I confess that I'm flummoxed by the people who think that the only possible explanation for Rick Perry's decision to mandate Gardasil (HPV) vaccination--or the only likely one--has something to do with a minor campaign donation, or the fact that his former Chief of Staff ended up working for a pharmaceutical firm.Perry's practice of trading favors for campaign donations is very well know. Nobody cares because this is Texas, where money is the only criteria for social acceptance and nobody cares how you made it. We already know politicians sell themselves out cheap and McArdle has always dismissed the possibility of ethical behavior in politics anyway. But if McArdle wants to embarrass herself by saying that she's shocked people would accuse the political process of corruption, that's her prerogative.
I like me a good Public Choice horror story as much as anyone, but can we really categorically rule out the possibility that Rick Perry thought that mandating Gardasil was a good way to fight cervical cancer, which claims the life of around 4,000 women every year
Yes. The man has public prayer meetings and never met a fetus that he didn't clasp to his bosom and vow to protect from evil liberal abortionists. He just signed an abortion sonogram bill into law.
Why is someone who is so utterly, abysmally, comprehensively ignorant of political events think that everyone is dying to hear her baseless, vacuous opinions?
It is entirely my fault that I just read the comments thread on that McMegan post.
ReplyDeleteBut what was worthwhile about the exercise was nothing that not one of something like 280 comments (so far) comes close to twigging to the difference between the debate over the vaccine and the gulf between this decision and Perry's usual misogyny. Incredible.
I confess that I'm flummoxed...
ReplyDeleteWell that's refreshing. This should be the entirety of every Meegan post.
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You can't expect her to give up a chance to act more knowledgeable than everybody, and express dismay that the world doesn't match her lofty ideals while name dropping "Public Choice theory" without explaining it. As well ask my four-year-old not to eat the candy you just put in front of him.
ReplyDeleteFish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, Megs gotta vacuously pontificate.
Yes, we can dismiss it, easily, because as soon as the preachers started whoopin' and hollerin' and slut-bashin', Goodhair REVERSED himself. Yeesh.
ReplyDeleteHave any right wankers (who are losing badly on the HPV issue, it seems to me) made the case that vaccines are UnConstitutional and/or Socialist?
ReplyDeleteEven more slightly off-topic:
I happened to venture over to McMegan's House o' Dilettante Dumbassery and she concluded a post with, "It is not true that national health insurance will mean that no one ever dies of something that could have been prevented. Human error, we will always have with us." I swear to The Jesus she actually wrote that. Thanks for reading so we don't have to, SoT.
"Human error, we will always have with us.
ReplyDeleteThat isn't even Sophomoric!
I did not realize the Bill required that no one would ever die! You'd think it would be more popular if people only knew!
ReplyDeleteBut that requirement is probably unconstitutional, assuming it's possible.
Gee, who would have ever guessed that she'd go off on a Netflix rant this morning? Her post is a textbook example of a bad faith argument.
ReplyDeleteBad Faith? Why yes, I think she's soaking in it:
ReplyDelete****You can get a sweet deal if you are the customer who gets marginal cost pricing. Medicare does this--reimburses hospitals at above their marginal cost, but below their average cost, so that private insurers have to pick up most of the hospital overhead. European countries do this with prescription drugs: reimburse above the marginal cost of producing the pills, but below the total cost of developing the pills, so that the US has to pick up most of the tab for drug development.
The problem is that as voters and as customers, we often get the notion that this can be extrapolated to everyone. So liberal policy wonks want to save money by putting everyone on Medicare, or some equivalent program that uses the government's monopsony pricing power to get lower prices for everyone; thrifty customers think that everyone should drop cable and just pay $14.95 for streaming plus DVDs. ****
For some reason the entire discussion over there reminds me of watching a psychotic person decompensate and begin explaining to you why the illuminati are bugging their tooth fillings. She really did it: she went from Netflix to Medicare and drug research and subsidies without taking a breath.
aimai
She's still pushing the BS that drug companies rely on the US for profit. Amazing. Just amazing. We could debunk her until the cows come home but she'd still repeat the same lies. And her commenters have repeated those lies as gospel in their turn, which is the whole point of the exercise.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the irony is that while he says he hates cancer, he also apparently hates funding for women's healthcare in Texas (well, he and the Texas legislature...):
ReplyDeletehttp://groobiecat.blogspot.com/2011/09/rick-perry-and-his-war-on-womens-health.html