Does it all come down to property rights?

Walter Williams has an interesting article out that talks about freedom and property rights. It ties in with my thoughts on the government not getting involved with every good idea (See posts from earlier in the week). Here is a paragraph of it for your consideration.

In a free society, many conflicting harms are settled through the institution of private property rights. Private property rights have to do with rights belonging to the person deemed owner of property to keep, acquire, use and dispose of property as he deems fit so long as he does not violate similar rights of another. Let's say that you are offended, possibly harmed, by bars that play vulgar rap music and permit smoking. If you could use government to outlaw rap music and smoking in bars, you would be benefited and people who enjoyed rap music and smoking would be harmed. Again, there is no scientific or intelligent way to determine whose harm is more important. In a free society, the question of who has the right to harm whom, by permitting rap music and smoking, is answered by the property rights question: Who owns the bar? In a socialistic society, such conflicting harms are resolved through government intimidation and coercion.

Critter Corner V. 5

Chickens

We are excited to be hatching some eggs in an incubator. Some friends of ours who live on a small farm invited us over. While we were there, they offered to let us try to hatch some eggs that their chicken had laid. They loaned us the incubator, too.

It took me a while to get the incubator set up with proper temperature and humidity, but now we are making a go of it. I hope to have some news of chicks on the 25th.

Dogs
When we went to my in-laws for the 4th, they gave our dogs a dose of Frontline Plus.
I must say that this stuff WORKS. It is 30 days later and they are still flea free. With our usual stuff, I was still combing 10-30 fleas off of them a day. It is very expensive though. About $45 for a three month supply.

Crawdads
There are 5 baby crawdads that survived to this point. 1 is huge (about 1" long), 2 are medium (3/4" long), and 2 are small (1/2" long). These are guesses of course. I have no idea why they have grown at different rates.

The mother crawdad died. She was trying to molt and didn't have the strength. Sort of a sad way to go if you ask me.

All of the other pets are largely the same.

Town Hall Meetings

I got an e-mail from FRC action linking to Panzramic's post of footage from a Philadelphia town hall meeting. From all the booing and conservative sounding questions I would have said this was somewhere in the central US not Philadelphia. Many of the questions are good. My favorite was this one from a legal immigrant.




Some of the other questions asked were(paraphrased): "Why can't you read everything you vote on?" (We have aides who read them.), "Why aren't government monopolies as bad as private ones?" (Health Exchange isn't a monopoly. It is. . . Something you can't hear because there is so much booing), "If Medicare and Medicaid are bankrupt, what makes you think you can do a better job with a whole health care system?" (Those broken systems don't cover 47 million people [exaggerated number by the way]. We want everyone to be in our [broken] system."

It is worth watching.

More Good Ideas. . .

THAT THE GOVERNMENT DOESN'T NEED TO BOSS PEOPLE ABOUT.

These are some good (research-backed) ideas about childbirth and infant care. I think healthy women should do them. But I don't want the government to force you to do them.

1. Natural labor- It is better for mom, baby, and the bottom line.
2. Midwifery care- Trained midwives have proven themselves in medium and low risk deliveries. Again this would certainly cost less than traditional doctor/hospital delivery.
3. Having a doula or some other women with you for continuous emotional support during labor- Far better and less expensive outcomes.
4. Encourage mobility and uprightness by getting rid of hospital beds- Replace the traditional bed with a mattress on the floor, birth balls, and other options. The best way to avoid c-sections, epidurals and other (costly) interventions is to stay upright and mobile.
5. Ditch the standard bathing, weighing, swaddling routine- Skin to skin contact for the first 1-2 hours is advantageous.
6. Breastfeeding- everyone knows it is better for mother and baby

I am sure my list could go on. How many of you would want my standards foisted on the American public? I bet many of you would rather make your own (though less favorable) choices about such things. Don't you think that you should have that right in all areas of health care?