I, apparently, have really dense bone, because my dentist had to drill longer than usual to make the opening in my jaw. All during the drilling I was heavily numbed, having multiple injections because the numbing agent started to wear off a couple times. Once the hole was drilled, the next stage was to screw the implant into my jaw. This is exactly the same idea when you pre-drill holes into wood for screws. The first time the dentist tried to screw the implant in, he tried and tried, but my bone was too hard. So more drilling.

The second time he was more successful, but he had to use a lot of torque on the “ratchet” that is used to screw in the implant. He used so much torque that part of the delivery mechanism broke off, leaving a screw inside the implant. He tried for what seemed like an hour to remove it, but in the end, the only solution was to remove the implant and try a new one.

More drilling ensued. For a third time, he tried to screw in implant, and this time it went perfect. I was all done. What does any of this have to do with California’s Prop 19?

At the end of the surgery, he asked me if I wanted any pain medication, because my jaw really felt beat up. I thought about saying no, but this was the most my jaw had ever taken, so I said yes. He asked if I had any preferences, and I told him that all I know is that it takes 2 Vicodin for me to feel relief. He suggested Percoset because it was “10 times as strong” as Vicodin.

The Percoset worked really well that night and the next day. I took one tablet every 4 hours, and while I have to admit getting a little buzz from it, it wasn’t so much that I wasn’t able to do my job (computer programming). However, I did notice by the end of the next day, that the effect was weaker than it had been the previous day, but it was enough to let me sleep.

The second day after I had the implant inserted, the Percoset no longer gave me much relief. It seemed I had quickly built a tolerance to it. In the words of a great American poet “I used to do a little, but the little wasn’t doin’”. The next part of the poem “So the little got more and more” was a path I didn’t continue on. My pain wasn’t that bad and I didn’t like the idea of increasing my dosage beyond the one pill, so that was it. I’ve tried a tablet of the Percoset off and on since then seeing if I get any relief again, and I do not. I don’t know if this reaction is common, or what, but in less than 48 hours I was unable to take the proper dosage and get any pain relief.

Again, what does this have to do with Prop 19? I asked a friend the day after implant surgery if, as a pot smoker, he knew if pot helped with pain relief. He didn’t think so, other than you might stop caring about the pain. I had no interest in using pot to relieve my pain, I was just curious. For some reason, medical marijuana is controversial but the collection of opiates, legally prescribed to me, that lurk in my medicine cabinet are perfectly fine, and prescribed often. If pot did help with pain, does anyone think the opiates are better for me long term than ingesting pot brownies a few times a day? Why do we have this hangup? Why can’t we imagine a world, where at the minimum, doctors are allowed to prescribe any kind of medication they see fit as long as it’s safe and has proven efficacy? Does anyone know why I can be prescribed a highly addictive opiate while medicinal marijuana is still taboo in my state? It’s maddening.

Prop 19 is about legalizing pot and allowing people to have better control over what they want to ingest. Cheeseburgers are more likely to kill you than pot, and I don’t see a big push by the drug warriors to ban cheese burgers, to save us from ourselves. Prohibition of pot, and drugs in general, has been a complete failure. If you care about helping minorities, than vote to legalize pot, instead of incarcerating the minority youth of today (I’m not generalizing here, the drug laws disproportionately affect minority youth). If you want to crack down on violent crime, then vote to free up police time to investigate real crimes. If you want a secure border, then vote to eliminate one reason we have a border drug war.

While I personally believe all illegal drugs should be decriminalized, I’m happy to just start with pot. Let’s legalize the one drug that everyone does anyway, the one drug that our last three presidents tried without issue, the one drug that is surely more benign than alcohol. Vote for Prop 19 because it’s the smart, ethical, moral, and right thing to do. I hope anyone in California who reads this, votes for Prop 19.

That is not to say that credit card companies have our best interests (bad pun, har, hard) in mind, either. After all they are in the business of giving unsecured lines of credit to the general population, and currently they are in trouble as an industry for giving out credit lines to too many people with lousy credit histories. They’ve been poorly run and I have little sympathy for their self created problems. If they can’t be responsible in who they choose as customers, then good riddance. Go bankrupt for all I care.

So now, with the economy in shambles and politicians eager to earn brownie points with consumers who on average carry around $11,000 on credit cards, comes the warm and snuggly sounding bill that gives us consumers a new “bill of rights.” Credit card companies will now be restricted in rate increases, for how long they can increase rates, be required to make the fine print more obvious, and show people how long it will take to pay off their balances with the minimum payments. In other words, this bill is designed to limit revenue generated by credit card companies and provide information that people already have access to if they were responsible with their finances. While I don’t agree that the government needs to get involved in this, let’s all be honest with what this bill is really doing. If you believe this is indeed where government should intercede, fine. I understand where you’re coming from. I just don’t agree with it, and allow to explain why.

The credit card companies are going to react in some way. They’re going to react in ways Congress and Obama certainly haven’t considered. Let’s look at a few obvious ones that have already been thrown out there:

* Return of the annual fee
* A paring back of reward programs
* Fewer promotional rates and offers
* Job cuts

However, I think there is one change that might well happen but no one seems to have discussed. Credit card companies might in fact, raise credit limits. This might seem counter intuitive, but it seems to me to play into human behavior. Consumers will not change behavior because of this bill. They might because of the economy, but not because of this bill. Credit card companies will need to make up the revenue somewhere, so why not increase limits and take the interest off of larger balances. I honestly think that is where this bill creates incentives. Instead of seeing rates of 18% on $3,000 balances, you’ll see 9% on $6,000.

Using a calculator from bankrate.com, a $3,000 balance at 18% paying the monthly minimum, will cost you $1716.00 in interest. Using the other scenario, you will pay $1355 in interest. While the credit card company took a 21% hit in revenue, you went into twice as much debt. At 11% interest rate is where the credit card company gets back to the same amount. Surely, a credit line of $6,000 at 11% will seem like a great deal compared to $3,000 at 18%. The former looks like the deal of someone who is well off and is responsible, the latter perhaps the average consumer, but they pay off the same.

I think it is an almost certainty that the credit card companies will react in some way that will in the long term be more detrimental to consumers than if the government had never gotten involved. There will be unintended consequences not listed in this article, too. The government is removing a moral hazard from the consumer-credit card company relationship, and history has shown us that usually leads to unintended disasters. I wish our legislators would take more seriously the cause and effect of changing the incentives.

On a side note, I applaud the news networks for pointing out the completely unrelated rider attached to the bill allowing loaded handguns into national parks. However, I wish they would do it more often, that is, pointing out unrelated legislation, and not just when it’s about an issue they are either strongly for (Fox News) or strongly against (MSNBC).

At one point he writes, “Time and time again, we have seen the administration unfairly target agriculture programs to achieve savings and completely discount the hardworking men and woman that rely on these programs for their livelihood.” Read that again, especially the last bit. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

I really want to know what programs provide “hardworking” folks their “livelihood”. I’ve tried to imagine what that really means. I know that many (if not almost all) people who work in the ag industries are hardworking. Farming ought to be the fundamental example of how entrepreneurship, hard work, personal responsibility and the free market works. But it bothers my work ethic to picture anyone using any Federal program as a regular and primary means of support, and this is worded in a way that assumes just that scenario. It also assumes a permanent flow of funds, rather than temporary assistance through a tough season.

I think he may have simply overstated the level of their reliance (I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt), but it does highlight a point or two that should be made.

First, Chambliss the politician is typical in that he hates to see a cut in programs that benefits his own constituents, even if the benefit is actually a shackle that keeps them from moving on to better things. From a libertarian point of view, this type of welfare, by keeping entrepreneurs locked into an unsuccessful business model, hinders freedom and the creation of new products, services and industries and is therefore not an actual benefit at all.

Second, Chambliss can display outrage at the kind of unprecedented spending we’re witnessing, but the Federal government has been overstepping it’s fiduciary authority (and thereby enslaving people while buying their votes) for generations – even when the Republicans were in charge. Saxby’s Republicans differ only in a) to whom the funds are targeted and b) what the size of the check will be.

Now that the Democrats won so handily in 2008 there seems to be some legitimate remorse in the Republican Party, and they are beginning to (perhaps desperately) look at many issues now in the same way that the Libertarian Party already does and always has. But there’s no guarantee of his continued contrition once a Republican returns to office. There are, however, extraordinarily good odds that a Libertarian Party candidate will adhere to libertarian principles once in office. Why would he run as a libertarian if he didn’t already hold those values as his own?

The two major parties are different only in degree. Voting Libertarian is the real vote for change.

However, it did indeed make news, so I’ve had to listen to a lot of gabbing about it on CNN. Today I noticed a commentary on how he appreciated the honesty of her answer (http://bit.ly/GWiQC). He defends her by comparing her position to Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, calling them the four of the biggest liberals in the country.

Yeah, whatever, Roland. I’m sure if she had said “The Bible tells me the races shouldn’t mix, so I’m against interracial marriage” you would be smiling and celebrating her honesty. Please. You’d be calling her a small minded racist Republican emblematic of the continued race problems in the United States. Because of your own religious beliefs, however, you’re just smiling and thanking her.

Look as a libertarian, I don’t think the state should have anything to do with marriage, however, that pipedream isn’t going to happen. The state has been in the business of regulating marriage too long to go back, so gays should have the right to marry, period. I don’t care what anyone’s particular translation of a 2,000 year old arbitrarily chosen set of fictional books says, gays have the Constitutional right to be treated equally under the law. If you don’t like that, well, you have some soul searching to do, because it was just two generations ago that people used the Bible to argue against interracial marriage, and even just interracial dating. As repulsive as that sounds now, I hope opposition to gay marriage sounds as repulsive when I’m old and gray and long retired.

Reference:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/22/martin.miss.california/index.html

And now we have his presidency, a time for “Hope” and “Change” so goes the rhetoric. However, on the day after Obama was elected, I began telling people how disappointing he was going to be for those who either were looking for a far left agenda and/or the promise of change. For those on the right, I predicted Obama would “disappoint” them in the sense, that Obama will be far more centrist than the right was “hoping” for. I think on all counts I’ve been correct.

Obama has not been as liberal as some thought he would be. He has reached out to Republicans, he has increased the Faith Based Initiative programs, he has already put off for now allowing gays into the military, and in a moment of real symbolism, he waited until the day after the anniversary of Roe v Wade to overturn the “Mexico City Policy” that Republican presidents have enacted. When it came down to a stimulus package, those on the left were disappointed in the amount of “tax cuts” (I put that in quotes because there were no tax cuts in the bill, just tax credits). Some were disappointed that family planning funding was so easily cast aside to appease Republicans.

As for “Hope” and “Change”, well, Obama has failed to deliver either. From the first day of his presidency, he has been using the language of fear to ram the stimulus bill through Congress. When he speaks of the economy, he doesn’t talk about “Hope”, but instead tells everyone he can that unless we do “something” now, that the economy will become a catastrophe. Instead of inspiring Americans or educating Americans on how to deal with the recession, instead of talking about the great things that can come out of recessions, Obama has relied on fear, same as the Bush administration, to convince Americans to support his policies.

The Patriot Act was passed by using fear. The debacle known as TARP was passed by scaring everyone. Obama (and the Democrats) have not brought “change”. We’ve had eight years of encouraging people to buy by going into debt, eight years of budget busting spending, and eight years of “hit you over the head with it” fear mongering that has done little but expand the scope and power of government. Maybe the beneficiaries under Obama have different names, but from this libertarian’s seat, it all blends into the same non-change, non-hopeful blur.