The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Ken:

"Rush Limbaugh is a dirty aristocratic snothead who thinks he's above the law because of his wealth and status, and who makes people who actually desperately need their meds suffer. That poor guy who's living in excruciating pain shouldn't go to jail for 25 years. How about he goes free and gets his desperately-needed meds, and Rush gets serious major jailtime?"

No, it's the people who think that it's worth paying any price, including condemning innocent people to needless suffering and death, to stop people like Rush Limbaugh from getting his jollies, that make people who actually desperately need their meds suffer.

Now any large system will have cases where things go wrong and people suffer. But I maintain a system where people are more free to solve their problems is superior to a system where people are less free to solve their problems. A system where people who need medicine are never prevented from getting it, but some who are determined to misuse it are not prevented, is superior to one where everyone is protected against their will and a number of people will be deprived by law of treatment that exists and that they can pay for.

Nothing in a deregulated system would prevent people consulting doctors and getting advice on treatment. People who are not smart enough to be their own doctors would be smart enough to consult doctors and take their advice. As for people who won't even use the common sense to do that, it's unfortunate if they hurt themselves, but protecting people who would otherwise be so willfully stupid does not justify condemning anyone who will actually try to solve their problems correctly to excruciating pain, unemployment, mental disability, or other treatable condition.

"Because we will all be stuck with the cost of saving their idiot asses once they discover they weren't the experts in modern pharmacopoeia they thought they were?"

Well, we're paying anyway in higher medical costs, plus paying for the idiots when they find some other way to hurt themselves, and paying in restricted access to medicine, plus paying ever-higher costs as society continues its futile quest to eliminate all the myriad ways that idiots can hurt themselves.

And the idiots themselves breed faster than we do, so all those costs themselves go up over time.

"Nathan, I could maybe see a system where a person would have to consult with a doctor first, and then could get what are now prescription drugs, but I can't see a system where anyone can buy anything. It's way too easy to kill or maim yourself with the modern pharmacopoeia. Just for starters, we'd have a hellacious problem with misapplied antibiotics."

Antibiotics aside (since they can breed superbugs that spread), why does stopping idiots from hurting themselves justify any restrictions on medicine? It's not like idiots are an endangered species that actually need to be protected.

"I want Abraham Lincoln to get on down here and challenge Bush to a duel with broadswords in a ten foot deep pit."

You mean the guy that threw journalists in jail because they publicly suggested that the South ought to be allowed to depart the Union in peace? That Abraham Lincoln?

If Lincoln was running the show, there'd be a hell of a lot more chilling of dissent going on. There'd also be a #*&(#@ draft.

Bush doesn't seem so bad now, does he?

I'll add my voice to the sentiment that people should usually be left to make their own choices, even if they might hurt themselves, and that most people will seek expert advice when they need it without being forced to.

There's more research and development to be done throughout the medical field, and inserting a "Mother May I" into every step is a good way to drastically slow it down and leave our kids at the mercy of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune without the tools they otherwise could have. And leaves us still doomed to a nasty, painful, lingering death in less than a century.

I wish I had a few more choices. Ritalin is okay... although when I take enough to really get my work done, I'm awakened by a racing heart in the middle of the night. Strattera also helps... but taking enough to be mostly functional provokes "sexual side effects". Taking both together, at doses low enough to avoid these nasty side-effects, has some benefit but still leaves me short of normal functioning ability. I haven't tried adderal yet, but it's another stimulant, so I'm not expecting any dramatic differences. There's bound to be a drug that'll get me going on all cylinders; I hope I live to see it invented and marketed and somehow get past the F(n)DA.

"African nations need honest governments, honest help and honest trade, and this could as well mean for the 1st-world people to simply bugger off and leave them grow up on their own. One of the best solutions would be to simply stop selling stuff to African nations, and only buy from them"

Buy from them with what? US dollars don't do a whole lot of good if people can't buy American goods with them. We'd essentually be asking them to ship us their stuff and get worthless paper in return.

"they'd be forced to satisfy their internal markets on their own, and build strong economies, with export as a side benefit. "

Yeah, just look how well that works in Cuba.

"would don't have a federal government that lets people starve and then blames it on the locals be one the things not to do."

Well, unless the locals are doing things like blocking food shipments. In that case, blaming the locals seems like an eminently sensible thing to do.

"If nationalizing pharmaceutical companies and posting troops at the factories is what it takes to get them producing vaccine 24/7, I'm all for it."

What about if dropping price controls and government bulk purchases were what it took to get them producing vaccine 24/7?

"Putting motels on notice that they might get turned into make-shift hospitals sounds like a good idea for me. Ditto letting medical supply places know that their inventory of oxygen tanks and respirators will be seized to stock those hotels."

Or we could drop restrictions, let ordinary people buy oxygen tanks and respirators and other such goodies, let production scale up to meet the increased demand, and have more of the things already in existence when bad things happen on a large scale. Does "whatever it takes" extend to dropping restrictions, or only to tightening them?

"Also some multivitamins, and enough of any medication that you need to take to cover that period of time."

Yeah, it would be great if the powers-that-be actually let you stock up on any medicine that you might need.

"In my neck of the woods, Los Angeles, I'm encountering many small groups of people who are stockpiling seriously for the first time, who are taking Red Cross classes for the first time, who are doing all those things the 1994 Northridge quake did not get them to do. Why? Because it's occurred to them (and me) that we may not get any help, or that help will not be allowed in, in a useful amount of time. The statement "I don't need to worry. The Red Cross/some authority will be there right away" is not a statement some people have faith in right now."

Good. "Some authority will be there right away" is not a healthy attitude in any event. Even if individual preparation doesn't solve the whole problem, it does lessen the scope of it.

And, of course, individual preparation is absolutely indispensable if you live in Louisiana, where state and local officials have been known to do things like forbid the delivery of relief supplies and forget about their own fleets of vehicles while accusing the Feds of letting people starve and depriving them of transportation.

Actually "stay the hell away from Louisiana" is a recipe for success on several levels, but is particularly important in the event of a disaster.

"one way or the other, we need to know things like, oh, who actually made the decision to prevent the Red Cross from going into New Orleans."

That would be the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security, an office of the state government.

I'll be glad to point fingers, as long as they're pointed in the right direction. The state government kept out the Red Cross. The Gretna police kept people from leaving. The New Orleans city government proclaimed a "mandatory" evacuation a single day before landfall that 100,000+ people were physically incapable of complying with, and failed to use its own assets and follow its own plan to get them out.

The Feds showed up in force as quickly as they ever have, within the period of time promised (48-96 hours) after disaster struck, and things got a hell of a lot better damn quick after they did.

So let me get this straight.

Every time something bad happens, the call goes out to raise taxes (more generally phrased as "repeal the [disparaging adjective] tax cuts"). That's not politicizing a tragedy.

But, given the need to spend scads of money by a new situation, the idea of limiting Social Security benefits - that is politicizing a tragedy?

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