In 40 years working in television news, and now living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, I’m surrounded by people who sneer at “profit.”  At Princeton, I was taught that pursuit of profit was largely destructive, and I took that attitude to my consumer reporting. I hated the profits made by the scam artists and demanded that the government step in and do something. But the more reporting I did, the more it dawned on me that the government is often the problem, and that the biggest profit-makers were the ones who served their customers well.

– John Stossel, ABC News.

Here’s Francis Fukuyama on the political architecture of Iran. Basically, imagine if the Bill of Rights had included an Amendment 10b that stated, “an unelected council of religious clerics lead by a supreme leader may at will define, qualify or overrule all these previous amendments.”

Political scientists categorize the Islamic Republic of Iran as an “electoral authoritarian” regime of a new sort. They put it in the same basket as Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela or Vladimir Putin’s Russia. By this view, Iran is fundamentally an authoritarian regime run by a small circle of clerics and military officials who use elections to legitimate themselves.

Others think of Iran as a medieval theocracy. Its 1979 constitution vests sovereignty not in the people, but in God, and establishes Islam and the Quran as the supreme sources of law.

The Iranian Constitution is a curious hybrid of authoritarian, theocratic and democratic elements. Articles One and Two do vest sovereignty in God, but Article Six mandates popular elections for the presidency and the Majlis, or parliament. Articles 19-42 are a bill of rights, guaranteeing, among other things, freedom of expression, public gatherings and marches, women’s equality, protection of ethnic minorities, due process and private property, as well as some “second generation” social rights like social security and health care.

The truly problematic part of the constitution is Section Eight (Articles 107-112) on the Guardian Council and the “Leader.” All the democratic procedures and rights in the earlier sections of the constitution are qualified by certain powers reserved to a council of senior clerics.

These powers, specified in Article 110, include control over the armed forces, the ability to declare war, and appointment powers over the judiciary, heads of media, army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Another article lays out conditions under which the Supreme Leader can be removed by the Guardian Council. But that procedure is hardly democratic or transparent.

Author Mark Bowden (Guests of the Ayatollah; Blackhawk Down) summed it up similarly:

“The term “republic” is double-talk. The elected government is run by a small group of privileged clerics who decide what candidates and what laws are acceptable, who control the military and the secret police, and whatever else they wish, and who stifle dissent, beating up or locking up those they don’t like….

All laws and candidates for any public post must be approved by him [the Ayatollah] and the Guardian Council, a twelve-member body of clerics and judges that he appoints. The elected government of Iran is a kind of toy democracy that serves at his pleasure. It consists of an elected president, currently the populist ultraconservative former mayor of Tehran, Ahmadinejad, the Majlis, and a judiciary. The mullahs tolerate just enough of a semblance of democracy and freedom to maintain the pretense of a democracy

…. [After Khatami's 1996 election] There was a brief blossoming of free speech and debate, opposition newspapers sprang up, and Iran began to smell the prospect of real freedom. There was heady talk of Iran “evolving” peacefully toward democracy. Khatami encoded the hopes of many in the legislation that would have freed Iran’s lawmakers from the veto power of the Guardians Council.The mullahs stopped that fast. Ayatollah Khamenei vetoed the legislation, which provoked some rioting on college campuses in 2003 and some spontaneous heretical Pro-American displays, but such outbursts were quickly subdued. Early in 2005, the Guardians Council simply crossed all reform candidates off the ballot

…. Writers and artists must be licensed to work for any of the major news outlets, or for their work to be published or shown. A jury representing the ministries of information and culture weighs applicants and decides which pass political and religious muster

…. In the current crackdown more than a hundred reform newspapers and magazines have been banned. Many formerly tolerated journalists are out of work. To attempt any unlicensed work means risking being hauled in to chat with a polished but unyielding middle-management Information Ministry zealot with the power to fire, arrest, torture, and even execute enemies of the state, although in the Land of the Bordbari [Iran], such measures are no longer frequently required. Some writers are silenced by threats to keep their children from acceptance at universities, a critical path to future success.Without a free press it is hard to know how most people feel about progress toward the umma [community of Muslims].”

[ABC News] At the end of Wednesday night’s prime-time news conference that was intended to be chiefly about health care, Obama was asked about the incident [the arrest of black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.], to which he responded: “I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that.”

But Obama went on to say, “I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That’s just a fact.”

Obama: I don’t have all the facts but those cops sure acted stupidly.

This is typical liberal knee-jerk racial reaction. So much our new post-racial country. Black or white, the cops reacted the same way they would towards any person acting belligerent. Don’t believe me, go try the same.

The police report said Gates, who was returning from a trip to China and found his front door jammed, at first refused to provide an ID and became unruly. He was charged with disorderly conduct but the charges were dropped this week.

Law enforcement sources told ABC News that the conversation between Gates and Crowley was transmitted over Crowley’s open police radio and Gates can be heard yelling.

“Mr. Gates was given plenty of opportunities to stop what he was doing. He didn’t. He acted very irrational. He controlled the outcome of that event,” Crowley told WBZ.

Crowley said Gates, the director of Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research and former host of the PBS show “African American Lives,” called him a “racist cop.”

“There was a lot of yelling, there was references to my mother,” he added, “something you wouldn’t expect from anybody that should be grateful that you were there investigating a report of a crime in progress, let alone a Harvard University professor.”

He controlled the outcome of the event. Yes he did, didn’t he.

Meanwhile, this evil racist cop tried to save the life of NBA superstar Reggie Lewis 15 years ago.

[AP] Obama says it’s not about him. “I have great health insurance and so does every member of Congress,” the president said in remarks prepared for his news conference Wednesday night.

Oh, reaaaally? Well if he and Congress have such “great health insurance,” then why not just give us their plan? Or, conversely, as several Republicans have previously mentioned, if President Obama’s proposed “federal option” is so good for the rest of us bums, why won’t the prez and Congress volunteer to drop their golden-goose federal plan and join ObamaCare?

Because the ObamaCare plan is just for us suckers, not the privileged on Capital Hill. You see, among other perks, the U.S. taxpayer currently picks up about 70% of the premiums of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), that Congress, the prez and several million federal employees use.

As a Heritage study put it way back in 1997:

The FEHBP is not experiencing the severe financial problems faced by Medicare. It is run by a very small bureaucracy that, unlike Medicare’s, does not try to set prices for doctors and hospitals. It offers choices of modern benefits and private plans to federal retirees (and active workers) that are unavailable in Medicare. It provides comprehensive information to enrollees. And it uses a completely different payment system that blends a formula with negotiations to achieve a remarkable level of cost control while constantly improving benefits and enjoying wide popularity.

“A small bureaucracy” you say? Oh, but there’s the rub! Were they to do that for the rest of us 300 million Americans the plan would become way too expensive way too fast and lead to the very benefit rationing that the ObamaCare plan will force upon us. We can’t ask Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Kennedy to have their care rationed like the rest of us bums.

Related: [Politico] Former President Bill Clinton considered dismantling the program during the 1993-94 push for health care reform because he didn’t want the public to think Congress was getting special treatment under his plan, according to news reports at the time.

You don’t say! And how’d that Clinton care turn out…

Yes, Mr. Obama, socialist healthcare works wonderfully when 300 million pay for a few million. But once you expand that to 3oo million covered, or even say Canada for 30 million, the perks get rationed, the waits get longer, the drugs dwindle, the costs go up, albeit it’s equal for everyone — equally miserable. All except for Congress that is, who will no doubt remain on their own plan also paid by the U.S. taxpayer.

Courtesy of Dennis Miller, be sure to check out video by Steven Crowder.

Move to the 8-minute mark for a great few minutes of highlights — government healthcare employees recommending to the patients on hidden camera that they pay for private healthcare because it’s faster and more efficient.

Two to three years to get a family doctor in Canada? “You’re young so you have time,” the nurse adds.

Because another patient had to wait so long for treatment for circulation problems the doctors amputated both legs, when initial diagnosis called for just one. By the time the treatment took place the disease had spread.

Sure, some of this is contrived, but that’s part of the point, eh: Conservatives should use the same carefully edited media skills that liberals such as Michael Moore employ.

In the words of the Wall Street Journal, “But who would you rather have making decisions about whether a treatment is worth the price — the combination of you, your doctor and a private insurer, or a government board [such as in the U.K.] that cuts everyone off at $22,000?”

The House bill would place new taxes on the wealthiest people to help expand insurance coverage to the nation’s 46 million uninsured people. The legislation calls for a 5.4% surtax on those with annual gross incomes exceeding $1 million.

Households with annual income between $500,000 a year and $1 million would be hit with a 1.5% surtax, and those earning between $350,000 and $500,000 would face a 1% surtax. Those rates could eventually increase to 3% and 2%, respectively, if the government doesn’t achieve certain health-cost savings.

That’s from a Wall Street Journal article explaining the 1,000+ page healthcare bill that your Senate and House representatives are sure not to read.

Some of those numbers sound like a lot of money. But what’s not captured are the number of small business owners in that lot — the ones who work 60 hours a week, who don’t get to split at 5 pm, who don’t get to leave the stress at the welcome mat — or the number of unemployed that will be created once employers determine they can’t afford so many employees.

Here’s something interesting: The Global Rich List. Input an annual salary and it will tell you how you rank against the rest of the world. For example, input just $25,000, which is what we’d term lower income class, and you’ll find that you’re nonetheless in the top 10 percent of the world’s wage earners. Say you marry another like-incomed person — congratulations, you’re now in the top 1 percent, as you both file income tax jointly, share bills, expenses, etc.

My point here is that finances, especially income, are relative. As is morality. And choices. How many of us save for cars, homes, jewelry, big screen televisions, etc., but don’t save a single dime for our health. Why not? Health savings accounts are available.

Most of us save something for retirement independently, because years ago the general population conceded that Social Security (what FDR’s peeps called retirement insurance) didn’t exactly give you bang for your lifetime of taxed bucks — you needed more. Some day we’ll be in a similar position with single-payer healthcare where on top of their “free” healthcare they’re forced to buy extra because the government “option” was a lousy one (as many U.K. or Canadians do today). But that won’t solve the woes of rationing: limited choices, longer waits, fewer drugs and life-saving or life-prolonging procedures.

One of the primary arguments promoting universal/single-payer healthcare (or the Orwellian termed government “option,” as Obama calls it) regards the supposed morality of such a system. The purpose, of course, is to shame opponents of the option. The notion is nonsense.

To emphasize that see how the British system of rationing health care decreed (meaning, those bureaucrats were unelected representatives of U.K. citizens’ health) that a human life was worth no more than $22,000 in a six-month period.

Similarly, Mark Steyn reflects on a Quebec, Canada, man named Gerald Augustin, “who went to the St. André medical clinic complaining of stomach pain.”

He’d forgotten to bring his government medical card, so they turned him away. He was a Quebecker born and bred, and he was in their computer. But no card, no service: That’s just the way it is. So he went back home to get it and collapsed of acute appendicitis, and by the time the ambulance arrived he was dead. He was 21 years old, and he didn’t make it to 22 because he was forced to accept the right of a government bureaucrat to refuse him medical treatment for which he and his family have been confiscatorily taxed all their lives. “I don’t see what we did wrong,” said the administrator. “We just followed the rules.” No big deal, M. Augustin wasn’t anything special; no one in the clinic even remembered giving him the brush.

Roy Romanow, the Canadian politician who headed the most recent of the innumerable inquiries into problems with the system, defends the state’s monopoly on the grounds that “Canadians view medicare [as their system is called] as a moral enterprise, not a business venture.” If the St. André clinic were a business venture, they’d have greeted M. Augustin with: “You’ve got stomach pains? Boy, have we hit the jackpot! Let’s get you some big-ticket pills and sign you up for surgery!” But because it’s a moral enterprise they sent him away with a flea in his ear. If you have a bad experience in a private system, there’s always another doctor, another clinic, another hospital five miles up the road. But when the government monopoly denies you health care, that’s it: Go home and wait — or, like M. Augustin, die.

“Morality” is always the justification. Inaugurating Britain’s National Health Service on July 5, 1948, the health minister, Nye Bevan, crowed: “We now have the moral leadership of the world.” That’s how Obamacare is being sold: Even the New York Times reports (in paragraph 38) that 77 percent of Americans are content with their health care. But they feel bad about all those poor uninsured waifs earning 75 grand a year. So it will make us all feel better if the government “does something.” Not literally “feel better”: We’ll be feeling sicker, longer, in dirtier waiting rooms. But our disease-ridden bodies will be warmed by the glow of knowing we did the right thing.

What’s so moral about relieving the citizen of responsibility for his own health care? If free citizens of the wealthiest societies in human history are not prepared to make provision for their own health, what other core responsibilities of functioning adulthood are they likely to forgo? Oh, Smith and Jones can still be entrusted to make their own choices about which movie to rent from Netflix, or which breakfast cereal to eat. For the moment. But you’d be surprised how quickly the “right” to health care elides into the government’s right to tell you how to live in order to access that health care. A government-directed medical system can be used to justify almost any restraint on freedom: After all, if the state undertakes to cure you, it surely has an interest in preventing your needing treatment in the first place — or declining to treat you if you persist in your deviancy: Smokers in Manchester, England, have been refused treatment for heart disease, and the obese in Suffolk have been told they’re ineligible for hip and knee replacements. With a staff of 1.4 million, England’s National Health Service is supposedly the third-biggest employer on the planet, after the Chinese army (2.3 million) and Indian National Railways (1.5 million). And those couple of million Chinese and Indians are mere drops in oceans each over a billion strong, not a significant chunk of the adult population of a tiny strip of land in the North Atlantic. But the NHS still has to ration treatment. Patricia Hewitt, the former health secretary, says there’s nothing wrong with the state forbidding treatment on the basis of “lifestyle choices.” And apparently the “pro-choice” types who jump up and down in the street demanding that you keep your rosaries off their ovaries are entirely relaxed about the government getting its bureaucratics all over your lymphatics.

Ultimately, it’s not the nationalization of health care but the nationalization of your body. Right now, if you want an MRI, it’s between you and your doctors. In a government-run system, if you want an MRI and you can’t get one, it’s the government’s fault. And the government should do something about it. Not give you the MRI, of course (that’s too obvious, as well as too expensive), but at least introduce a new Patient’s Bill of Rights, as Gordon Brown’s just done, promising every Briton the “right” to hospital treatment within 18 weeks. Or your (tax) money back? Ah, well, no, but the prime minister’s charter will also give you “guaranteed access to cancer treatments,” as well as “the right to die at home,” which sounds a bit as if Mr. Brown were covering himself. Scotland’s cancer survival rate is 40 percent, compared with America’s 63 percent. So if the other 60 percent of Scots all exercise their right to die at home, that might free up some “guaranteed access” for the remainder. And if it doesn’t, the prime minister will perhaps introduce a new helpline — 1-800-PATIENT — in which all you have to do is punch in your postal code and some bureaucrat will come on the line to explain that the new cancer survival targets for your area will be introduced circa 2012 and please call back then if you’re not dead.

Here’s John Stossel. All American taxpayers should share his sentiments:

I’ve written before about the conceit of politicians who dole out taxpayers’ money and then expect that people worship them for the help they give. Occasionally, a politician says it outright, like in this short video of Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell that came out today:

“State workers – I’ve arranged for them to get a $15,000 loan with no interest…… they should put a statue of me up on their mantleplace,” Rendell says.

Why should they get statues for spending YOUR money?

A similarly revealing incident happened last month, when Maxine Waters shouted at and shoved fellow Democrat and House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey. His offense? Refusing to approve funding for the “Maxine Waters Employment Preparation Center.”

Give me a break. Lets limit the power of politicians, and start thanking the people who actually create the wealth that the politicians freely give away.

The average length of official unemployment increased to 24.5 weeks, the longest since government began tracking this data in 1948. The number of long-term unemployed (i.e., for 27 weeks or more) has now jumped to 4.4 million, an all-time high.

– Mort Zuckermann. Read the rest.

So on top of the Bush tax cuts expiring (i.e., raising taxes), the Democrats are going to promote yet another tax hike separately. Yeah, that’ll do wonders for our 9.5% unemployment rate, Mr. President.

Here’s the WSJ:

Every detail isn’t known, but late last week Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel disclosed that his draft bill would impose a “surtax” on individuals with adjusted gross income of more than $280,000 a year. This would hit job creators especially hard because more than six of every 10 who earn that much are small business owners, operators or investors, according to a 2007 Treasury study. That study also found that almost half of the income taxed at this highest rate is small business income from the more than 500,000 sole proprietorships and subchapter S corporations whose owners pay the individual rate.

In addition, many more smaller business owners with lower profits would be hit by the Rangel plan’s payroll tax surcharge. That surcharge would apply to all firms with 25 or more workers that don’t offer health insurance to their employees, and it would amount to an astonishing eight percentage point fee above the current 15% payroll levy.

Here’s the ugly income-tax math. First, Mr. Obama has promised to let the lower Bush tax rates expire after 2010. This would raise the top personal income tax rate to 39.6% from 35%, and the next rate to 36% from 33%. The Bush expiration would also phase out various tax deductions and exemptions, bringing the top marginal rate to as high as 41%.

Then add the Rangel Surtax of one percentage point, starting at $280,000 ($350,000 for couples), plus another percentage point at $400,000 ($500,000 for couples), rising to three points on more than $800,000 ($1 million) in 2011. But wait, there’s more. The surcharge could rise by two more percentage points in 2013 if health-care costs are larger than advertised — which is a near-certainty. Add all of this up and the top marginal tax rate would climb to 46%, which hasn’t been seen in the U.S. since the Reagan tax reform of 1986 cut the top rate to 28% from 50%.