Tax Coke? No. Tax Jogging Instead

Running low on ways to bleed older targets of convenience (smokers, drinkers, etc), the U.S. Senate - whose example will doubtlessly be emulated in countless other places during these taxing times - is contemplating a tax on pop and other sugared beverages in order to fund the Obama Administration’s dream of (further) socializing American medicine. This, along with other sin taxes on foods and beverages that are unpopular with people of a certain cast of mind, is being justified upon the spurious grounds that the consumption of these items imposes costs upon all taxpayers through the public financing of health care.

This is wrong in every way.

First of all, I put it to you - and this is well-trodden ground, I know - that the argument that socialized medicine forces us to bear the costs of the irresponsible behavior of some and therefore we should regulate that behavior actually makes the case against socialist health care. Without a free market to regulate and constrain the behavior of individuals we are left with two bad choices. Either we can simply pay for those who choose to be free riders or we can attempt to control their behavior through coercion.

Obviously none of us would opt for the former. However, the latter is injurious to liberty requiring, as it does, odious and progressive regulation of individual choice of the sort that no free people should ever accept. The ability to make “bad” decisions is integral to freedom.

And, of course, the argument of the regulators and socializers assumes that there is some body competent to make objective decisions as to which activities cost the system money and therefore ought to be penalized and which “preventative” ones help to reduce costs and therefore should be subsidized. Assuming there is such a group of people anywhere in the world, I can assure you that they are not in the service of the state.

Thus, in these cases, value judgements are substituted for economic ones. Thus are the things that the regulators and their friends believe to be bad - smoking, drinking, fast food, Coca-Cola - condemned and taxed. There’s a simply rational thought process behind this: these things are “unhealthy” and therefore they are “bad” and therefore they must cost the government money and should thus be taxed. The propaganda to this effect is so pervasive that those who indulge in these vices, for the most part, happily consent to their mugging.

This, as is so often the case where popular and widespread beliefs are concerned, is totally wrong. One simply needs to think it through with cold rationality. Who is likely to cost the state more money: the obese man who drops dead of a sudden and massive heart attack at the age of sixty-four or the jogger who requires knee and hip surgery and who lives to the age of ninety-four, requiring sustained individual care for the last decade of their life? “Duh” is an appropriate answer here.

A recent Dutch study found that, “For healthy 20 year olds, the remaining lifetime health care costs over $400,000, compared with $365,000 for the obese and $321,000 for the smokers.” Those numbers, I think, actually understate the case. The guy who dies at the age of sixty-four never collects a government pension (though I suppose his widow might, depending on the circumstances, collect something - but the cost would nonetheless be massively reduced). He ends up passing his savings on to his children, perhaps freeing them from dependence upon state subsidies in their own age, instead of burning up an accumulated lifetime of wealth in a futile and miserable effort to cheat death.

We’re facing an imminent crisis of public finance. Frankly, my generation can’t afford for most of the Baby Boomers to live into their ninth and tenth decades. We shouldn’t be taxing soda - we should be subsidizing it. The government should be erecting posters encouraging the Baby Boomers to smoke, drink, eat, and generally be merry for the sake of their children. Hell, if we’re going to tax anything, let’s tax jogging - joggers being people whose irresponsible and reckless behavior wears out their bodies, requiring expensive operations to correct, for the selfish purpose of living longer lives during which they will be ever-increasing draws on the treasury. Yeah - let’s tax them.

The Known and the Unknown

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once declared that everything in life can be broken down into three categories - the things that you know you know, the things that you know that you don’t know, and those that you don’t know that you don’t know. In other words - the known knowns, the known unknowns, and the unknown unknowns. Thus, in the case of the Swine Flu, we - as citizens - are left with facts that fall into all three boxes.

Here is what we know:

• We know that there is a new strain of Influenza that has emerged in the last few months.
• We know that the strain falls into the H1N1 sub-type, one that has been responsible for multiple pandemics in the past, including the Spanish Flu of 1918-19.
• We know that the epicenter of the outbreak is in Mexico, mostly in Mexico City.
• We know that the virus has now spread globally, with cases in about ten countries, most of them with a direct link to the Mexican outbreak.
• We know that there is no vaccine available.
• We know that some anti-viral drugs, such as Tamiflu, appear to be viable treatment options.

Here are some of the things that we know that we don’t know:

• We don’t know the degree to which the Mexican Government, hardly known for efficiency and incorruptibility in the best of times, is capable of coping with and making an honest accounting of the scale of the crisis. This is a serious factor, because we are going to have to rely upon them in ascertaining the magnitude of the problem that we face. If their numbers are correct and there have only been twenty additional deaths and a few hundred additional cases since the first reporting, then it’s possible that the problem may already be coming under control. If those numbers are, by deception or incompetence, inaccurate - then we may suffer an unpleasant surprise in the coming days.

• We don’t know the degree to which our leaders - at all levels - are acting upon information that has yet to be disclosed to the public. This is one element that bears close observation. I can’t recall of another example where I’ve seen such a flurry of governmental activity. Governments, by nature, are lethargic creatures - this has governments jumping into action globally. We’ve seen an awful lot of activity over this weekend. Are all of these Governors, Cabinet Secretaries, and so forth simply acting out of a post-Katrina CYA mode (“let’s make sure that we’re seen to do something in case this really gets bad!”) or do they have access to information that has frightened them enough to spur action.

• We don’t know how quickly it’s spreading. The first reports are of fairly isolated cases. However, if the sickness is easily passed on, those reports could quickly multiply. In particular, overcrowded hospitals with long waits could easily become a driver of infection. As could schools and the like.

• We don’t know what actual stockpiles of anti-viral drugs look like and who has control over them.

Finally, of course, there are the things that we don’t know that we don’t know. When you’re walking down the street you know that there’s a danger from the car speeding towards you. You know that you don’t know if there’s a car about to fly around the corner. You don’t know that you don’t know that there’s a decommissioned Soviet reconnaissance satellite about to fall on you.

“Less Dangerous” American Swine Flu?

Over at TPM Josh Marshall, who really should know better, makes a throwaway comment about the “mystery” of the American strain of the Swine Flu being, “much less virulent” than the one circulating in Mexico. This is something that, across multiple blogs, I’ve seen claimed over the last two days. It really needs to be addressed.

To do that, we need to discuss a basic question: why is this particular form of Influenza so threatening? Because it falls outside of predictable patterns for this disease. Where normally the flu needs to take out the very young, the very old, and the very sick, the strain that spread during this pandemic of 1918-19 killed by triggering a type of fatal immune reaction in otherwise healthy young and middle-aged people called a “Cytokine storm.” We seem to be seeing a similar pattern among the deaths in Mexico.

It’s really, therefore, far too soon to proclaim that the “American” version of the disease is somehow different or less fatal. Not only have there only been a handful of cases, but the demographic breakdown of those cases that we know some details of (IE - the Queens high school students) suggests that most of the known infected fall outside of the most vulnerable demographic subgroup.

The Mexican Flu: Time to Panic?

Should we panic about the new H1N1 virus that is ravaging Mexico City and seems, within the last few hours, to have quickly spread to New York City, Kansas, and possibly Montreal? Yes, probably, though I hasten to note that blind panic never does any good for anyone. So, in my very best official voice I will state that while we should not panic, we ought to view the developing situation with deep and growing concern.

I’ve heard some people, particularly commenters on various news sites, express thoughts like, “well, it’s just the flu - thousands of people die from the flu every time it breaks out.” That’s fair enough, but it misses several important points about this particular outbreak.

1. This is a new flu strain - it’s of the H1N1 type, but it’s a new mutation. There isn’t a vaccine for it. This is a Avian-Swine-Human hybrid virus.
2. Reports out of Mexico suggest that most of the dead are not in the classes typically vulnerable to the flu - the very young, the elderly, and the immuno-compromised. Instead, the reports have the contagion mostly claiming healthy young adults, much like the Spanish Flu of 1918-19.
3. Based on earlier reports, the case fatality ratio here seems to be very, very high - something like 6-7%. In comparison, the Spanish Flu had a CFR in the 2-3% range.

This is a problem we should take seriously. We don’t yet have enough information to answer the question of how seriously. The information that we have is sketchy at best but, overall, it paints a picture of a situation that is worse than the official statements have let on.

First of all, I think that it’s probably fair to say that the much-bandied numbers regarding the outbreak - about a thousand sick in Mexico and sixty-eight dead - are completely obsolete. The fact that we haven’t had any new numbers since yesterday is perhaps the most troubling fact before us at the moment. The Mexicans, the WHO, and the CDC all know that they’ve set off world-wide fears about a pandemic. If they had positive numbers to give us (“there have only been fifteen new cases reported in the last twenty-four hours and only two additional deaths”) I think that they would be pushing them out via every means of communication. By inference, that leads me to believe that the outbreak in Mexico City and its surrounding areas has not abated.

The actions of the Mexican Government, the CDC, and the WHO in the last twenty-four hours also suggest a deepening crisis. Remember - they have more information than we do. In the last few hours, we’ve gotten two bits of concerning news:

• The Mexican Government has empowered its health officials to begin conducting house-by-house inspections and to quarantine the infected. That suggests, to me at least, a deepening problem. The scale of the voluntary lockdown imposed on Mexico City also suggests something big.
• The WHO’s inconclusive meeting on whether to raise the pandemic alert level. Frankly, I can’t think of many things that make me more nervous than when Doctors can’t quite decide or agree on what to do.

What is the individual citizen to do about this? That’s a tougher decision. From where I’m standing, there isn’t much that the individual can do - other than perhaps to stock up on some supplies and to keep their head up. From there, we have some harder questions.

I can tell you one thing - I’d much rather be in the United States than anywhere else at the moment. For all of its flaws, the American health care system is the best-positioned to deal with this sort of pandemic. Most reports suggest that Tamiflu and other antiviral drugs are the best weapon against H1N1. Not only is the United States going to have the largest stockpiles of the stuff (and first dibs on additional production), but it also has a solid Doctor:patient ratio and an effective distribution of Doctors. Dispersion is going to be key in a crisis because major medical centers are likely to be overwhelmed and, more than that, are going to be as likely to spread as to combat the virus. As well, if things really get bad, the United States has a large enough military to render effective aid to the civil power - I don’t think that’s the case elsewhere. I know damned well that it isn’t the case in Canada.

I’m not sure how much use some of the other measures being discussed - travel bans and the like - will be of at this point. But, on the other hand, I can’t really see how they would hurt.

We Can Be Safe Still

The present struggle is not only for today; it is for the yesterday and tomorrow as well. The question with which we are confronted is, fundamentally, whether this country has a future or not. The victory of the Separatist-Socialist coalition in the coming days would end any chance of this country surviving to celebrate it’s bi-centennial. Indeed, if the separatists and socialists win I doubt if we’ll even make it to one hundred and fifty. The question is whether we can now honour our past and preserve our future.

Is that over-dramatic? I don’t believe that it is. Where, one wonders, will the untold treasures now being promised to Ontario and Quebec come from if they are not looted from the West? Unless Mme. Dion intends to have Midas in the Cabinet, there will be no choice for the Coalition but to strike at the West.

Where would that $30 Billion (and when have you ever known a government program to come in on or under budget?) come from, if not from the West? Quebec can’t very well transfer money to itself, can it? Ontario isn’t going to fund its own manufacturing bailout. And, as I mentioned before, we all know that the final cost of the thing isn’t going to be the number that we’re given up front.

The Separatist-Socialist coalition would, so far as most of the Western Provinces are concerned, be nothing less than an occupying power. If the coalition were to come to power, the West would be transformed into a de facto colony – exploited for resources and receiving nothing in return. If we pay any heed to the argument (and I don’t believe that we should) that the Coalition should be allowed to govern because it won, when added together, a majority of the national popular vote, then I believe that we should also consider that the Conservatives singularly won a majority of the vote in the West. The coalition’s control in the West extends little farther than a handful of Green Zones in urban centers.

“No taxation without representation” has been an effective slogan in the past. I have little doubt that it could be again – especially when the wealth of a region is being effectively looted to satiate the endless and obscene appetites of certain regions for Western cash to subsidize their own indolence. At least when the British levied taxes upon the American colonists they were meant to defray the costs of their own defense.

Indeed, in speaking to many friends over the last few days, I find myself in the uncomfortable position of acting as the moderate. I, for one, don’t hate the East. Half of my family comes from Thunder Bay, Ontario. There are people in my own life who are from the East who are very dear to me. I don’t want to be their enemy. We must not be enemies.

Yet, if this proposal were to come to pass, what other choices would we of the West have? If the Coalition is allowed to take office and enact its program, we would find ourselves subject to the tyrannical whims of what would be, effectively, a foreign government. As things stand already, it costs us more to be in Confederation than it would to stand outside of it.

The tyranny would also, more than likely, to be eternal. If those three parties form some kind of permanent alliance, that would mean that Canada would probably never again have a non-Liberal Prime Minister, regardless of how the West votes. I doubt if the Tory-voting majority of Westerners would regard that prospect with equanimity.

I do not wish for any of this to come to pass. By the logic of events drives us inexorably towards this if something does not change. Liberal MP’s aren’t going to abandon the Coalition bandwagon now – Dion has burned his ships. Ezra Levant thinks that falling poll numbers will motivate Liberals to jump ship. I think that we’re likely to see the opposite effect. Falling poll numbers make avoiding an election now a must-do for them, and the only way to do that is to seize power. Like the soldiers in some Soviet punishment battalion, even honourable Liberals must shuffle grimly forward, lest they be shot for attempting to retreat. And, once they are in power, they will have no way to stay in power but to squeeze the West harder and harder.

Some fault the Prime Minister for this crisis. Personally, I fault him only for backing down on the subsidy issue – if we are going to enter a time of government austerity (as surely we must), then it’s perfectly clear to me that welfare for politicians ought to be the very first thing that we cut. If people don’t like that, they can do what I do – and write out a cheque to their candidate or party.

Perhaps I’m an optimist but I believe that we can still win this fight. Doing so, however, will require that we fully accept the gravity of the situation and, in so doing, respond appropriately. If we will the ends – the defeat of the coalition – then we must accept the means.

A prorogation of the House is a poor option – and will probably lead to defeat. It will look like weakness and will give the coalition time to win public acceptance – and to organize. It may also give the Liberals time to settle their leadership questions. It might also give the Liberals, NDP, and the Bloc the time to work out some kind of electoral pact. As well, the thought that the Tories might then win them over with some sort of “stimulus” package of their own in the January budget violates one of the basic rules of politics – don’t bid where you can be outbid. Whatever they promise, the left will promise (and demand!) more.

No, the first step must be the one I outlined at the outset of the crisis – and which even the Globe and Mail has now taken notice of: fire the Governor-General. If we let the Coalition in, we’re probably going to be stuck with them for the long term. The guilty men and women won’t be eager to face their constituents and will need time to raise money and organize. Once they get that invitation to form a government they will begin to fortify their position and be all the much more difficult to get out.

The problem is that we can’t trust Michelle Jean to do the right thing here. After all, she’s a Liberal appointee with separatist ties. We simply can’t trust her. We have to sack her. The Prime Minister should phone the Queen and advice her to immediately dismiss Michelle Jean – advice that she would be Constitutionally obligated to accept. Whoever gets the job next should not be someone known for their independence of thought. He should do this now – as in at this very moment.

The Globe and Mail refers to this as a “nuclear option” – and they’re right. One of the principles of nuclear warfare is referred to as “use ‘em or lose ‘em.” When the enemy’s missiles are in flight you either have to shoot off what you’ve got or not. We have the bomb – we should use it.

Once that happens, the Prime Minister should call an election. Again, I mean today – and for the minimum period. Let’s vote on January 7th. All three opposition parties are effectively broke. The Liberals don’t even have a permanent leader. In doing this, the Liberals have betrayed everything that they claimed to stand for until fourteen minutes ago. Now the party that slew the deficit wants to piss away $30 Billion we don’t have. Now the party that claimed that the fight against the separatists was akin to a war – a war that required the dirty business of the sponsorship scandal – wants to form a government beholden to the separatists.

This can be our chance. The scrappy forces of the opposition are nearing our trenches and, if we lose our nerve, they will overrun them. But, if we can stand up to them here, we can convert advance into retreat, retreat into rout, and rout into massacre.

Now would be the time for the Prime Minister to consider some of the advice that I offered before the last election. He should remember that 40% of the vote equals a majority – and should concentrate on reaching that 40% rather than fishing for votes with the four parties of the left.

The campaign plan is simple. Begin by taking a strong stand on economic issues and a few other major items of importance – notably criminal justice. Dig in there. Rally your side – and cofound the opposition – by turning the patriotism issue into a plus for our side. Then, once that is done, mark out your fields of fire and then begin shelling the hell out of the enemy. Lay out a platform then move over onto the attack. Start shooting until you run out of ammunition. When that’s over with, swarm over the field and bayonet the survivors.

Concentrate upon the left’s alliance with the separatists. Paint them as the force of disunity that they have become. Attack their grotesque economic irresponsibility. Keep up the pressure – and carry on the fight – and not only can we survive, but I believe that we can win an overwhelming majority.

How I Triggered a Constitutional Crisis (And what to do next)

Ok. I’ll confess. I think I did it. So far as I can tell, I was the first one – anywhere – to float the idea of, after the election, having the government use the economic crisis as a pretext to repeal the public financing law as a way of crippling the opposition. I began putting the idea around, both in public and private, on the 26th of September. It’s certainly possible that someone else conceived of the idea independently – but it certainly flatters my vanity to think that they did not.

To begin: it’s the right thing to do on several grounds.

I fail to see why, in times of economic emergency, public money should be going to fund political campaigns. The argument that this is a “mean-spirited” cut or whatever, or is somehow a fundamental question of democracy is so much nonsense. Politicians aren’t morally entitled to money from taxpayers. And, if we’re going to be cutting spending (and we surely are) it makes sense that giveaways to political parties should be the very first thing cut.

It’s also the right thing to do because it would hurt the socialists – badly. Badly enough that they won’t be able to fight an election for years. The fact that what’s politically right and what’s morally right here are one and the same is a very happy coincidence indeed.

Alas, now the socialists – knowing how much they depend on looted taxpayer money for their survival – are talking about taking the desperate step of attempting to form a socialist-more socialist-separatist coalition. In effect, what they are planning is a sort of coup d’teat where, together, they will overthrow Canada’s elected government and seize power.

It’s likely that they won’t have the guts to do it. Instead, I suspect, they’ll posture and shout and then, in the end, a half dozen Liberal MP’s will conveniently absent themselves from the House of Commons on voting day. But, maybe not. Perhaps the opposition realizes how desperate their situation will be if they can’t take public money for themselves. Perhaps they’ll really do it.

Some will, of course, see this as a reason for a U-Turn. Many of them already deplore what they see as beastly unfairness and will be eager for a chance to retreat. There are always people who hesitate in delivering the final blow.

So here’s what needs to happen next: Harper needs to stay the course and to be prepared to act decisively when the moment comes.

The sequence of events over the next few days could play out like this:

1) The Opposition parties get their act together and announce that they’ve formed some sort of coalition, with some Prime Minister-designate.
2) The government is defeated in the House of Commons in the vote over the economic update.

3) Harper goes to the Governor-General and requests the dissolution of Parliament in preparation for a General Election.

Here’s where things get murky. The Governor-General has it within her right to refuse such a request and instead invite whoever else to attempt to form a government. This must, absolutely must, not be allowed to happen. Here is where we have to be bold.

We need good intelligence and we need rapid communications. The relationship between the Prime Minister, the Governor-General, and the Monarchy is a complicated one. The Governor-General is Constitutionally obligated to follow the advice of the Prime Minister – but they also have certain reserve powers – including the ability to dismiss the Prime Minister and invite someone else to form a government. At the same time, the Governor-General is the Monarch’s representative in Canada and is appointed on the advice of the Prime Minister.

Over the weekend, we need to take the temperature. I can’t imagine that the opposition would go to all of this trouble in cobbling together a coalition without first sounding out Michelle Jean who, after all, was appointed by them. We need to read how likely she is to accept an opposition offer to form an alternative government. Such a move would be defensible in a Constitutional sense – there are examples of it occurring in both Canada and in other Commonwealth realms. But, obviously, it would be contrary to our interests.

So, here’s the other step that would need to be taken: if the Prime Minister believes that the Governor-General is likely to accept an opposition proposal to form a new government, then the Prime Minister should contact the Queen and advise her to dismiss the Governor-General immediately, a move that the Queen would be Constitutionally obligated to make.

Now, then, the question is: do we want to do this? The answer is simple: of course we do. Simply being prepared to do it means that the opposition is more likely to back down. And, as I pointed out when I originally proposed this idea two months ago, ending the giveaway of taxpayer money is likely to leave the Liberals (and possibly the Bloc as well) bankrupt. And, if they choose to fight an election… Well, let’s just say that I like Prime Minister Harper’s chances in a campaign fought on the question of whether politicians have a right to public money at the expense of widows and orphans.