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News

What is healthcare like in a universal coverage single-payer system?

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I want to make sure that America does not adopt single-payer healthcare, and one way to do that is to always be ready to debate healthcare policy with people who ask me. Another way to prevent single-payer is to collect evidence for you, so you can be ready, too. One country that has single-payer healthcare is Canada, and we can learn a lot from them about how well it works.

Here’s an article from The Federalist, about healthcare in Canada.

It says:

When a Canadian child was rushed to the hospital after nearly drowning, his parents say doctors threatened to take the child off life support and suggested harvesting his organs.

“We had 14 days to prepare his funeral and say goodbye to him,” Nicolas Tétrault, the boy’s father and a former Montreal politician, told The Federalist in English, his second language. “They were promoting to harvest the organs and give them away.”

Tétrault said his two-year-old son, Arthur, drowned in October. An ambulance took Arthur to a hospital where doctors resuscitated him, and he was later transferred to Montreal Children’s Hospital, where he was stabilized. But doctors told his parents Arthur had brain damage and an abnormal breathing pattern. According to Tétrault, after approximately five weeks doctors gave an ultimatum — they would “unplug” the boy from life support on Nov. 29.

So Tétrault and his wife fled with Arthur to New Orleans, where he is being treated at Ochsner Medical Center and is off a ventilator.

Canadian healthcare is run by socialists. It has taxpayer-funded infanticide, taxpayer-funded child mutilation, and taxpayer-funded euthanasia. When you have an entire society that is majority secular and leftist, that’s what you get in the healthcare system. It’s not run by Christians. It’s not pro-life. It doesn’t respect conscience rights. And it doesn’t respect parental rights. Canada is run by atheistic communists, and their healthcare system reflects that.

More from the article:

Doctors were “constantly talking about” harvesting Arthur’s organs, according to Tétrault.

“They were killing him with all these drugs, and they were justifying the fact that they were promoting to harvest the organs and give them away,” he said. “They were talking about it all the time.”

Tétrault said Sam Shemie (of the pediatric ICU and advanced care unit), Samara Zavalkoff (of the pediatric and advanced ICU), and Stephen Liben (of palliative care and pediatric advanced care) — along with several nurses — suggested harvesting Arthur’s organs.

“They don’t force you, but the way it’s done, it’s kind of a strong marketing from the head of the pediatric unit,” he said. “Everybody talks about it over there.”

[…]Tétrault said the difference in Arthur’s treatment stems from the difference between American and Canadian hospital systems.

“In Quebec, it’s a socialist hospital system where the patients are seen as an expense. In the U.S., a patient is seen as an income, as a client,” he said. “It makes the entire difference in the world.”

And this is important:

Canadian doctors harvest organs from euthanasia victims, and some medical professionals say they should do so while the patient is alive for best organ quality, as The Federalist previously reported.

It’s the same kind of thing that goes on in China. And Canada’s prime minister Trudeau is a great admirer of Chinese communism.

Well, that’s enough about that. But I do think that it’s important for Americans to be familiar with these horror stories. When you go in the hospital in America, you take it for granted that the doctors are there to help you. But in Canada, the doctors are there to kill you – to stop you from draining money from their government-controlled system. And they want to harvest your organs. Their system is already at the breaking point. They are charging $17, 713 per family just so that people can get on a waiting list with a median wait time of 30 weeks. You’re not paying for healthcare – you’re paying for a spot on a waiting list. So, of course they are desperate to kill any patients they can, to get people off the waiting lists. Because they know that we are laughing at their third-world healthcare system.

News

Why you should read “Up From Slavery” by Booker T. Washington

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Lately, my friends have been very excited that I’m a non-white conservative. They want me to answer the grievances of BLM people, and explain from my own experiences what Christianity and conservative policies have to say about making the lives of non-whites better. My friend Wes recommended “Up From Slavery” by Booker T. Washington to help me focus my thoughts.

Here’s a summary of the book:

Dignity through Labor

Over the course of Up From Slavery, Washington develops the idea and ideal of dignity through labor. For Washington, the gravest aspect of the institution of slavery is the denigration of labor for both blacks and whites. Because the enslaved had no personal investment or return on their labor, they did not complete their work with an attitude toward improvement. Likewise, whites, largely deprived of meaningful labor, were robbed of the ability to achieve self-sufficiency. In both races, this produced personalities and characters that seek to escape labor. Washington emphasizes labor as the only way to make oneself useful in an interdependent, modern society. Throughout the whole of Up From Slavery, Washington searches for and obtains work. Further, once he obtains it, Washington completes all labor to best of his ability, no matter how lowly the task. At the Tuskegee Institute, Washington makes this idea and ideal a foundational ethos. All students who study at the Tuskegee Institute must learn a trade or industry alongside their more traditional academic pursuits. In addition, many of the buildings, most of the furniture, the wagons, and the materials used at the school are produced by students. This level of practical skill and diligence also acts as the foundation of Washington’s theory and program for racial uplift.

Selflessness, Desire to Be Useful to One’s Community

The people that Washington most admires and models himself after are those he labels selfless. Washington defines this as the willingness to work on the behalf of others. For Washington, this is not only about duty or labor, but also about the willingness to do one’s best for the benefit of the collective good. Washington believes that racial prejudice can be overcome if black people make themselves indispensable to their communities and their nation. The brick-making episode provides an example. Though the brick-making enterprise at Tuskegee felled three kilns before successfully producing bricks, the venture eventually proved successful and the school began to sell its bricks on the open market. Washington describes how whites who were unsympathetic or apathetic to the education of blacks and the overall project of the Tuskegee Institute were willing to purchase Tuskegee bricks due to their quality and convenience. Washington suggests that if black race can find their niche in society by fulfilling a need, then they can co-exist peacefully and productively with whites.

Impracticality of Political Agitation

Throughout Up From Slavery, Washington defends his ideas about racial advancement and uplift by subtly undermining the proposals of his critics. Though Washington does not explicitly state his objection to the strategies of specific thinkers like W.E.B. Dubois or even his predecessor, Frederick Douglass, he nevertheless highlights the wastefulness of political agitation for equal rights at every chance he gets. To do this, Washington shows that political agitation results in worse relations and outcomes than those that existed before. For example, when he goes home to Malden after his second year at the Hampton Institute, Washington finds that both the salt-furnace and the coal-mine are not in operation due to worker’s strikes. In Chapter IV, Washington describes how strikers usually spent all their savings during the strikes and returned to work in debt, but at the same wages. He raises the impracticality of political agitation again after his controversial Atlanta Exposition speech. After the success of his speech, he hypothetically asks if a black man would have been invited to give a speech had people agitated to put a black person on the program. He answers in the negative, saying that such opportunities can only arise through merit.

And here’s a summary of his most famous speech:

On September 18, 1895, Booker T. Washington was selected to give a speech that would open the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia. The speech, which is often referred to as the “Atlanta Compromise,” was the first speech given by an African American to a racially-mixed audience in the South. In it, Washington suggested that African Americans should not agitate for political and social equality, but should instead work hard, earn respect and acquire vocational training in order to participate in the economic development of the South. By doing so, eventually, he stated, African Americans would gain the respect of white society and be granted the rights of full citizenship.

There’s a free full audio version of the book, and the full text is online. I recommend this book to people of all races, because as the sexual anarchy brought on by feminism becomes widespread, the majority of the children of tomorrow will face the same kinds of challenges.

I see Washington’s ideas as consistent with a Christian worldview, where we don’t expect to be treated fairly. We expect sinful people to treat us badly. What Christianity says is to be patient, and focus on your relationship with God and loving your neighbor. And one way to love your neighbor is to sell them something valuable that you made through your labor. Another way is to work and save, and give to charity.

Government solutions to problems like racism and poverty aren’t a top priority for Christians. Most of all, we need the freedom to be good, and to do good. That’s priority one. You may not make your life better by being moral and diligent, but it’s rare that doing so causes you to harm yourself. It’s very important that you not harm yourself.

So, this dovetails nicely with my own story. My married non-white parents were not smart enough or willing enough to monitor my education, but they were clear that they wanted me to do well in order to find good-paying work. So I completed my BS and MS in a STEM field, and went to work right away, and I’ve been at it continuously for 22 years now. I save most of what I earn for charity and early retirement.

I’ve never experienced any of the racism or police brutality that American blacks complain about. And that’s because I follow what Washington is teaching. I dress in a clean way that doesn’t communicate danger to others. I’m careful to spend my time reading apologetics, economics and military history. I don’t listen to popular music or watch popular TV or movies. I don’t hang out with people who blame other people for their lack of success.

I got my first job by volunteering to do it for free on Saturdays for 7 months. My first full-time job salary after college was $50,000. Then I got a raise of $6,000 and then a raise of $9,000. I used to work 70 hour weeks in my 20s. I graduated college with $9,000 dollars in the black, because I went to a small local college and lived at home, and never spent any money on alcohol. My net worth is now about $1.35 million. By the way, the secret to becoming wealthy is to not spend money on showing off. You can be very generous to your friends and still get rich. Just never buy anything that is designed to communicate “status” to anyone. And never spend money on alcohol or chasing sex outside of marriage.

At no time did I accept that the problems defined by the secular left were my real problems. And at no time did I accept their “solutions” as real solutions to anything. As black economist Thomas Sowell writes, the “solutions” of the left are not effective at helping people like me. The “solutions” of the left are designed to make leftists feel better, and look more virtuous to others. You are much better off reading the Bible, Christian apologetics, free market economics, American military history, etc., and then respecting what you learn from that in your decision-making. I think that reading the right stuff is even more important than having good parents or attending church.

News

The Trump Cabinet pick who can crush the Deep State

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I blogged previously about Kash Patel (FBI) and Jay Bhattacharya (NIH) but when I saw an article (below) on Daily Signal about Russ Vought (OMB) by the politics editor, I thought I’d better read it. And after I read it, I though I’d better share it. First of all, Vought is an excellent conservative. Second, he has a lot of experience. And third, he is an outspoken evangelical Christian.

Daily Signal:

The Office of Management and Budget is a less well-known entity within the executive branch, but few are as critical for ensuring the implementation of the president’s agenda. President-elect Donald Trump has once again placed that awesome responsibility in Russ Vought’s hands.

[…]Trump released a statement announcing Vought’s nomination as OMB director on Friday evening. “I am very pleased to nominate Russell Thurlow Vought, from the Great State of Virginia, as the Director of the United States Office of Management and Budget. He did an excellent job serving in this role in my First Term – We cut four Regulations for every new Regulation, and it was a Great Success! Russ graduated with a B.A. from Wheaton College, and received his J.D. from the Washington University School of Law,” Trump’s statement read.

“Russ has spent many years working in Public Policy in Washington, D.C., and is an aggressive cost cutter and deregulator who will help us implement our America First Agenda across all Agencies. Russ knows exactly how to dismantle the Deep State and end Weaponized Government, and he will help us return Self Governance to the People. We will restore fiscal sanity to our Nation, and unleash the American People to new levels of Prosperity and Ingenuity. I look forward to working with you again, Russ. Congratulations. Together, we will Make America Great Again!”

So, this is the guy who did the cut four regulations for ever one new regulation. And he graduated from Wheaton College, back when Wheaton was still a conservative Christian school.

More:

In a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, Vought explained how OMB can… kill the deep state—a death by a thousand cuts.

“OMB is the nerve center of the federal government, particularly the executive branch,” Vought told Carlson. “Office of Management and Budget has the ability to turn off the spending that’s going on at the agencies. It has all the regulations coming through it to assess whether it’s good, or bad, or too expensive, or could be done a different way, or ‘What does the president think?’”

In short, “presidents use OMB to tame the bureaucracy,” Vought said.

“It is the President’s most important tool for dealing with the bureaucracy, the administrative state,” he reiterated. “And you know, the nice thing about President Trump is he knows that, and he knows how to use it effectively.”

And he’s experienced:

Vought was previously atop the OMB, first in an acting capacity and then confirmed by the Senate, for the second half of Trump’s first term.

As Trump and Vought prepared to depart the White House in 2021, Vought told the president of his intention to start the Center for Renewing America, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that sought to keep Trump’s policy vision alive in the nation’s capital. Trump was supportive of Vought’s endeavor, and the pair remained in close contact while Trump was out of power.

Vought’s fingerprints have been all over Republican politics and the conservative movement for the past four years. He wrote the Project 2025 chapter on how to reform the Executive Office of the President of the United States. In the media, he was an outspoken proponent for “draining the swamp” by making the federal agencies once again accountable to the president and the American people. And, over the summer, Vought lead the Republican National Convention’s policy platform committee.

Now, his fingerprints will be all over bringing the bureaucracy to heel.

I was snooping around in far-left communist atheist publications, and found this hand-wringing about Vought’s Christian convictions:

In 2021 he founded the Centre for Renewing America, an organisation whose mission is to “renew a consensus of America as a nation under God”.

His religious views have provoked controversy. In Mr Vought’s confirmation hearing in 2017—he squeaked through by a single vote—Senator Bernie Sanders pointed to an article by Mr Vought in which he described Muslims as “condemned” for having rejected Jesus Christ. Mr Vought replied that he respected the right of every person to express their religious beliefs. In the secretly recorded meeting last year he said that elected leaders should discuss whether to prioritise Christian immigrants over those of other faiths. And he has called for a total abolition of abortion—a position that is too extreme for even most American conservatives.

But Mr Vought’s religiosity gives a scorching fervour to his criticism of politics and society, and that appeals to the Republican base. He regularly describes the federal government as “woke and weaponised” and has warned that the Democratic Party is “increasingly evil” because it forces secularism on families. He also was an early combatant in the pushback against diversity policies, which became a potent campaign theme for Mr Trump: in 2020 he wrote an official memo saying that anti-racism training in the federal government was divisive and anti-American.

So, let’s conclude with this. The best Trump pick, the one you’ve probably never heard of, is the most conservative one, and he’s in a great position to smash the secular left Deep State.