Until I read this article, I had not realized what y-u-u-u-g-e role the welfare state had played in bringing about the current epidemic of opioid addiction. And, of course, it was idiot progressive policies what did it.
[The Medicaid card] pays for medicine—whatever pills a doctor deems that the insured patient needs. Among those who receive Medicaid cards are people on state welfare or on a federal disability program known as SSI. . . . If you could get a prescription from a willing doctor—and Portsmouth had plenty of them—Medicaid health-insurance cards paid for that prescription every month. For a three-dollar Medicaid co-pay, therefore, addicts got pills priced at thousands of dollars, with the difference paid for by U.S. and state taxpayers. A user could turn around and sell those pills, obtained for that three-dollar co-pay, for as much as ten thousand dollars on the street.
According to the article, 1 in 5 males between the ages of 25 and 55 is on MedicAid.
The reason Conservatives oppose Government-as-the-solution-to-every-problem is not because we hate poor people. It’s because we have the ability to recognize patterns and understand the reason for those patterns. And one persistent pattern is that when Government gets involved in social engineering, it makes every problem worse. And our understanding of this problem is that bureaucracies do not exist to solve problems, because doing so would negate the reason for their own existence and then all the bureaucrats would lose their power and jobs. The imperative of Government bureaucracies is to perpetuate and exacerbate problems so they can grow their power.
The terror attacks of 9-11-2001 are an excellent example. They represented a massive failure on the part of our intelligence agencies and security apparatus to protect the public. These same bureaucracies were rewarded for their failure with massive increases in funding and power; not a single bureaucrat lost her job, and the worst of them — Clinton crony Jamie Gorelick — went on to play a role in the financial collapse of 2008 while becoming a multimillionaire in the process. Public education is another example; the more it fails (as measured by our dismal test scores compared with other industrialized countries), the more money it gets.
To be conservative is to have the wisdom to understand that when you reward failure, you get more failure. Whenever possible, we should rely on people who actually want to fix problems, not make a career out of worsening them.
Logic is something that sounds too much like math, hence… what can we expect from them? (Answer: Feelz.)
Feelz is also what’s coming down the pike when we have to pay for those awesome QE’s someday. What a charade.
Interesting that they mention Portsmouth, Ohio. I have friends there. They are, fortunately, gainfully employed, but I worry about the atmosphere they may be living in.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome each time. Hence, by that definition, the Left is insane for thinking that throwing money at a problem will make it go away every time, despite all evidence to the contrary.
where does the idea of rewarding failure come from? maybe from the most evil idea in the history of mankind; “you should share according to your needs. ” the central idea of socialism requires that if you want more you have to make yourself worse off. gee what does that do to your self esteem? contrast that with evil capitalism where you can get more if you work longer, harder or better. not that’s pure evil.
Unfortunately, as long as you are governed by a warm-body democracy you will NEVER fix this issue.
Zombies are “warm-bod[ied]” now?
First thing to remember is that the left has no interest in solving actual problems.
Some years back, my sister worked at a pharmacy in a less-than-prosperous part of town. She said they filled a large number of prescriptions for “Soma” (a muscle relaxant) which also happens to “potentiate” the effects of opiods. In some case, the “patients” would object to generics (apparently the branded version fetched more money on the black market).
So, yes, gov’t owns some of the blame but a fair amount also belong to unethical doctors writing these scripts providing, yet again, justification for gov’t-monitored prescription databases. Oh, and the “patients” own much blame.
Here, Peter Brimelow explains why immigration (as it is these days) is Viagra for the state.
http://www.vdare.com/articles/immigration-is-the-viagra-of-the-state-a-libertarian-case-against-immigration
The only problem being solved is the problem that the state is not yet intrusive and expensive enough.
This is off-topic, but who the hell is the Reagan Battalion? Because apparently they have decided that Milo is “a far-right charlatan tricking conservatives,” and have started digging up dirt on him. They sound like bitter #NeverTrumper hold-outs who are jealous that a gay man is getting popular with conservatives.
We experienced this perpetual system as we adopted from the foster care system. The front line workers had their hearts in the right place but their hands were tied by the regulations and administration that had only one purpose : continue and expand the cycle of kids in foster care. A prime example : selective removal of children. Another : extensive attempts at parent reunification until the child was over 10. This is the “cut off” age for people wanting to adopt. The kids remain in foster then become parents whose kids are in the system.
As much as “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs” sounds, it has one fatal flaw:
Who decides what my abilities are? Who decides what my needs are?
If I get to decide, then my abilities are taste testing food for high class restaurants, testing expensive housing for quality and durability, testing high fashion clothing for fit and durability, and testing resorts for service and comfort. Which, interestingly enough, match my needs as well.
If someone else gets to decide, how can they truly know what my abilities and needs are?
Communism was invented by a rich, privileged guy and his lay-about friend. No wonder it’s so popular among Ivy League punks.
Never heard of ’em. Sounds ignorable.
Sorry for another tangent, but this one always drives me nuts. According to the interwebs:
Brave New World, written 1931, published 1932
Carisoprodol, developed and first sold in 1959.
What genius in Marketing decides to name a new prescription pharmaceutical after a drug that’s a central device in a dystopian sci fi novel? Isn’t someone supposed to actually check stuff like this? Right up there with Beriberi (ahem, “Berry Berry”) Kix, the only childrens’ cereal named after a vitamin deficiency (Also try Scurvy, Rickets and all-new Pellagra!).
In the “libertarian” sense the drug addled person is, perhaps, his own worst enemy, but not society’s problem. If a spouse and children are in the picture, then throw the bum out and take responsibility for a new reality. But that is also a choice and not a requirement of obeying the law.
If the state is stupid enough to sell sought after drugs at stupid prices, the entrepreneurial capitalist is acting sanely to game the system.
In the world of actual limited government, if the druggie robs Peter to pay Paul for his drugs, he is acting of his own volition. Society has the right to cage him up in order to make themselves safe.
But, along come the do-gooders dedicated to helping people save themselves from their own bad choices. Fine. Good on them. But if the do-gooders are paid government bureaucrats, then the government has to take money by force from the population in order to pay the assigned, paid, do-gooders.
If we do not have the societal stomach to see losers being losers in our midst, then we must develop some sort of coherent plan.
So, when the do-gooders howl, it is the time for limited government to ask for the battle plans and to be very consistent about the scope and sequence of any suggested solution.
“For the children” or “black lives matter” or “its a woman’s choice” or whatever other slogan are not clear and unambiguous propositions and certainly none of them could ever qualify as a “principle.”
@ Sathar: The Reagan Battalion wouldn’t bother me so much if they weren’t alleging that Milo is a pedophile or a pederasty advocate.
So a group who named themselves for the first Republican President to court the religious right is throwing a hissy-fit over a gay man “corrupting” the conservative movement, and accusing him of being a pedophile. I thought we were effing past this?!
@11″ Sather, I’ve wondered that as well. When I first heard my sister’s story, Huxley popped to mind and I (again) wondered about marketing people.
But, I vaguely remember that soma can also have something to do with neurons – so maybe that’s the root of the drug’s marketing name.
@13: Sean. the battalion website just has links to a bunch of other conservative sites but not much to describe who/what it is.
I think RR was one of the great presidents but I get tired of every group that comes down the line taking Reagan’s name. I remember when the gov’t named some humongous gov’t edifice in DC with all the usual imperial trim (marble, etc) after RR. A lot of people noted at the time that RR himself would not be flattered having an elaborate symbol of Leviathan with his name on it.
This has been going on for years, but so many people get payouts only an uncompromised outsider like TRUMP could have any chance of affecting it.
OT: This would better to be linked in the 56 different boyfriends a month post.
http://www.anonymousconservative.com/blog/ebola-super-spreaders-were-who-spread-the-pandemic/
I meet gays who said they purposely tried to infect the blood supply to make STR8s come up with a cure faster, but never understood why they could bring themselves to do so.
” Nothing would trigger a narcissist like the sight of healthy people, when they themselves are sick”
Yeah, I think that’s pretty much it. Not sure who is behind Reagan Battalion, but I’ve noticed their anti-Milo commentary on Twitter. It’s important to remember that Milo ruffles enough feathers across the spectrum to garner a wide variety of enemies. It will be interesting to see how his non-keynote at CPAC goes and is received.
His appearance on Real Time is garnering praise from his supporters and the requisite dissing from his detractors. However, I notice that some of those who might like his message have said that they couldn’t watch his performance because he was too “girly”. It makes me wonder if he has finally crossed the tolerance line from those who might have homophobic tendencies but have heretofore sublimated them over a desire to align with someone who shares similar views. (Conversely, I think this is partly why he irritates leftist gays: for once there’s someone who’s spouting politically incorrect views who isn’t doing so under a veneer of exaggerated masculinity who can thus be accused of ‘internalized homophobia’.)
@ KCRob: I think there’s a certain amount of horseshoe theory happening here. On the one hand, you have liberals saying that because a man has sex with men, he cannot be conservative, because apparently being a conservative gay man makes you self-loathing or something. On the other hand, you have conservatives saying that because a man has sex with men, he cannot be conservative because that doesn’t gel with (their particular interpretation of) conservative values, and any gay person who identifies was conservative is actually as secret liberal/communist/fascist trying to corrupt the movement. Either way, you have people who say that one’s sexual orientation dictates what political positions they can and cannot hold. And personally, I think that anybody who gets so worked up about somebody’s sexuality has a major totalitarian streak.
Plus, I just get really aggravated by the whole “all gay people are actually pedophiles” thing. I would call it “gay blood libel,” but gay rights activists of decades past didn’t exactly help things by associating with NAMBLA. Just gives certain elements fuel to beat us over the head with.
Keep in mind that a fair amount of it is deflection and/or projection. Many of the “let’s put the homo pedos in prison where they belong” often are those who are later caught soliciting teenage girls or who end up being charged with domestic sexual abuse.
@18: Sean – exactly. Well said.
Aside from the wedding cake fascists and bathroom-warriors, I think the average person is past caring much about same-sex relationships (provided they’re left alone) which is as it should be. Most people have bigger issues to face.
“Denmark is because they have a $25.hr minimum wage and a 30 hour work week and free health care and college and all that. I think working less, getting paid more, and getting all kinds of free sh-t is the dream of a hell of a lot of very lazy people.”
Scandinavian nations could get away with it for a while because of the oil revenue, then they decided to become the cat lady of the 3rd world, importing people that evolved to outbreed disease but are those that would have died in the 3rd world are medically needy.
@ 16, what the hell kind of blog is that?
It’s Steve. What do you expect? It has a history on here of being an out, loud, and proud racist.
*He not it.
In case I have to explain it: racists being people who get into all kinds of crazy sh!t.
No surprise Cray-Cray trots out the racist card for anyone to the right of…oh, who knows what straw racists are in his crazy head.
Damaged Justice > I have been commenting here on GP for around seven years. Steve is the only person from memory (at least in the last few years) I have called a racist. His comments are well-documented (well, at least the ones GP haven’t removed). But feel free to clutch your pearls and call me an extremist.
Speaking of pearls, MY-low could take some lessons from Ashley Judd.
I have to defend CrayCray on this; Steve tends to link to WILDLY racist and anti-Semitic sites. And he himself is VERY much an anti-Semite.
CrayCray got this one right.
Horseshit.
Which part is horsesh!t?
That Steve is a racist, that MY-low could take some lessons from Ashley Judd when it comes to wearing pearls, or that I’ve bene around GP for seven years?
(Quite honestly, I wish it were the third choice)