Reparations

 I do not have a great grandfather, nor even a great great great great grandfather, who was enslaved by neighboring tribesmen in Africa, sold to the Dutch at the coast, eventually transported to the US and sold to a Southern farmer to work in his fields.  Even if I did have a remote relative who was enslaved by others (and for all I know, I did have someone in my family tree who had been, or who was an indentured servant which is generally worse), I would feel like an idiot to demand that my fellow citizens should be raped and pillaged to give me the fruits of their labor because of my supposed disadvantages.

However, I *was* compelled to serve in the Armed Forces from 1968 to 1973 with 1.75 years active duty in the US Naval Reserve.  My alternatives were to be drafted, to leave the country (Canada for example), to claim I was homosexual, to fake a medical problem, etc.  Occupational deferment was applied for but was not given to a programmer at a major defense contractor before, in self preservation, I took the remaining option of enlistment in a reserve service so I could accumulate enough seniority to work in my field while eventually on active duty.  That such choices were before me hardly diminished the compulsory nature of the service imposed on men my age.

The essential definition of slavery is to be owned by someone else.  I learned while on active duty that while the UCMJ, as all on active duty are, if I had for example gone to the beach on liberty and gotten a bad enough sunburn that I could not do my work the next day, I could be taken to Captain's Mast (Commanding Officer's Non Judicial Punishment) for the offense of damaging Government Property.  The property in question?  My own body, but not my own, because it was at that time the Government's property.

I was, literally, a slave.  Not some remote relative whose face I never saw and whose name I might not know, but my own self.  None of the people on whose behalf demands are made for Reparations has personally been a slave, unless they, like me, served in the Armed Forces of the United States.

So, on behalf of all those of us who have served on active duty during our own lifetimes, I demand that if reparations are extorted from US Taxpayers to enrich a class of people whose remote ancestors might (or might not) have been slaves, then all of us who have served should be enriched by Reparations from all those we were enslaved to protect.  The Government knows who we all are, and by definition knows who (everyone else) would need to be assessed to make those reparations.  If Reparations are such a fine idea, let's see ours!

The High Cost of Healthcare in the US

 We hear continuously that "healthcare" is expensive in the US.  We then hear about greedy corporations and other leftist targets.  My personal experience identifies two very significant targets that are not mentioned among those leftist tropes.

One is lawsuits such as malpractice brought by attorneys who seem to be far greedier than corporations.  In the early 1990s, my first ex wife was emerging from medical school and at that time hoped for a residency in OB/Gyn which had been her motivation for training to be a physician in the first place.  At that time, we learned that the annual malpractice insurance premium for that specialty was on the order of $200,000.  This, given a 2080 hour work year, amounted to roughly $100 per hour simply for mandatory insurance.  If that cost has tracked with general inflation, the premium should be over $200 per hour now.  This is before the doctor in a private practice pays for rent, utilities, equipment, assistants and other general office expenses. If I were responsible for reducing the cost of "healthcare" this would be my first target. 

A second target is the game of setting excessive list (cash) prices which may then be deeply discounted (better than 90% as I have seen) by Medicare and, to a lesser extent, by insurance companies.  I've been a cash customer and know well how absurd the pricing I, as a cash customer, must pay in order for the Government to pretend at heroism by "getting me a discount" (some doctors and institutions have offered me a 15% cash discount, almost insulting given the discounts given to insurance companies, let alone government.)  Without these games, the cash price would probably be less than what the government pays, not ten times as much.

Each of these rackets CAN ONLY EXIST because the powers of government were used to make them possible and maintain their viability (try doing anything opposed by ALTA and learn all about political pressure.)