Funny Will Ferrell and Healthcare

"Unfortunately", this video was forwarded to me by Move On, which produced the video. On the other hand, its done by Will Ferrell and is pretty funny..

Yglesias in Germany

Matthew Yglesias is traveling through Germany right now and is writing interesting things about population density, walkable cities, and world war two appeasement politics.

perhaps more interesting for a certein writer for this blog, hes got an interesting post on connections between macro and micro-economic theories and complex systems.

Canary in the Mineshaft?

I’m not a socialist, but I can have a civilized conversation with most socialists. I’m not religious, but I can have a civilized conversation with many religious people. In Canada, I (almost) never attended a demonstration, because I think most issues I care about deserve a more thoughtful response than a fist in the air and a catchy slogan, and the normal process worked pretty well to redress grievances anyway.

I attend demonstrations regularly in Germany, though, because here fascism is not dead. I cannot have an civilized conversation with fascists; a fist in the air is as appropriate a response as any. The point is to make their minority status obvious and seem hopeless and silly. Unfortunately, they’re not very silly or innocuous, and I’m wondering when they’ll cease to be tolerated generally.

People often dismiss my concerns about fascism as exaggerated, as if it’s my personal soap box issue. It might be, but it’s also a significant phenomenon in the real world. There are three nationalist-fascist parties in Germany: the NPD*, the DVU, and the Republikaner (in order of slightly decreasing detestability). There are also Kamaradschaften and Burschenschaften, which are the lower and upper-class versions of radical right-wing fraternities (though a handful are nearly tolerable). Many Germans and other Europeans claim that they’re offensive, sure, but they’re not dangerous. Well, there were nearly 20 000 right-wing crimes last year in Germany alone, of which over 1 000 were violent. The NPD has recently been harassing and threatening other parties’ non-white candidates. Last week, a 22 year-old member of the NPD’s youth wing was caught building a bomb (sorry I couldn’t find an English article about it, but you see the picture of the bomb?). They’re not just dangerous, they have ambitions to be more dangerous. What’s worse is that they just won 5.6% of the vote in Saxony, again beating the threshold to participate in the government, and they only missed the threshold in Thuringia by 7300 votes. These psychopaths are in state governments!

Okay, so they DO exist and they ARE dangerous, so why haven’t they been banned? Well, banning would require judicial proceedings, and in order to initiate these proceedings, the German state would legally have to withdraw all of its moles they have in place to observe the groups secretly. So what’s it gonna take? Here’s a thought experiment: Hizbollah officially sets up shop in a central European country, and one of their youth leaders is caught building bombs. Their members are also convicted of a thousand racially-motivated violent crimes a year. How fast would they be banned? What the hell is the difference? Why are hateful terrorists allowed to continue their work!? When will we realize that this problem is already big enough to be tricky, and it is only getting bigger? Why are these vile f*ckers tolerated!?

*Isn’t it a lovely coincidence that NPD also stands for “Narcissistic Personality Disorder”?

You can lead a horse to water and watch him contently die of thirst.

AF1 makes several good points in his letter about why health care reform is more of a political necessity in the States than just one party’s hobby topic. He’s said before that the Obama administration and the democrats generally need to work harder to sell their ideas on a personal level.

I’m afraid he’s underestimated just how much abuse Americans will demand can tolerate. In response to a woman asking how her brain-damaged husband will get proper care and treatment without health care reform, Sen./Dr. Coburn tells her to ask her neighbours. His reply garnered him applause. Got a brain tumour? Maybe Aunt Bea at the corner store can spot you some aspirin. Paraplegic? Why not ask the scout leader across the street if you can use his son’s soap box racer to get around when he grows out of it?

In Canada, a representative saying anything of the sort would have been chased down, tied up, and given a very stern talking to. In Germany, he probably would have had to announce his resignation before being allowed to leave the hall. But there are segments of the American public clamouring for these values presented with such callous and glib haughtiness. There’s some graffiti near my office that reads “It is not a sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” I think it’s a little strong for southern Germany, but it’s a shoe that might fit better elsewhere.