Author Archives: tarran

Rudy Giuliani: US Foreign Policy Contributed to Terrorism

Election '08, War on Terror

Many of you remember when Rudy Giuliani was outraged when Ron Paul asserted that U.S. foreign policy contributed to Al Queda targetting the United States.

Well, apparently Giuliani now agrees with Ron Paul, to a point. In his article on Foreign Policy in Foreign Affairs Magazine, Rudy Giuliani wrote:

Idealism should define our ultimate goals; realism must help us recognize the road we must travel to achieve them. The world is a dangerous place. We cannot afford to indulge any illusions about the enemies we face. The Terrorists’ War on Us was encouraged by unrealistic and inconsistent actions taken in response to terrorist attacks in the past. A realistic peace can only be achieved through strength.

In other words, while Ron Paul thinks that the U.S. government should stop hurting people if we wish them to stop hating us, Giuliani’s motto seems to be Oderint Dum Metuant, or “Let them hate so long as they fear”, which I recall was a favorite saying of the Roman emperor Caligula.

tarran
I am an anarcho-capitalist living just west of Boston Massachussetts. I am married, have two children, and am trying to start my own computer consulting company.
https://thelibertypapers.org/author/tarran/

Does von Eschenbasch deserve a pension or probation?

Healthcare, Religious Liberty, The Nanny State, The War on Drugs

In 2001, two parents were convicted of manslaughter in Colorado for allowing their daughter to die from untreated diabetes-related infection. Had she been taken to a doctor, she would likely have lived. Several of her surviving siblings were also found to be sick with strep throat, with which they had apparently been infected for months.

The parents were punished with probation in lieu of confinement and are marked with the stigma of being felons.

This is most unjust, since regulators working for the FDA are committing the same crime and are being praised and rewarded, even though they are harming not a handful of defenseless children, but millions of their countrymen as the CATO institute points out:

Over the past five years, the Alliance has pushed for access to 12 exceptionally promising investigational cancer drugs which have subsequently been approved by the FDA and now represent standard care. At the time we began our advocacy, each of the drugs had cleared at least preliminary Phase 1 testing, and in some cases more-advanced Phase 2 or Phase 3 trials. In other words, they obviously worked for some patients. …

In sum, these 12 drugs — had they been available to people denied entry to clinical trials — might have helped more than one million mothers, fathers, sons and daughters live longer, better lives. We have actually underestimated the number of “life-years” lost at more than 520,000, because we have not included other safe and effective uses of these drugs that the FDA has yet to approve. …

The American Cancer Society reports that some 550,000 cancer patients die annually, making the number of cancer deaths from 1997 to 2005 about 4.8 million. Over that same period, the FDA reports granting individual access to an investigational drug to not more than 650 people per year for all diseases and drugs — a pathetic, even cruel, pittance. A few thousand more patients managed to gain access by enrolling in relatively small clinical trials or exceedingly rare expanded access programs. The other 4.7 plus million cancer patients, not to mention millions more with other diseases, were abandoned to die, denied access to progress by their own FDA when they needed it most.

The FDA, and its supporters put a different spin on the matter:

Public policy should discourage access to investigational drugs outside of clinical trials. Investigational treatments made available outside of clinical trials have the potential to undermine the clinical trials system. There is little incentive for a patient to participate in a clinical trial if she can obtain the investigational drug outside of the trial. This makes trial accrual difficult, and may significantly undermine the ability of the investigators to determine the efficacy and safety of the intervention. That was certainly the case with bone marrow transplant for breast cancer – because it was so widely available outside of clinical trials it was extremely difficult to accrue patients to trials, and it took many years longer than it should have to learn that the high-risk and expensive procedure provides no benefit to women with breast cancer.

Investigational treatments are by definition unproven; even the most promising data in earlier stages of trials often do not hold up. Further, there may be significant safety issues that do not emerge until well into a phase III trial. For example, the cardiotoxicity of Herceptin was not apparent in the phase II data, but emerged in the much larger phase III trial. …

It is compelling to argue that there is little harm in making an investigational therapy available to a seriously ill individual for whom there is no effective therapy, if someone is willing to pay for it. This argument does not hold upon scrutiny. To follow this to its logical conclusion completely undermines research and the concept of evidence based care. Where would the line be drawn? It would mean that any individual should have access to any drug, as long as she is willing to pay for it Emphasis added – tarran.

Single patient INDs or INDs with small numbers of patients under Tier 1 approval raise serious issues of fairness. Granting access to investigational drugs with Tier 1 approval to patients who can pay for them at a price higher than cost makes this proposed system highly inequitable. Patients with access to them would likely be very knowledgeable, well-connected, and financially privileged. They would have access to physicians who have the ability to develop a protocol for them, and are willing and able to implement it. This is not the case for most cancer patients. Resources devoted to fighting cancer should be based on the best evidence available. The off-trial process involves a great deal of time and expense for clinicians, regulators and investigators, with very little likelihood of benefit to the patient, or to accumulation of knowledge about the intervention in question, that would benefit all.

The FDA justifies its democidal campaign by claiming that while the testing delays kill tens or hundreds of thousands of people, the testing delays prevent millions more from being killed or injured by unsafe, or ineffective treatments. This is horseshit.

Dr Mary Ruwart, a former drug researcher, estimates that tens of millions of people who have died since 1962 have had their lives shortened by the FDA preventing new treatments from being sold, or having their benefits advertised. She calculates that these regulations have prevented at most 7,000 deaths from drug toxicity. Folks, these numbers are on a par with the number of people slaughtered by the Nazis in the Holocaust.

Furthermore, even if the FDA and its boosters were correct, that FDA roadblocks on treatments save more lives than they take, the FDA’s actions would be unjustified. Their actions would be unjustified for the simple reason that when an FDA official orders a pill-maker not to distribute a drug, it is an identical form of assault to the one I would be guilty of if I were to show up at the CEO’s office with a gun making a similar demand.

There is no doubt in my mind that many people who work in the FDA sincerely believe that they are, in the aggregate, helping people. I’m certain that Randy and Colleen Bates felt that they were helping their dying daughter too as they anointed her fevered forehead with oil and prayed over her as she gasped her last breaths. In the end, good intentions are no excuse for slaughter on an industrial scale. We cannot subject Randy and Coleen to the sanction of law while lauding government officials who do the same thing.

tarran
I am an anarcho-capitalist living just west of Boston Massachussetts. I am married, have two children, and am trying to start my own computer consulting company.
https://thelibertypapers.org/author/tarran/

The Media Floats The Draft Balloon

Draft, Military, Theory and Ideas, War on Terror

Today, on NPR, “War Czar” Lt. Gen. Lute was asked about whether he wants to see a return to government slavery, also known as conscription or “the draft”.

Here’s his answer:

I think it makes sense to certainly consider it, and I can tell you, this has always been an option on the table, but ultimately, this is a policy matter between meeting the demands for the nation’s security by one means or another. Today, the current means of the all-volunteer force is serving us exceptionally well. It would be a major policy shift — not actually a military, but a political policy shift to move to some other course.

What is interesting though is that he a minute before had been describing the manpower shortages bedeviling the U.S. military:

As an Army officer, this is a matter of real concern to me. Ultimately, the American army, and any other all-volunteer force, rests with the support and the morale and the willingness to serve demonstrated by our — especially our young men and women in uniform. And I am concerned that those men and women and the families they represent are under stress as a result of repeated deployments.

There’s both a personal dimension of this, where this kind of stress plays out across dinner tables and in living room conversations within these families, and ultimately, the health of the all-volunteer force is going to rest on those sorts of personal family decisions. And when the system is under stress, it’s right to be concerned about some of the future decisions these young men and women may make. I think our military leaders are right to be focused on that.

There’s also a professional and broader strategic argument to this, and that is that when our forces are as engaged as they have been over the last several years, particularly in Iraq, that we’re concerned as military professionals that we also keep a very sharp edge honed for other contingencies outside of Iraq.

So, the good general basically said that the all-volunteer military was under a great deal of stress, that a draft was not yet needed, but that the military wouldn’t have a problem with one.

This of course is 180 turn around from a few years ago when the senior officers were opposed to conscription.

Meantime the media had a very different take on the interview. Notice the spin:

Frequent tours for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have stressed the all-volunteer force and made it worth considering a return to a military draft, President Bush’s new war adviser said Friday.
“I think it makes sense to certainly consider it,” Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute said in an interview with National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.”

“And I can tell you, this has always been an option on the table. But ultimately, this is a policy matter between meeting the demands for the nation’s security by one means or another,” Lute added in his first interview since he was confirmed by the Senate in June.

President Nixon abolished the draft in 1973. Restoring it, Lute said, would be a “major policy shift” and Bush has made it clear that he doesn’t think it’s necessary.

“The president’s position is that the all volunteer military meets the needs of the country and there is no discussion of a draft. General Lute made that point as well,” National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

In the interview, Lute also said that “Today, the current means of the all-volunteer force is serving us exceptionally well.”

Still, he said the repeated deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan affect not only the troops but their families, who can influence whether a service member decides to stay in the military.
“There’s both a personal dimension of this, where this kind of stress plays out across dinner tables and in living room conversations within these families,” he said. “And ultimately, the health of the all-volunteer force is going to rest on those sorts of personal family decisions.”

The military conducted a draft during the Civil War and both world wars and between 1948 and 1973. The Selective Service System, re-established in 1980, maintains a registry of 18-year-old men.
Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., has called for reinstating the draft as a way to end the Iraq war.
Bush picked Lute in mid-May as a deputy national security adviser with responsibility for ensuring efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan are coordinated with policymakers in Washington. Lute, an active-duty general, was chosen after several retired generals turned down the job.

Now, to my jaded eye this is quite interesting. The wire report makes it sound like the General was suggesting that there be a political debate to bring back conscription, when in fact he was declining to rule it out after the interviewer raised the subject.

Folks, this is Fabian socialism in action: Let’s say that these news reports prompt a furor. The General can point to his actual comments and claim, truthfully, that he didn’t recommend a return to the draft. Those who kick up a fuss about the draft are made to look stupid, and the idea will float in the back up people’s consciousness, ready to be raised again.

On the other hand, if there is no furor, then the debate will probably take place. In the meantime, the media has actually made a case that the draft is reasonable and a traditional part of U.S. history. In effect the wire report is an editorial in favor of bringing it back.

Why the change on the part of the Bush administration? The problem is that to continue occupying Iraq, they will have to continue to activate and deploy reserve units. This means middle aged people with families and mortgages will find themselves deployed 3 or 4 times every 10 years. This tempo is not sustainable.

I think that with this interview, the White House is signalling an interest in returning to conscription, because General Lute is lying about the ease with which the military can adopt conscription. Instituting conscription requires a massive change in a millitary’s doctrine and organization. Imagine you managed a business that made whiskey with free laborers, and one day the owner called you into his office and told you that he would be bringing in slaves to do much of the labor. Now, would you be able to put the slaves immediately to work? No. You would need to arrange for overseers to watch them closely. You’d have to put locks on the doors so that slaves can’t escape. You’d have to stop work periodically to count your slaves etc. The claim that such a change is not a “military shift” does not pass the B.S. test. The lie effectively torpedoes the most effective argument against the draft, which is that the military does not want one. In this way, the Bush administration could get conscription without seeming to agitate for it. In fact, given their unpopularity and political weakness, the only way they will get a return to the draft is by having someone else do the heavy lifting while they put up an seemingly ineffectual false resistance.

It is shameful that, over a hundred years after the U.S. government claimed that it had eliminated slavery within its borders, its officers are still infatuated with it and wish to bring it back. Slavery has no part in civilization, and it is high time that the U.S. government, and governments thoughout the world for that matter, abandoned this disgusting practice of systematically enslaving young men.

tarran
I am an anarcho-capitalist living just west of Boston Massachussetts. I am married, have two children, and am trying to start my own computer consulting company.
https://thelibertypapers.org/author/tarran/

The pro-freedom lessons in ‘The Devil Wears Prada’

Book Reviews, Media, Theory and Ideas

If you haven’t seen the movie “The Devil Wears Prada”, you should. Tonight. It’s on HBO, I believe. It has some interesting lessons regarding freedom.

The movie follows the adventures of Andrea, a serious, intellectual, hot, young woman who wants to be a journalist, as she works for a difficult editor of a fashion magazine. This woman, Miranda Priestly, played perfectly by Meryl Streep, is the ultimate gatekeeper who defines what is hot and what is not. She has the power to make or break careers in the fashion industry, and she wields it ruthlessly. She dictates what food her staff eats, and the clothes they wear. She delights in making impossible demands, for example giving her assistant 6 hours to get two copies of the next unpublished Harry Potter novel, or demanding that they find a plane to fly her out of Miami despite the hurricane pummeling the city.

Andrea, who turned down a scholarship at Stanford law, is the antithesis of most of her coworkers. She is slender rather than anorexic. She wants to be a journalist. She views the industry as being shallow, and rather beneath her. She merely puts up with Miranda due to the doors that working on this magazine will open for her. Initially, she eschews designer clothes, and sticks out like a sore thumb in the crowd of people working at the magazine whom she calls “clackers”, describing the sounds their stiletto heels make on the reception floors. Warning spoilers ahead » Read more

tarran
I am an anarcho-capitalist living just west of Boston Massachussetts. I am married, have two children, and am trying to start my own computer consulting company.
https://thelibertypapers.org/author/tarran/

Arming the citizenry? What a novel concept!

Keep and Bear Arms, War on Terror

The Iraqi government has hit upon a novel idea to improve security in the country. Arming the citizenry.

The call for civilians to take up arms in their own defense was echoed Sunday by the country’s Sunni Arab vice president, Tariq al-Hashemi.
“People have a right to expect from the government and security agencies protection for their lives, land, honor and property,” al-Hashemi said in a statement. “But in the case of (their) inability, the people have no choice but to take up their own defense.”

Now many Americans might be confused by this statement. After all, isn’t Iraq awash with weapons? Aren’t the armed people the cause of the instability? What is this all about?

This actually represents a massive change in a policy toward personal protection, a policy imposed by the U.S. army in 2003 that, I think, played a significant role in the U.S. defeat in Iraq.

The policy imposed by the U.S. government was simply this. Every household could own an AK-47 or similar rifle for self-defense. If a civilian carries the weapon in public, U. S. forces can kill him without warning. The only Iraqis allowed to go out armed are government officials, army officers, or police. Local militias are banned.

In effect, this is a slightly less restrictive law than the DC gun control law, and it has the same effect: it leaves the common man and woman at the mercy of criminals. When locals understandably form militias to defend their neighborhoods, they become targets for U.S. government attack. Their attackers, who tend to be members of militias dedicated to some sectarian cause can operate with near impunity; they have safe zones where they can refit unmolested by U.S. soldiers or the Iraqi government, in some cases they even are part of the Iraqi government.

The U.S. government policy throughout the post war period has been to promote a strong centralized state at the expense of the common man. This has manifested itself in such bizarre actions as pursuing illegal suppliers of electricity (who use generators to supply power to neighborhoods), gasoline black-marketers (the U.S. price controls on gasoline have caused massive shortages). In doing so, they have worked decisively to lose whatever support the Iraqi population might have had for the U.S. occupation. It is no wonder that 90% of the Iraqi populace wants the U.S. government out of Iraq. They are fed up with an organization that sends armed men blundering through their homes, depriving them of access to electricity, undermining their security and killing them by mistake.

With the U.S. out of the way, they know that the current Iraqi government would collapse quickly. And the residents would no longer have to fear two entities that actively work against their security.

Encouraging the citizenry to arm themselves, permitting them to publicly bear arms without fear of being killed is an absolutely necessary step to rebuilding a peaceful society in Iraq. It’s a pity that it has taken 4 years for the U.S. government to permit this.

tarran
I am an anarcho-capitalist living just west of Boston Massachussetts. I am married, have two children, and am trying to start my own computer consulting company.
https://thelibertypapers.org/author/tarran/
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