Christian Scientists : Science :: Christian Economists : Economics

In a land with decidedly mixed attitudes toward irony , the stuff seems to be in abundant supply. Americans are hearty, straightforward people who don't need bureaucrats in Washington DC making healthcare decisions for them. This function is apparently better left to bureaucrats in Hartford. The ruggedly individualist national character troubles pundits brooding over Hillary Clinton's "electability" in a presidential election. "Electability" is of course a euphemism for "illiterate Sean Hannity-types think she's a communist bulldyke." The illiterate Sean Hannity-types, like most voters, are far more concerned about perception than facts, and much of their perception of Hillary Clinton solidified in 1993 when she dusted off old Kremlin plans to seize hospitals and send turn old folks' homes into re-education camps. The effort rightly failed. Americans have no interest in the government shoving socialist medicine suppositories into their can-do rectums.

In the world's flagship market democracy, only the most competitive ideas gain currency and silly theories like universal health care end up on the next boat to Havana where they belong. The will of the people was heard, and this issue vanished from the national political debate. But as usual, our national peace and quiet couldn't last long. A tricked-out Saab with Massachusetts plates rolled down the street blasting NPR from its subwoofer recently, apparently waking up all the meddling Trotskyites. Look for ballots heavy on leftist social engineering schemes and light on Defending America in elections to come.

The great thing about elections is their irrelevance. Americans don't want their hard earned money diverted to welfare queens rolling around in Cadillacs full of babies. When such lunacy somehow finds its way into public policy, patriots like Bad Grover find clever ways to let the air out of the Cadillac's tires. Hostility toward open democracy is a key element of cleverness.

Cleverness should not be conflated with swiftness. Some archaic dinosaurs of Roosevelt-Leninism will take generations to die. New public schools seem to spawn faster than they can be burned down by evangelical mobs. The GI Bill remains a sacred cow for those who consider government checks the benchmark of civilization. Fat Cats from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) jaunt down to Kentucky on a taxpayer-financed lear jet on Sunday, and on Monday morning you get up and go pay for it. Plucking this beast apart requires starting small, starting with those low-hanging fruits most resembling Chairman Mao's testicles.

Case in point: take a look at your local medical examiner's budget and you will see a gargantuan Soviet barge full of tax dollars floating down a river of bureaucratic waste. Why should taxpayer money be spent fussing over corpses? Under the current system, if you should take a stroll around the grounds and come upon a dead sharecropper, simply make a quick toll-free call and a van shortly arrives to remove the corpse. It is whisked off to a state of the art facility, examined with a lot of fancy equipment and undergoes a lengthy procedure by a specialist physician. Another brigade of civil servants fusses with notifying next of kin, filling out government forms and other functions with no discernible public benefit. Kindly pay for all of this in full by April 15.

This is but one example. Should the Democrat party take over in 2008, common sense lazes faire pragmatism will be on the first train to Siberia. You may wish to make a reservation on the same train before government witch doctors knock on your door to inject your daughters with syringes full of whore potion.