the writing on on the wall.  Demographics were destiny.  The sparsely populated agrarian South would never defeat the densely populated industrial North is a national election.  Thus, the Southern states were doomed to unending Northern exploitation.

The handed in their resignation.  They would shake hands with the North, agree to disagree and go their separate ways as friends.

The South had its own economy, culture and traditions.  The Constitution was widely regarded as a voluntary compact among independent nation states from which any member may voluntarily withdraw.  Many abolitionists agitated for Northern secession.

Honest Abe did not agree.  Southern taxes were central his program of Northern improvement.  So like King George before him, Lincoln went to war, killing 620,000 of his countrymen to maintain Washington’s revenue stream.

And so it is with Hong Kong.  Milton Friedman tells the story of the miracle of Hong Kong – a island considered to be worthless, that became a commercial juggernaut.  

Like the American Colonies and the Southern states, Hong Kong also had its own economy, traditions and culture apart from the Mainland.

Like King George in yesteryear, Beijing is tightening the screws.  Like the American colonists, Hong Kong is resisting and one thing is leading to another.  It has nothing to do with Communism.  It has everything to do tyrants – be they kings, presidents or dictators – protecting what they see as theirs.

The story is as old as the Bible.  Pharaoh hated the Israelites living in Egypt, but he refused to let go.   The Hebrews were cheap labor that he could not give up.  One thing led to another.  Pharaoh finally relented after the Slaughter of Firstborn.   The he recanted and sent his army to recapture the escaped slaves.  (That army would drown in the Red Sea.  Score one for the good guys.)

So, returning to LeBron, and his friends at the NBA at Nike.  He is no Communist.  Nor is he a friend of liberty.  Good King James is just another crony capitalist who stands with liberty when it pays and with oppression when it pays better.

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"Half the people are stoned and the other half are waiting for the next election.
Half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong direction." 
- Paul Simon