Consequences, Intended and Not
Planning is usually a prudent thing to do and, usually, the planning pans out. Sometimes, though, especially when the planning is done by politicians, unintended consequences of misbegotten schemes make you wonder where the pols' heads are.
Communist regimes are big on planning. Five Year Plans to re-vamp its economy were always a big favorite with the old U.S.S.R. commissars and always resulted in big failures.
One of the few sad remnants of Communism, North Korea, also has little luck when it comes to economics although it is spectacular in staging funerals. The recent obsequies for its late dictator Kim Jong-il were no exception.
North Korea demonstrated its expertise in not only planning its Supreme Leader's funeral but in its consequences for hapless North Koreans who didn't cry enough.
As an informant reported, within days of Kim Jong-il's death, €The authorities are handing down at least six months in a labour-training camp to anybody who didn't participate in the organised gatherings during the mourning period, or who did participate but didn't cry and didn't seem genuine.€
So much for Communism, so much for the dictatorship of the proletariat where the proles are forced to grieve for a bloody tyrant.
More relevant to Americans are interesting intended and unintended consequences in the U.S.
Last month, the FBI released a report indicating that violent crime in the U.S. fell 6.4 percent in the first half of 2011 and property crimes fell by 3.7 as contrasted with the same time 2010 time period.
That was the unexpected good news.
The bad news€"for liberals who seek to disarm law-abiding citizens€"is that the increasing number of armed law-abiding citizens in the country no doubt accounted in large part for the drop in crime.
As proven in Florida and elsewhere, criminals are far less inclined to maim, murder, and break into homes and businesses when their prospective victims are prepared to blow them away.
The intent of gun laws is to inhibit the unrestricted ownership of guns, the true consequence of which is to concentrate guns in the hands of criminals while denying honest Americans the right to defend themselves. The joke on liberals is that the latter stocking up on weapons to defend themselves serves as a deterrent against the former.
In a related issue, a presumed unintended consequence of excessive liberality has led to excessive violence.
A federal court judge decided last year that allegedly non-violent California prisoners were uncomfortable in their crowded facilities. He didn't comment on the discomfort felt by their victims but did order California to give more space to the perpetrators. Strapped California had no money to build more prisons and chose instead to release thousands of convicted and accused €non-violent€ offenders into society.
According to La Puente Mayor John Solis, his city and others are suffering the consequences of the judge's beneficence. Solis reports that €Sexual assaults are up about 300 percent and assaults with guns and knives up nearly 150 percent citywide€ since the release of the reprobates.
He blames €prison realignment,€ a euphemism for loosing barbarians in a state where gun laws are strictly enforced and a resultant explosion of barbarity.
Coincidence? I think not and nor does Mayor Solis.
Didn't someone say we reap what we sow?
Another instance of unintended consequences which may have been intended is the plight of physicians in America. It may be all part of leveling the playing field or, as Scrooge suggested, reducing the surplus population but the result will be less and less-adequate medical care.
Most of us don't regard doctors as hurting financially. After all, they rake in tons of money and it's hard to believe many of them are in danger of going bankrupt. CNN begs to differ.
The liberal cable news network reported that many family physicians, cardiologists, and oncologists are €going broke,€ a finding which could be confirmed by simply asking your doctor what he thinks of Obamacare, the primary cause of the phenomenon.
CNN never cites Obamacare but did note that €Doctors list shrinking insurance reimbursements, changing regulations, rising business and drug costs among the factors preventing them from keeping their practices afloat.€
Following the frog-boiling approach, the Democrats' socialistic scheme of Obamacare is in process of being gradually implemented yet is already resulting in across-the-board cuts of up to 40% in medical reimbursements, as well as causing thousands of physicians to retire and/or look for other professions.
One Philadelphia cardiologist believes that if the planned 27.4% Medicare cut €goes through, it will put us under.€
If Obamacare €goes through€ and is upheld by the Supreme Court, doctors will have more empathy for their former patients searching in vain for decent medical care than the Obama administration has for them, or for the rest of us.
(See all sources at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=12104.)
Communist regimes are big on planning. Five Year Plans to re-vamp its economy were always a big favorite with the old U.S.S.R. commissars and always resulted in big failures.
One of the few sad remnants of Communism, North Korea, also has little luck when it comes to economics although it is spectacular in staging funerals. The recent obsequies for its late dictator Kim Jong-il were no exception.
North Korea demonstrated its expertise in not only planning its Supreme Leader's funeral but in its consequences for hapless North Koreans who didn't cry enough.
As an informant reported, within days of Kim Jong-il's death, €The authorities are handing down at least six months in a labour-training camp to anybody who didn't participate in the organised gatherings during the mourning period, or who did participate but didn't cry and didn't seem genuine.€
So much for Communism, so much for the dictatorship of the proletariat where the proles are forced to grieve for a bloody tyrant.
More relevant to Americans are interesting intended and unintended consequences in the U.S.
Last month, the FBI released a report indicating that violent crime in the U.S. fell 6.4 percent in the first half of 2011 and property crimes fell by 3.7 as contrasted with the same time 2010 time period.
That was the unexpected good news.
The bad news€"for liberals who seek to disarm law-abiding citizens€"is that the increasing number of armed law-abiding citizens in the country no doubt accounted in large part for the drop in crime.
As proven in Florida and elsewhere, criminals are far less inclined to maim, murder, and break into homes and businesses when their prospective victims are prepared to blow them away.
The intent of gun laws is to inhibit the unrestricted ownership of guns, the true consequence of which is to concentrate guns in the hands of criminals while denying honest Americans the right to defend themselves. The joke on liberals is that the latter stocking up on weapons to defend themselves serves as a deterrent against the former.
In a related issue, a presumed unintended consequence of excessive liberality has led to excessive violence.
A federal court judge decided last year that allegedly non-violent California prisoners were uncomfortable in their crowded facilities. He didn't comment on the discomfort felt by their victims but did order California to give more space to the perpetrators. Strapped California had no money to build more prisons and chose instead to release thousands of convicted and accused €non-violent€ offenders into society.
According to La Puente Mayor John Solis, his city and others are suffering the consequences of the judge's beneficence. Solis reports that €Sexual assaults are up about 300 percent and assaults with guns and knives up nearly 150 percent citywide€ since the release of the reprobates.
He blames €prison realignment,€ a euphemism for loosing barbarians in a state where gun laws are strictly enforced and a resultant explosion of barbarity.
Coincidence? I think not and nor does Mayor Solis.
Didn't someone say we reap what we sow?
Another instance of unintended consequences which may have been intended is the plight of physicians in America. It may be all part of leveling the playing field or, as Scrooge suggested, reducing the surplus population but the result will be less and less-adequate medical care.
Most of us don't regard doctors as hurting financially. After all, they rake in tons of money and it's hard to believe many of them are in danger of going bankrupt. CNN begs to differ.
The liberal cable news network reported that many family physicians, cardiologists, and oncologists are €going broke,€ a finding which could be confirmed by simply asking your doctor what he thinks of Obamacare, the primary cause of the phenomenon.
CNN never cites Obamacare but did note that €Doctors list shrinking insurance reimbursements, changing regulations, rising business and drug costs among the factors preventing them from keeping their practices afloat.€
Following the frog-boiling approach, the Democrats' socialistic scheme of Obamacare is in process of being gradually implemented yet is already resulting in across-the-board cuts of up to 40% in medical reimbursements, as well as causing thousands of physicians to retire and/or look for other professions.
One Philadelphia cardiologist believes that if the planned 27.4% Medicare cut €goes through, it will put us under.€
If Obamacare €goes through€ and is upheld by the Supreme Court, doctors will have more empathy for their former patients searching in vain for decent medical care than the Obama administration has for them, or for the rest of us.
(See all sources at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=12104.)
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