You want to start riding a motorcycle?

So my son wants to get a motorcycle. He's a grown man, a Marine combat vet as a matter of fact. He can do whatever he wants, and even if he were still a teenager and needed permission, I'd say yes. I love motorcycles.

He's been talking about getting a bike since before he left for his recent deployment to Afghanistan, his second. So this has me thinking about what advice I got before I started riding and what advice I should give him as a new rider. There are a million important things to say, of course, but how much can a person absorb? What are the important things to say? Books have been written about this, but I'm thinking about boiling it down to a few important things that can be passed on in conversation without making his eyes glaze over.

I learned to ride a dirt bike, really an enduro, at about 8 or 9 years old. Maybe younger, I don't really remember. I think it was an 80cc Honda. We also had a 90cc Yamaha, if I recall correctly. Those are some of my best childhood memories. I rode a Kawasaki KZ440 street bike as a teenager.

Unfortunately bikes weren't in the cards for my kids. Being a military family, moving around all the time, living in urban settings most of the time and being broke all of the time precluded dirt bikes. I regret that, but you can't go back and change things. I got back into bikes almost 10 years ago now. And now Aaron has caught it.

So what is the single most important thing I should try to get across to him?
Ride your own ride.
You are invisible to cage drivers.
Wear a helmet.
Don't drink and ride.
Beware of cars turning left.
Speed kills.

How about some of the lesser tips and tricks?
Your shadow points at danger.
Wet pavement paint and manhole covers are slippery.
Stay out of the center of the lane at intersections. (That's where leaked oil is concentrated.)
Never ride in a cage's blind spot.
If you have to slow down suddenly, flash your brake lights at the traffic behind you, if you can.

There are a million things I want to tell him. Basically I just want him to be safe. But I know that's not how it works. Life itself is not safe. And riding a motorcycle can't be made safe. Every time we ride out into traffic we are vulnerable, and it isn't even close to a fair fight.

But it's worth it. I've never done anything that's come close to making me feel as relaxed and peaceful and excited and alive (all at the same time), as riding.

Besides, if you've ever climbed up on a chair to change a light bulb, you've taken your life in your hands. I mean, that task could have killed you, if you had fallen off the ladder. In fact, most head injuries that kill motorcyclists are equivalent to a six-foot fall.

That stat right there, from the Hurt Report (google it), is enough to make me always wear a helmet when I ride. I mean, I can accept that if I crash on the highway at 80 MPH I'm probably going to die. There's really no amount of gear that will save me. If the fall and slide down the road don't kill me, I'll probably get run over by a truck or hit a wall. That's the risk and I accept it.

But if I'm rolling down a side street at 35 and I crash, I am confident that if I'm wearing a proper helmet I can survive that crash. I've seen it and I've known many people who have done it. I also know that I can hit a patch of sand in a parking lot and crash and hit my head pretty hard (I know this from firsthand experience.) I know if I die from a stupid little parking lot crash at 15 mph because I'm not wearing a helmet, I'm going to be PISSED!

That low-speed crash is also a risk, and it's an easy risk to mitigate by wearing a helmet. Not to mention it's also a much more likely scenario than the high-speed highway crash, simply because we spend so much more time at low speeds in parking lots and side streets than we do on the highway.

All the rest of the advice is important. I'd say "ride your own ride," is near the top, especially for a new rider because it's so easy to get caught up in riding with other people and end up going too fast for your experience level.

"Speed kills" is another important one. Most people who crash on bikes are going too fast for conditions. And it's too easy to not notice how fast you are really going. Many of the cases of a car turning in front of a bike or a car changing lanes into a bike, I believe, are due to the driver underestimating how fast the bike was going.

And of course, if you drink and ride you are just an idiot and you're not reading about being safe on a bike anyway.

I'm going to go with "wear a helmet." That's my top, number one piece of advice for my son and anyone riding a motorcycle. Mainly because, even if you follow all the other advice, and you never do anything wrong ever - someone else can still crash into you.

BTW, I'm completely against helmet laws for adults. People should have the right to make up their own minds when it comes to how much risk they find acceptable in their lives. But, if you ask me, I'm going to recommend that you should choose to wear a helmet because it makes sense.

End capitalism?

Serious people think we should end capitalism. Here is a link to an article by Naomi Klein. It's long but worth reading.
http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate

That article is interesting not only for her call to replace capitalism with "collective planning," suppressing growth and nationalizing corporations, (for starters); but also for her admission that global warming/climate change is the perfect hammer with which to beats us into agreement. That is, she openly states that, yes, the left is using climate change fear-mongering to push their political agenda. And they are right to do so, she says, because the leftist agenda is the only way to avoid eminent destruction of the world! The best part is where she describes "cultural cognition."

She writes:
This refers to the process by which all of us—regardless of political leanings—filter new information in ways designed to protect our “preferred vision of the good society.” ... In other words, it is always easier to deny reality than to watch your worldview get shattered, a fact that was as true of die-hard Stalinists at the height of the purges as it is of libertarian climate deniers today.

I agree with the social scientist Klein is referencing here, but I find it odd that at no point does she consider that maybe it could apply to her. Instead she insists that global warming is proof positive that liberal ideology is and always has been the one true way. How amazing that every liberal political theory and/or idea perfectly solves every problem facing the world at the moment.

Many of the Occupy Wall Street protesters openly call for ending capitalism as well. Apparently also personal property rights and the rule of law.

I'm just a joe, of course, so what do I know? But this is my blog so I'm going to make a case for capitalism. I think people like Klein and the OWS crowd are taking a very short view of history, and misreading that too.

There are two things people like Klein and the OWS crowd just don't seem to understand:

1. Capitalism isn't perfect, but it's better than any alternative

and B. We enjoy our current quality of life because of capitalism.

First, Klein's liberal solutions to the world's problems might actually work, for a short time and if you don't mind giving up our entire way of life. If you are of the mind-set that American culture is bad, you might not mind. I'm betting that a few weeks without indoor plumbing and on-demand electricity changes your outlook. Trust me on this, I've done it. Hell, a few days without cell service would change most liberal's worldview.

But look at #6 on Klein's list: Taxing the Rich and Filthy

Most of all, however, we need to go after the profits of the corporations most responsible for getting us into this mess. The top five oil companies made $900 billion in profits in the past decade; ExxonMobil alone can clear $10 billion in profits in a single quarter

This is probably true, but how long would it be true? How long will these corporations be wealthy after they are nationalized? Where do you go for money after you've destroyed the profitable corporations? There is a reason all of us evil conservatives "fondle" our copies of Atlas Shrugged (fondle is Klein's word, super classy!)

Here again is proof that liberalism contradicts itself. They want to use the wealth of the top five oil companies to fund all their policy priorities, yet their priorities would destroy the profits of those companies. Look at Klein's six points. Steps 3, 4 and 5 would render 6 moot in a very short time, which would make it impossible to fund steps 1 and 2.

From the article some of Klein's goals:

One of the key areas in which this collective action must take place is big-ticket investments designed to reduce our emissions on a mass scale. That means subways, streetcars and light-rail systems that are not only everywhere but affordable to everyone; energy-efficient affordable housing along those transit lines; smart electrical grids carrying renewable energy; and a massive research effort to ensure that we are using the best methods possible.

How far along the path to these "big ticket investments" do we get before the money runs out? And who is going to pay for the upkeep if the big money-making corporations are nationalized?

Haters of capitalism must lack a fundamental understanding of how we got where we are. Again, I'm no economist. But I can't trust any of them anyway, because no matter what your political outlook is, you can find an economist who agrees with you. Not to mention that since the 70's, which is my frame of reference, no economist has predicted with any certainty what was going to happen with our economy. They are guessing, granted they are making educated guesses, but like the climate, the larger the scale of the system the less accurate even the educated guesses become.

So back to my point. Competition leads to progress. Capitalism is competition. How do people not understand that the car they drive, the cell phone they use, the websites they shop at, the clothes they wear, the TV they watch, etc... are all the result of capitalism? If you destroy the profit motive, what drives innovation?

Are we so satisfied with the world the way it is that we are willing to call it done? This is the pinnacle of human progress? Pick a product, anything you can think of will work. The laptop I'm typing on for example. Is this the best that can be done? Or can it be improved upon? I'd like a solid-state drive and a backlit keyboard. These exist, Apple features them in the MacBook Air. They've actually been around for a few years, but at a pretty high price. Actually I'd say too high. So what does a poor 99 percenter do? Wait.

But why? What's going to happen if I wait? Capitalism is going to happen. If the marketplace deems the solid-state hard drive and backlit keyboard to be good ideas, they will sell. If they sell, other evil corporations will see it and copy it. That will drive prices down to the point where I can afford it. Not only that but if another company makes a small tweak that improves the product, that too will be copied and in turn improved upon. (This is so basic, I feel a little angry at even having to type it out.)

One might ask, who is going to buy that initial overpriced product to begin with? Well, that's where the 1% comes in, lol. Liberals may decry the income disparity in America, but the rich are the early adopters of all the technology that we take for granted. Who bought the first cell phones? Rich yuppies. Who else could afford them? Now who has a cell phone? Everyone, even little kids. That doesn't happen in any other economic system.

I think a good argument can be made that we all benefit from having a large group of high-income earners. Not just for their ability to afford to buy new Harleys and Audis that they don't use and later sell to us for huge discounts either! But also for their example. Not everyone can or will move from poor or middle-class to rich, but some can, and some will. And they inspire and encourage all of us. And in the meantime, they raise our standard of living.

Are we ready to end this? We're ready to destroy the profit motive and punish success? Because some people get rich and some don't? That's going to happen in any economic model. Life can't be made fair, no matter how badly we want it to be.

We have to choose if we want to enjoy the many benefits of capitalism and deal with the few negative consequences, or suffer equally under (insert any alternative here.)

I can't take any person or group seriously that seeks to replace capitalism with some other economic model.

In support of my last post...

This from Mark Steyn:

http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/london-311857-want-book.html

This is going to sound crazy, but...

I'm going to start putting together my survival kits for the upcoming meltdown of society.

There, I said it. Now I'm officially a crazy conspiracy theorist. Except I don't think there's a big conspiracy out there to bring the country down or anything like that. I just think that we are headed to a meltdown.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the direction in which our country is headed. If you look back a couple of posts I wrote about taxes and fairness and posted a chart outlining who pays the bulk of taxes. My argument is that the rich pay enough taxes and that we should flatten and simplify taxes so that more people pay some taxes. To me that's fair. There is a good article by Charles Krauthammer: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/274375/system-works-charles-krauthammer#

He argues that our system is working and that the upcoming election in 2012 will determine what direction we will take in the future. The choice (as I see it) is between increased government, which creates increased dependency, and less government, encouraging personal responsibility. These are the stakes in the 2012 election, and this is the source of my new-found desire to be ready for a societal meltdown.

The outcome I'm hoping for, obviously, is a narrow Republican victory. Enough to turn the tide of entitlement spending and put us on a rational economic path, but not enough to make them think they can ram any social craziness through.

I hope that the majority of people see what I see. That Democrat class warfare and dependency politics are paths to slavery and permanent poverty. I fear that people only see freedom from consequences to their decisions and freedom from responsibility for their own welfare. Our president is out there telling people right now that they shouldn't have to pay for their medical insurance and that the rich don't pay their fair share. It's hard to compete with that when the opposite message is that you should work and pay your own way. Which is more appealing?

If the choice is defined as either work to pay your own way, or get a free ride at the expense of the anonymous "rich," there really isn't much hope for the Republicans. Especially when you consider that half the country already doesn't contribute much, if anything at all. The Democrats need only to get their base and that dependent majority to the polls and they win.

This brings us back to the upcoming meltdown. I'm not concerned about an immediate upheaval if my preferred side loses, I'm looking a few years down the road and what I see coming worries me. If the Democrats win they will take this, rightly, as a mandate to continue spending and creating entitlements for their constituents. We will get the single-payer health care system, environmental regulation, expanded "free" education, increased direct welfare, etc... The whole liberal pie.

Paid for with ever increasing taxes.

To a certain point.

Until there is no more "other people's money" with which to pay for everything. But by this point people will have grown so used to having things handed to them that they will not take well to being told they may have to do without. We are more-or-less there already.

Now I believe what I've described is exactly what we have seen played out in the streets of Greece this summer and in Great Britain this past week. In England the cuts haven't gone into effect yet and the people are rioting. They haven't even had to do without yet, it's the idea of austerity that they are rioting over.

The way I see it, these European rioters are doing kind of a half-ass job of it. When Americans get a good riot going, we don't mess around with rocks and bottles. We have Glocks and MAC-10s.

We will have a mass of un- or under-employed, idle people used to receiving everything they need to live from Uncle Sugar, faced with the prospect of having to do with less than they are told they "deserve" and used to blaming their problems on this anonymous group called the "rich." The rich, of course, defined as anyone who has nicer things than you do, and what you deserve is whatever you want.

It will won't be long before this mob decides to go out and take what they "deserve" from the "rich."

I plan to be ready.

What is "fair" when it comes to taxes and entitlements?

Define "fair." What does it mean to be fair when it comes to taxing people and helping those in need?

Is it fair to make a person go hungry or do without medical care? Is it fair to take half of a person's income away from them?

Our country is wealthy. Our poor are rich by the standards of most of the world. We should be willing and able to take care of those who can't take care of themselves. And in fact, we do. Our system is imperfect and people who need help don't get that help in some cases, maybe many cases. But in a country this large you are not going to make it perfect, no matter how much money you throw at the system.

So given that we have a social safety net in place for food, shelter and medical care, I think the question becomes: how far do we want to go with it? We must decide what we feel is right and moral and meet that standard.

So to look at the question: Is it fair to make a person go hungry or do without medical care? Absolutely not. But how about this question: Is it fair to ALLOW a person to go hungry or ALLOW a person to do without medical care? Is there any circumstance in which we would tell someone "Too bad, you made poor choices, deal with it."?

I think that's a fair question. And maybe the answer should be "no." My answer would be "hell yes." But I'm an evil conservative. However, I don't have a problem with people who disagree with me, and, in fact, if it were possible I would love to live in a world where we could take care of everyone regardless of their choices.

So let's look at the other question: Is it fair to take half a person's income away from them? No? How about 40%? We do that now. What if that person is very rich? We are talking a lot now about making millionaires pay "a little more," and "pitch in." The reality is that they are footing almost the entire bill already. It's a pretty easy Google search to find who pays what:




And from Wikipedia: "According to the IRS, the top 1% of income earners for 2008 paid 38% of income tax revenue, while earning 20% of the income reported. The top 5% of income earners paid 59% of the total income tax revenue, while earning 35% of the income reported. The top 10% paid 70%, earning 46% and the top 25% paid 86%, earning 67%. The top 50% paid 97%, earning 87% and leaving the bottom 50% paying 3% of the taxes collected and earning 13% of the income reported. The Tax Foundation stated that for 2007, the top 1% of earners paid more than the bottom 95% combined.^"

I am far from a millionaire, but I don't understand the anger directed towards them. Unless they got rich by doing something illegal, why this desire to take their money away?

It doesn't directly benefit me to argue against higher taxes on the wealthy. And I'm not arguing to eliminate progressive tax rates (although I'd love to see a real debate on a "flat tax.") I don't have a fundamental problem with the very poor not paying any taxes. However, when almost half the country bears no part of the burden of paying taxes we have a real problem.

What I'm saying is we take enough money from the people now, including the millionaires. Freeze it where it's at for now. Don't raise or lower any taxes until we make some fundamental decisions about the direction we are going. We need to make some real choices in this country. Big government welfare state or free-market, choices-have-consequences state.

Contrary to the way most liberals portray the choice, the latter does not mean social Darwinism. No rational conservative talks about eliminating safety nets, regardless of the scare tactics of the left. In fact conservative proposals seek to save Medicare and Social Security, not eliminate them. If you are not seeing this, you should broaden your media sources, you are being mislead.

The point I started out trying to make is that "fairness" is the wrong debate when it comes to the direction we want to take our country. It's simply an illusion, an impossible state that has never existed and never will. Pursuing it is like chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, a waste of time and effort.

Let's decide what is necessary to take care of only those who can't take care of themselves and the few other things only the government can do and fund at that level. Period. That is big and expensive enough. Trying to alter reality to make everyone live the same life should be left to the philosophers.

The birther issue isn't about race

The birther issue is no more about race than was the hatred of George W. Bush. It's pretty obvious in our culture that for many people disagreement is deeply personal. We can't seem to have a conversation involving choices without making the person with an opposing view into a demon.

The percentage of people who think Obama was not born in the U.S. is actually lower than the percentage of people who think W. knew about the 9/11 attack ahead of time (the truthers.) All this tells us is that there are a lot of people out there who are willing to believe the worst about someone with whom they disagree.

I think the bottom line for both the truthers and the birthers, is that there are a lot of people out there who, for whatever reason, choose not to think too deeply about issues. They don't do the research, they don't read widely, they just know they don't like that guy. He's wrong, he's a bad guy. Why? Well, he knew about 9/11 before it happened and didn't do anything about it because he wanted us to get into a war, blah, blah, blah. Or he wasn't born here, so he shouldn't even BE president, yada, yada, yada.

And that's as far as they choose to think about it. Dancing with the stars is on, after all.

It's more interesting to think about why we now need an explanation for the harsh words about Obama, but we never seemed to need to look at the "reason" for the hatred for George W. Bush. I don't recall many mainstream media discussions on the Sunday morning talk shows or on the editorial pages of the newspapers of the roots of the anger and opposition to Bush.

Back then, dissent was expected, encouraged and celebrated. Now it's racism. I don't understand why there has to be a "root" cause for disagreement with Obama?

Is there really anyone out there who still doesn't believe most of the media is biased? Come on, reporters and columnists, if you agree with a politician, defend the ideas. Don't demonize the people who disagree with you.

I'm looking at you right now, liberals. Do you really believe that EVERYONE who wants to reform Medicare wants grandma to be thrown in the snow? Is that a rational concept? That half of the people in the country are just mean-hearted, evil people?

I don't know how we make progress like this.

Loved this commentary

By Victor Davis Hanson, one of my favorite writers.

From the national debt to Libya, the political class is asleep at the wheel.

Barack Obama just gave a belated but stern warning about escalating debt — a few weeks after he presented a 2011 budget with a $1.6 trillion deficit, the largest shortfall in American history. Congressional Republicans are now crowing about reducing Obama’s red ink by forcing some $38 billion in cuts. Such supposed slashing means America would borrow just $1,562 billion this year rather than the scheduled full $1,600 billion.

The administration expects that someone will have enough money to float us $4 billion to $5 billion a day in loans — either foreigners such as the Chinese, whom we are accustomed to lecturing about their illiberal habits, or our own wealthy, whom President Obama so often chides and threatens with higher taxes. Meanwhile, shrill critics of Congress’s modest cuts claim that the elderly, poor, sick, and helpless will be cast adrift if their government dares to trim its massive borrowing by less than 3 percent — or just about 1 percent of this year’s projected $3.7 trillion budget.

Obama borrowed more in the month of February alone ($223 billion) than did the spendthrift George W. Bush during the entire 2007 budgetary year ($163 billion). Obama recently asserted that not authorizing a lofty new national-debt ceiling would be partisan recklessness. He should know. In 2006, then-senator Barack Obama voted not to raise the debt ceiling and railed against out-of-control government spending under the Bush administration. But then, the annual deficit was one-fifth of what it is today. Apparently President Obama lives in an alternative universe from the one Senator Obama used to inhabit.

Gas is heading toward $4 a gallon nationwide — and might reach $5 by Labor Day. The world price for a barrel of oil is well over $100 — and climbing. In response, Obama praised Brazil for developing a vast new offshore oilfield and promised that the United States would readily buy the oil it produces.

The Obama administration has made it clear, however, that such messy drilling is for others. So, much of Alaska, the American West, and our coastal waters will remain off limits. The logic is that Americans can borrow to buy oil from foreign nations that are willing to drill in their fragile tundra, offshore seas, and natural preserves. Apparently the White House has not much concern about where we are going to get the cash, or how other nations are going to recover oil offshore more cleanly than we would.

Instead of a detailed plan for developing more sources of natural gas, oil, and coal, including tar sands and oil shale, we still hear infantile chants about “wind, solar, and millions of new green jobs.” But solar panels and windmills will not be up to fueling the nation’s 250 million passenger cars and trucks any time soon.

The president announced that he would support the Libyan rebels. He pointed to United Nations and Arab League authorizations to establish a no-fly zone and stop Qaddafi from killing his opponents. Helping the rebels win means using force to remove Qaddafi. Yet regime change is a mission that we insist is not our goal and would not be authorized by the international bodies to which we subordinate ourselves.

In truth, the Obama administration intervened without knowing who or what the Libyan rebels were, apparently on the theory that they were close to winning and seemed a far better option than Qaddafi. The first premise proved wrong; the second could be true but is still subject to debate. So we took a breather and quit military operations, hoping the Libyan mess would just go away, in the same way that dictators voluntarily stepped down in Egypt and Tunisia.

The U.S. government is no longer supposed to use hurtful vocabulary like “War on Terror,” “Islamic terrorism,” or “jihadist.” But some unnamed groups are still apparently trying to kill us. Otherwise, why would the White House keep the demonized Guantanamo Bay facility open? And for what purpose, and against whom, are we still employing the once-hated military tribunals, renditions, and preventive detention?

Fantasy apparently seems preferable to reality. In our new dream world, borrowed money need not be paid back. Cars may run on nasty gas, but only if it is produced in faraway places. Mean dictators should flee when told to leave. And radical Muslims are not really trying to kill us.

Like children, we turn on any spoilsport parent who nags us to stop borrowing, cut entitlements and government spending, start drilling and building power plants, get real about dictators in the Middle East, and keep vigilant against radical Islamic terrorists.

So we will keep dreaming until creditors, oil exporters, enemies, or terrorists wake us up.

Interesting...

The following is an editorial from the Wall Street Journal.

The debate over Paul Ryan's Medicare reform ideas has largely been healthy, even amid the liberal distortions. But why has there been so little scrutiny of President Obama's new Medicare proposal? Anyone worrying about more individual choice and responsibility in health care might be interested to learn that the alternative is turning every one of these decisions over to a 15-member central committee.

It sounds absurd, but there the President was last week, gravely conceding Mr. Ryan's analysis of Medicare's balance sheet and then claiming that the solution is to give a lot more political power to an unelected board to control health costs. Democrats believe this board will play doctor and actuary and allocate health resources better than markets, so allow us to fill in some of the details of this government-planned future.

The Independent Payment Advisory Board was created in the ObamaCare statute, and the President will appoint its experts in 2012 to six-year terms. From then on, look out. Democrats cut $468 billion in Medicare spending by screwing down its price controls and gutting the private insurance options of Medicare Advantage, while also boosting taxes by about $89 billion. This money could have strung along the status quo for a few more years, but Democrats diverted it instead to their new middle-class entitlement, which is like eating all the food left in the life raft.

Starting in 2014, the board is charged with holding Medicare spending to certain limits, which at first is a measure of inflation. After 2018, the threshold is the nominal per capita growth of the economy plus one percentage point. Last week Mr. Obama said he wants to lower that to GDP plus half a percentage point.

Mr. Ryan has been lambasted for linking his "premium support" Medicare subsidies to inflation, not the rate of health cost growth. But if that's as unrealistic as the liberal wise men claim, then Mr. Obama's goals are even more so. Medicare grew 2.1 percentage points faster between 1985 and 2009 than Mr. Obama's new GDP target. At least Mr. Ryan is proposing a workable model for bringing costs down over time by changing incentives.

Mr. Obama, by contrast, is relying on the so far unidentified technocratic reforms of 15 so far unidentified geniuses who are supposed to give up medical practice or academic research for the privilege of a government salary. Since the board is not allowed by law to restrict treatments, ask seniors to pay more, or raise taxes or the retirement age, it can mean only one thing: arbitrarily paying less for the services seniors receive, via fiat pricing.

Post-ObamaCare, Medicare's administered fee schedule is set eventually to dip below Medicaid payments in many states, which are themselves already far lower than the rates of private insurers that reflect the true costs of health care. Medicare itself says these cuts will cause 15% of U.S. hospitals to become unprofitable in the next decade. Mr. Obama wants Americans to believe that his planners will wring out even more spending through the power of positive technocratic thinking.

Under last year's law, the board submits its recommendations to Congress on an up-or-down vote and they go into effect automatically unless Congress adopts an equivalent plan. Its decisions aren't subject to judicial or administrative review. Now Mr. Obama wants to give the board the additional power of automatic sequester to enforce its dictates, meaning that it would have the legal authority to prevent Congress from appropriating tax dollars. In other words, Congress would be stripped of any real legislative role in favor of an unaccountable body of experts.

The honest-to-Peter Orszag liberal theory here is that, among ObamaCare's well-meaning if speculative pilot programs, someone will find a way to deliver better health care at a lower cost. Then the board will decide "what works" and apply it through regulation to all of American medicine. But small-scale initiatives usually succeed because of local health-care conditions and rarely succeed when mass-scaled. Anyhow, decades of government faith in omniscient miracle workers has left Medicare in its present shambles.

As a practical matter, the more likely outcome is the political rationing of care for the elderly, as now occurs in Britain, or else the board will drive prices so low that many doctors and hospitals drop out of Medicare. Either alternative would create the kind of two-tier system dividing the poor and affluent that Democrats claim is Mr. Ryan's mortal sin.

Messrs. Ryan and Obama agree that Medicare spending must decline, and significantly. The difference is that Mr. Ryan would let seniors decide which private Medicare-financed insurance policies to buy based on their own needs, while Mr. Obama wants Americans to accept the commands of 15 political appointees who will never stand for election.

Six years ago Gaddafi respected (feared?) America enough to abandon his nuclear weapons program. (We should be thankful for that now.) But we worried that the Arab world didn't like us.

We are now two-and-a-half years into trying to "repair" our image in the world. Dictators now feel free to kill any of their citizens who oppose them and we find ourselves having to deal with Gaddafi - again.

Personally, I'd prefer to go back to "feared and hated" rather than "liked" in a world we still have to police but where we don't call the shots.

Here's a little secret: they'll never like us no matter what we do, and fear of us keeps people alive in places like Libya and Yemen.