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Already I can feel the tug to vote for a minor-party
candidate in the presidential election this year. The last
time that happened was in 1980, when the majors offered us
the evil of two lessers
and Libertarian Ron Paul got
my vote.
In 1992, I was prepared to vote Libertarian until that bastion of elite liberal values, National Public Radio, talked me out of it.
NPR did this by airing a 25-minute stump speech from every candidate who was on the ballot in all 50 states. The Libertarian candidate, whom I was prepared to vote for, expounded about how we didn't have to worry all that much about NAFTA because American companies had trouble with their factories in Mexico on account of their employees wanting to take siestas, which was hard on productivity.
He made it sound as though there was something wrong with siestas. For one thing, the people of Mexico have a right to organize their days any way they want to.
For another, I'd happily vote for any candidate who
promised a constitutional amendment to protect siesta
rights on this side of the Rio Grande -- something on the
order of Every state shall enjoy the right to enforce
the death penalty upon anyone duly convicted of willfully
disturbing the afternoon nap of any citizen.
Full protection may lie beyond the power of any government, though. I'm starting to believe that there's something cosmic. Just as soon as I get comfortable and start drifting off in the late afternoon, the Quillen Comfort Alarm must sound in the headquarters of the universe, and the powers that be discuss a suitable response.
You want to call on the phone and say it's urgent,
even when it isn't?
No, I think we should send
somebody to the door -- an evangelist or a siding salesman
would work best.
We did that yesterday. What about
some sirens right under his window?
Why don't I just
get one of the cats to jump on him and start yowling and
scratching?
Good idea, and five minutes after he
lets the cat out, I'll get the dog to start
barking.
Back to presidential politics. In 1992, I voted for Bill Clinton for two reasons. I wanted a president who'd do something about health care, and I was worried about the decline of civil liberties in this country. George Bush seemed concerned about neither, and while the Libertarians are generally on the side of the angels, their candidate had something against siestas.
Actually, I'd support a libertarian approach to health-care reform in the United States -- eliminate all medical laws, except those concerning fraud.
In other words, you or I should be able to consult a regular physician, a chiropractor, a faith healer, the woman down the street who dabbles in herbs -- anybody we feel like seeing and paying. Or, if we want to diagnose ourselves and prescribe accordingly, the pharmacy should sell us whatever we're willing to pay for.
The law would concern only disclosure and fraud. Anybody could hang out a shingle and practice medicine in any way he wanted to, but he couldn't claim to have a degree from Johns Hopkins when he doesn't. All medications would have to come with a full disclosure of what science knows about their potency, interactions, side-effects, etc.
Give me either a free market in medicine, or that horror
of single-payer socialized medicine
-- the kind
other industrial democracies have. They spend
proportionately less of their gross national product on
medical care, and boast better overall health than we do --
lower infant mortality rates, longer average life
spans.
Further, no politician in Canada, Iceland or France has
ever been elected on a platform of giving that country an
American-style
health-care system. Don't you think
that if our system was truly the best in the world
or the envy of the world,
somebody else would want
it?
But the Clinton Administration blew it on health care,
coming up with a system even more complex and confusing
than the current mess. Nobody there had the wit or courage
to propose either free market
or
single-payer.
As for civil liberties, the FBI files that landed in the wrong hands are disturbing, but that's a beltway issue. The real problem -- why do we have a national police force compiling dossiers on American citizens? -- is ignored.
Meanwhile, this White House happily embraces V-chips,
curfews, 100,000 new cops, longer prison sentences, fewer
appeals, more tampering with the constitution, domestic
spying, Internet censorship, whatever it takes to avoid
being called soft on crime.
And the Republican response to this assault on our liberties? Essentially that Dole's jackboots are shinier than Clinton's -- his judges will be tougher and his prisons will be meaner.
So I won't have any problem voting for a third-party candidate this fall. Now, if I can just find Dick Lamm and get him to endorse the Siesta Amendment, I can rest comfortably each afternoon, serene in the knowledge that our government is addressing a vital issue.
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