So this is what "Astro-Turf" looks like…

by The Constitutional Reporter | 2:10 pm, August 17, 2009

The left and the right have been engaged lately in a battle of policies and ideas and…name-calling? Each side has been eager to prove that the other is engaged in “Astro-Turfing,” a clever name used to imply fake grassroots. The Left accuses the anti…

That Government Is Best Which Protects Individual Rights

by Ari Armstrong | 1:22 pm, August 17, 2009

The following article originally was published on August 17, 2009, by Grand Junction’s Free Press.

That government is best which protects individual rights

by Linn and Ari Armstrong

You just don’t like government. That’s what a friend told your elder author Linn following a local political event, during an informal discussion about which candidates are running and who is supporting them.

It’s an odd sort of charge, given that Linn once ran for elected office himself and has participated in numerous campaigns and political functions.

The fact is, we love government, if it’s the right sort of government. But not all governments are created equal. Who loves the oppressive governments of North Korea or Iran? What about the fallen government of the Soviet Union? There is no greater evil on the face of the earth than a government gone wrong.

The question, then, is what constitutes good government. That depends primarily on what is the proper purpose of government.

We disagree with Henry David Thoreau when he writes, “That government is best which governs not at all.” We answer that government is best which protects individual rights.

Fortunately for us, our forefathers created a republican form of government with strictly delimited powers and an explicit recognition of individual rights. The obvious exception, slavery, took another century to expunge, and racist laws took longer to root out, but finally in this respect America lived up to her founding principles.

Nations to the south of us, on the other hand, often took a course other than freedom, and the result has been frequent juntas, bloodshed, and mass poverty.

Governments that try to run the economies of their nations must enforce their policies at the point of a gun. The mass slaughter and mass starvation of 20th Century Communist nations bear this out.

We witness the contrast of free markets every summer in Palisade, when fruit markets spring up along Highway 6 and 24 and growers sell everything from peaches to tomatoes.

Farmers grow and sell fruit under few political controls. What governs transactions instead is voluntary consent in which both parties benefit from the trade. The government’s only useful role is to prevent force and fraud. The old marketing phrase, “reach for a peach,” is an exhortation, not a command.

Contrast the benevolent exchange of the free market, in which both parties win, with the force and conflict of political intervention. The city of Fruita prepares to break ground for the city government’s recreation center, something we argued against.

We witnessed a city with a friendly reputation fall into heated “us versus them” squabbling. Hostilities had barely receded after the first vote before a second was scheduled. While the motive might have been to improve physical health, the means was to force some to pay for the benefits of others, and this fostered distrust among neighbors and undermined the health of the community.

Meanwhile Clifton, a part of the valley often dismissed as a poorer area, recently witnessed the grand opening of a Gold’s Gym. We witnessed no community division over this. The gym opened on time and on budget. While the Fruita center benefits from tax subsidies, Gold’s Gym must pay taxes. In Fruita, some won at the expense of others. Gold’s Gym illustrated the meaning of win-win.

We think people should be able to make their own decisions concerning their resources, from the color of socks they wear to the brand of peach they buy to the health care they purchase. The alternative is to treat people as wards of the state and stooges of political whim.

The economist F. A von Hayek points out that people are so different and complex that politicians cannot hope to successfully plan out our lives, at least if the goal is our well-being. Hayek lived through an era in which the well-being of the citizenry was hardly high on the list of priorities among social “planners,” and mass murder was more likely where politicians ruled unchecked.

In a system of economic freedom, in which property rights are protected and people may direct their resources by their own judgment, people interact by mutual agreement.

Milton Friedman explained, “Adam Smith’s key insight was that both parties to an exchange can benefit and that, so long as cooperation is strictly voluntary, no exchange will take place unless both parties do benefit. No external force, no coercion, no violation of freedom is necessary to produce cooperation among individuals all of whom can benefit.”

Right now many are asking what role we should give to government in our lives. Some, hoping for more political favors and a larger share of other people’s money, or simply beholden to the ideology of statism, call for more political control of the economy.

We believe that a government that robs from Peter in order to placate Paul and gain his political support is not a government worthy of the United States.

We advocate individual rights. We therefore advocate government designed to protect our rights.

Linn Armstrong is a local political activist and firearms instructor with the Grand Valley Training Club. His son, Ari, edits FreeColorado.com from the Denver area.

Why health insurance companies are bad

by Brian Schwartz | 12:45 pm, August 17, 2009

You often hear animosity for insurance companies from the Left.  That is, those who want more government control of medical insurance. Yet, those who want less government should advocate repealing laws that coddle insurance companies at the expense of patients. As I wrote last week, insurance companies could gain so much credibility when arguing against [...]

There’s a New Face Around These Parts…

by Jon Caldara | 10:18 am, August 17, 2009

It’s a little colder today in hell.  Despite my ego’s protests, I’ve decided to share this wonderful space I like to call the Cauldron with a man much smarter than I.  Drum roll please….. I’d like to welcome senior fellow, Rob Natelson.

Rob has been a Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence at the Independence Institute for [...]

Rationing inherent in Obamacare: Sources for Gazette Article

by Ari Armstrong | 9:48 am, August 17, 2009

The Colorado Springs Gazette published my article, “Rationing inherent in Obamacare,” on Sunday (despite its August 14 posting date). Please read the entire article there. Here my purpose is to provide related links and context.

Barack Obama’s line about “not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller,” may be seen on YouTube. Unfortunately, the clip omits some of the context. Thankfully, ABC has published the complete transcript of the June 24 broadcast.

Turning to the second page, we find the following lines:

But what we can do is make sure that at least some of the waste that exists in the system that’s not making anybody’s mom better, that is loading up on additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care, that at least we can let doctors know and your mom know that, you know what? Maybe this isn’t going to help. Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.

And those kinds of decisions between doctors and patients, and making sure that our incentives are not preventing those good decision, and that — that doctors and hospitals all are aligned for patient care, that’s something we can achieve.

My short answer is, “Who is this ‘we,’ compadre?”

John Lewis’s evaluation of HR 3200 is available online. You can also read the entire text of the bill for yourself.

The sign from the July 29 Colorado Springs rally is shown in the second photo from a review by Americans for Prosperity. I covered the August 6 Longmont rally on my web page. The information about Mike Sola is available via YouTube and the Detroit Free Press.

As a couple of examples of British headlines, here’s one about a heart surgery that was initially denied; here’s another about painkilling injections” (via Patient Power). John Stossel’s report, which includes information about England and Canada, is at ABC.

Watch the Independence Institute video on Oregon rationing:

I got the transcript of Obama’s appearance in New Hampshire from the LA Times.

But, again, for my core arguments as to why rationing is inevitable under Obamacare, read the Gazette article!

Rolling the Obama Care “Public Option” Uphill Becoming a Harder Job

by Ben DeGrow | 9:47 am, August 17, 2009

Love how the Denver Post lends a hand to Barack Obama and appointed Senator Michael Bennet in the health care debate:
He acknowledged that the ire in town halls — in Colorado, and across the country — was mostly about fear of changing a system that hasn’t worked for years. [emphasis added]

Not “changing a system that [...]

Cash for Clunkers Not Working for Dealers

by Mr. Bob | 8:59 am, August 17, 2009

#tcot #healthcare #clunkers
hat tip holycoast.com
Apparently the gubmint is not paying dealers as promised…gee what a surprise…this is typical of the government enterprise, slow to pay, inefficient and usually, but not always inept. The cash for clunkers program is touted as the most recent gubmint success, though I can’t figure out why.

…..gee lots of Americans went into deeper debt by getting loans to buy a NEW instead of used car, their old perfectly good (although not as efficient) car needlessly destroyed, and the dealership waits for their bailout checks to come….what a huge success…..NOT.

Although, for Asian carmakers, the cash for clucker’s program has been great!

The federal government has only reimbursed auto dealers for 2 percent of the claims they’ve submitted through the popular “cash for clunkers” program, a Pennsylvania congressman said, calling on the Obama administration to help speed up the process.

Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., called for “immediate action” to address the problem in a statement Sunday, after writing a letter to President Obama Saturday expressing his concerns.

In the letter, Sestak said only 2 percent of claims have been paid and that four of every five applications have been “rejected for minor oversight.”

In recent days, auto dealers across the country have been complaining that the reimbursement payments are slow to process. READ THE REST

Obama backing away from “public option”

by Rossputin | 8:54 am, August 17, 2009

As I’ve been predicting for some time, it appears that any health care reform bill which  might pass the Senate will not have a “public option” in it.  Over the weekend, Barack Obama and representatives of his Administration were carefully trying to backpedal away from the “public option” saying it’s not the essential part of health care reform. Now they’re talking about “co-ops” to compete with private insurers and they’re trying to spin the recent massive public outcry against a government takeover of health care into some sort of political victory.

If any health care reform bill passes, the Administration will be out on every talk show preening over their “accomplishment”. But make no mistake, without a “public option” health care “reform” will be a substantial (and welcome) loss for The One.  The left-wing base of the Democratic Party, which is increasingly all that’s left of the group fawning over him, desperately wanted a “public option”.  From the econo-moron residents of Boulder, Berkeley, and Manhattan, to Paul Krugman, to most especially the leadership of America’s largest labor unions, the left thought their great moment, when we move a giant leap closer to Euro-socialism, was upon us.

The econo-morons simply hate private industries that make money and were looking forward to attacking the health insurance industry.  The unions were hoping that legislation would relieve them of much of the responsibility of paying for health insurance for their members and retirees, leaving the unions with a massive windfall of previously saved money which could then be turned into a political slush fund to reinvest in Democrats.  Paul Krugman was in both of these camps. (And if there’s anyone who it’s great to see lose, it’s the former economist, now partisan political hack, with whom the NY Times sullies their editorial page.)

The coming politics will remain very interesting.  First, it’s not clear that the rather large “progressive” (i.e. socialist) wing of the House Democrats will even support a bill without a government-run plan. Thus, we go from a situation where passage was extremely unlikely in the Senate to a situation where passage, while still likely, is far from assured in the House.

Also, you can bet that many who oppose government-run medicine (including yours truly) will be making efforts to explain to voters and politicians why co-ops are at best pointless and at worst just the camel’s nose under the tent on the path to government-run medicine. (For a brief discussion of these issues, see THIS article by the Cato Institute’s Michael Tanner and THIS WSJ article.) It remains to be seen whether Republicans can become as steadfast in their opposition to co-ops as to a “public option”. My guess is that there will be enough Republican support for the bill, just so they can’t be accused of being the “Party of ‘No’”, that some bill will pass.  It will make the situation worse, rather than better.  It will probably include co-ops.  And it will take two generations before we’re able to get rid of them.

In my view, the failure of Obama to pass a public option will substantially (and fortunately) damage his political power for the long run.  Yes, he remains extremely popular and he’ll continue to have very large majorities in both houses of Congress, at least for another 18 months. But the fact that he will essentially have been beaten and that much of the reason for that beating came from the voting public (with poll numbers to prove it) will give “moderate” Democrats far more leeway to oppose Obama, Pelosi, and Reid than they might have felt they had just a couple of months ago.

The Democrats’ over-reaching was a perfect example of what I’ve been writing about for many months now: The assumption by elected politicians that they were elected because the public strongly supports their agenda, rather than the more usually true answer: that the public was just sick of the other guys. Luckily, we’ll probably not have to go through a government-run health plan to cure this particular illness.

Bizarre Interview Raises Questions about Scott McInnis Candidacy

by Ben DeGrow | 6:24 am, August 17, 2009

I’ve been behind the times a bit, and am striving to catch up. The Scott McInnis teeth-and-claws interview (MP3) with Caplis & Silverman on 630 KHOW?
Simply bizarre.
The former Congressman’s over-the-top reaction to softball questions from local radio hosts belies the supposed advantage of an elder statesman’s savvy and gravitas. Instead, from everything I’ve seen so [...]

Obama: “it’s not about politics” … except advancing his own

by Brian Schwartz | 1:30 am, August 17, 2009

Bruce McQuain has an insightful critique of Barack Obama’s op-ed in the New York Times.  Basically, Obama says health insurance policy is a very important issue, and it “deserves serious debate.”  Yet, so called health insurance “reform” (it’s not reform, it entrenches the status quo) must be passed “this year.”  About Obama’s claims, McQuain asks [...]

National vs. Rational Healthcare

by ToxicHypoxic | 1:21 am, August 17, 2009

I’ve been absent from the blog for a bit. A rather unexpected stroke slowed me down for a couple of months. No kidding, a stroke! Who would have thought? As strokes go it was a rather light one. Just enough … Continue reading →

Congress Out of Control: Tax Dollars Needed to Explain Joys of Broadband

by Ben DeGrow | 10:23 pm, August 16, 2009

Remain unconvinced that our government has way too much money to spend? Thanks to Martin Buchanan for pointing me to this article in today’s Denver Post:

At least six applications from Colorado, including one from the governor’s office, will be submitted during the first round of the $7.2 billion federal broadband funding program.
The state is asking [...]

The Health Care Morass – Can We Handle the Truth?

by redrocks | 3:55 pm, August 16, 2009

Here’s an unpopular proposition – the health care industry as we know it can’t be “fixed” because it is based on a false premise, the premise of “free money.”  (…and just for fun, here’s a schematic of the House Dem’s “fix” — gee, they could get all that in, in a mere 1017 pages?)

Truth — [...]

Obama Care kills competition

by Brian Schwartz | 1:33 am, August 16, 2009

Cato’s Michael Tanner summarizes why the proposed “public health plan” would drive commercial insurers out of business:
A government-run plan would have an inherent advantage in the marketplace, because it ultimately would be subsidized by taxpayers. The government plan could keep its premiums artificially low or offer extra benefits, because it could turn to taxpayers to [...]

Obama Health Care Reform Town Hall Draws Thousands Against ObamaCare, Union/New Era Astroturfing

by elpresidente | 6:10 pm, August 15, 2009

Gateway Pundit linked–thanks Jim! Video is processing to YouTube–here are the uploads from PPCAlpha, our live broadcast video: New Era Colorado bus–manufacturing protests: PPC road trip time lapse: Denver Post covered events inside the President’s health reform town hall. PPC caught live video from the “greeters” on both sides just outside the town hall at [...]

Video: Health Reform Protest Grand Junction Colorado

by admin | 4:05 pm, August 15, 2009

More video available on the PPC QIK feed

Talk about out of touch with reality.

by David K. Williams, Jr. | 9:20 am, August 15, 2009

According to the Denver Post, at a recent town hall on health care, Senator Michael Bennet “used Veterans Affairs as an example of a public insurance program that is working for one group of people.”

Mixed metaphor of the year.

by David K. Williams, Jr. | 8:48 am, August 15, 2009

Colorado Senator Michael Bennet had this to say about health care reform at a town hall meeting in Frisco, ““If we put our head in the sand . . . we know what’s going to happen. We’ll hit the iceberg.”

More poison, not an antidote: Mandating employer health insurance

by Brian T. Schwartz | 10:17 pm, August 14, 2009

President Obama is either misinformed or lying about health care. He said the “free market has not worked perfectly.” There’s a market, but it’s not free. It’s infested with harmful political meddling. One example is government’s favoring employer-provided insurance, a poison to affordable medical care and insurance.

But unions and Congressional …

Michael Bennet should oppose Democrat health “reform”

by Brian Schwartz | 9:33 pm, August 14, 2009

Senator Michael Bennet says that “health care reform must shift control from insurance companies to doctors, nurses and their patients.” If so, he should oppose the Democrats’ so-called health care “reform.” Insurance companies have too much control because politicians have handed it to them through tax laws that give preferential treatment to employer-provided insurance.
This punishes [...]

Remembering Shrillary: When dissent was patriotic

by infinity3 | 4:33 pm, August 14, 2009

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism. Even Hillary Clinton agrees with that.It doesn’t make me a Nazi or a white supremacist or a militia member to debate and passionately disagree with Obama’s administration. When you’re fighting statists for y…

Colorado Town Hall Meetings: UPDATED!

by Jon Caldara | 3:53 pm, August 14, 2009

Sen. Mark Udall:
Aug. 24: Sen. Udall will hold a field hearing of his National Parks Subcommittee in Estes Park.
Aug. 27: Sen. will hold a town hall in Durango about energy.
Additional events on the Senator’s schedule will be released to the local media a few days prior to each event.
Sen. Michael Bennet:
This month, Bennet “will be [...]

Obama Town Hall on Health Reform in Grand Junction Expected To Draw Thousands In Opposition

by elpresidente | 2:21 pm, August 14, 2009

Protesters of ObamaCare, including many from neighboring states, are gearing up for President Barack Obama’s brief visit to Grand Junction, Colorado tomorrow, where he will hold a town hall on health reform: What originally was going to be an “anti-Obamacare rally” Saturday at Lincoln Park, miles from the Central High School location of President Obama’s [...]

The Dems are right to be panicking about ObamaCare

by Rossputin | 10:16 am, August 14, 2009

According to a new Rasmussen poll, the GOP now leads the Democrats in public trust on the issue of health care for the first time in more than two years.  The same goes for the issue of education, a rather interesting change since it’s not a subject being discussed much.

I’ve written frequently that politicians too often think that their election means the public strongly supports their agenda when more often it was simply that the public was sick and tired of the other guys.  Then the self-congratulatory politicians pursue an agenda while living in their bubble world where such plans are popular – with other politicians who got elected at the same time – until they are, to nobody’s surprise but their own, thrown out in the next election (or at least removed/diminished in their majority status.) This hubris and its consequences are most certainly not confined to the Democrats. The GOP did the same sorts of things with their pathetic focus on “gay marriage” early in George W. Bush’s time in office.  Instead, it’s just the nature of politicians and spending too much time inside the Beltway.

Obama’s signature issue, namely a government takeover of the health care system, is collapsing around him.  Some health care reform legislation might pass, but there’s little chance it will have a “public option” at this point.  It shows that the American people are not as stupid as politicians think and not as gullible as unions wish.

All in all, things are going exceedingly badly for the Democrats right now – fortunately for the nation.

TSA Secure Flight Process Doesn’t Keep You Safe

by zombiehunter | 7:32 am, August 14, 2009

This weekend, airlines will begin asking for your birth date and gender when you purchase tickets. Then, they will pass your info to the Department of Homeland Security for use in checking your name and info against their No-Fly Lists. This is how they want you to believe it’s going to work: Looks pretty good, [...]

Oh, the Times, They Are a-Changin’: Education Reform, Latest Edition

by Ben DeGrow | 7:16 am, August 14, 2009

No time to blog in depth today. I invite you to check out my youthful alter ego Eddie’s blog, especially yesterday’s very interesting post titled “Teachers Union Hearts Voucher Group? Hatfields-McCoys Kiss and Make Up?”
Oh, the times, they are a-changin’….

Taking apart the Medicare “efficiency” myth

by Rossputin | 3:11 am, August 14, 2009

Over at the Peoples Press Collective, a commenter posed the usual liberal canard that Medicare is more efficient than private insurance. Here’s the right answer:

Beth,

You need to get your facts straight. First of all, administrative costs at private companies are generally estimated around 18% (plus or minus a few percent), not 30%. More importantly, that 3% number for Medicare is partly a myth and completely misleading.

On a per-insured person basis, Medicare’s administrative costs are HIGHER than private insurance.

The Heritage Foundation lays out the argument very well at http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/wm2505.cfm

To save you the reading, here’s a summary: Describing administrative costs as a percentage of total health care spending is extremely misleading because Medicare covers older people, i.e. people whose health care costs are much higher on average than the rest of the population.

Here’s an analogy from Heritage: “Imagine, for a moment, that Fred and Jane each have a credit card from a different bank. Fred charges $5,000 a month, and Jane charges $1,000 a month. Suppose it costs each bank $5 to produce and send a plastic credit card when the account is opened. That $5 “administrative cost” is a much lower percentage of Fred’s monthly charges than it is of Jane’s, but that does not mean Fred’s bank is more efficient. It is purely a mathematical artifact of Fred’s charging pattern, and it would be silly to compare the efficiency of bank operations on that basis. Yet that is how many analysts compare Medicare with private insurance.”

There are other problems with your argument. For example, other parts of government are used to support Medicare, i.e. the Treasury to collect taxes. If you add in the costs of these functions, the apparent administrative cost of Medicare doubles.

When you compare apples-to-apples, i.e. on a per-person basis, you get this result:

“When administrative costs are compared on a per-person basis, the picture changes. In 2005, Medicare’s administrative costs were $509 per primary beneficiary, compared to private-sector administrative costs of $453. In the years from 2000 to 2005, Medicare’s administrative costs per beneficiary were consistently higher than that for private insurance, ranging from 5 to 48 percent higher, depending on the year (see Table 1). This is despite the fact that private-sector “administrative” costs include state health insurance premium taxes of up to 4 percent (averaging around 2 percent, depending on the state)–an expense from which Medicare is exempt–as well as the cost of non-claim health care expenses, such as disease management and on-call nurse consultation services.”

“It is worth noting that some of the additional private-insurance costs cited by pubic plan advocates, such as marketing and profit, are included in the above figures for private-insurance administrative costs. Directly provided health services and state health insurance premium taxes are also included.

Even without these costs, Medicare administrative spending is still higher–suggesting that Medicare’s administration is even more inefficient compared to private insurance than is suggested by its higher per-beneficiary administrative costs.”

Furthermore, those who want to argue for Medicare’s efficiency based on “administrative” spending (even though Medicare is NOT more efficient in that or any other area) neglect to recognize the massive cost of fraud and abuse (which are generally in fraudulent claims so they don’t show up as administrative spending.)

Medicare fraud is ENORMOUS and expensive. Private companies spend a lot of administrative money preventing fraud and abuse whereas Medicare is unable to stop fraud and abuse. Just another reason that it’s all the more remarkable that private insurance is actually more efficient in the administrative area than Medicare is.

According to ABC News, fraudsters take $68 billion a YEAR from Medicare: http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=7508614

According to the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, “Medicare fraud is estimated at 10% of total dollars spent, and can be expected to increase as the “baby boomers” reach Medicare-eligible age.”
http://www.aapsonline.org/fraud/medfraud.htm

If that cost were accounted for in the same way that you implicitly penalize private firms for stopping such abuse by criticizing their administrative costs, you would find that Medicare’s costs are not just higher than private companies’ on a per-person basis, but MUCH higher.

Here’s more on Medicare fraud:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/business/21medicare.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22184921

And, as if they were reading my mind, just after I wrote this note I received notification of a new study by congressional staff entitled “Medicare Experience Suggests Americans Should Expect Massive Fraud with Nationalized Health Care” which you can read HERE.

So, Beth, you are simply parroting more of the left’s talking points (aka lies) in support of a government takeover of medicine. Why don’t you think about Barack Obama’s apparent slip of the tongue when he compared the Post Office to FedEx and UPS. The Post Office is going to lose $7 billion this year even after regularly raising rates faster than inflation over recent years. Even during this brutal recession, however, FedEx is (slightly) profitable. Do you really want to have the Post Office of health care systems?

Australia leads the way in climate sensibility

by Rossputin | 2:45 am, August 14, 2009

By a 42-30 vote, the Australian Senate defeated a package of bills which would have created a cap-and-trade scheme in Australia.  The politics around the vote were interesting and complicated, and not as based in the realities that the climate always changes and that people are an extremely minor factor as I would have like to have seen.  Nevertheless, it’s a good step from the part of the world that (along with New Zealand) is, just as they’re the first to celebrate New Year’s Eve, is showing that the “climate change” emperor has no clothes.

If you’re interested, other discussion of the politics around the vote can be found HERE and HERE.  (Just keep in mind that the writers for the newspaper are extremely sympathetic to the non-scientific left…)

Update on who’s really “astroturfing” #3

by Rossputin | 1:34 am, August 14, 2009

If you’re not happy volunteering (as groups like FreedomWorks and others ask you to do if you believe in the pro-liberty cause), you could always get paid to “astroturf” by the left in order to support the government takeover of health care:

http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/doc/npo/1299047025.html

Even the LA Times smells the stench of Democrat hypocrisy:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/08/obama-healthcare-reform.html

Patting myself on the back (for Dodd/Countrywide article)

by Rossputin | 9:43 pm, August 13, 2009

You’ve probably read the article already, so no need to read it again, but I just wanted to offer myself a little congratulations:  My Human Events article about “Countrywide Chris” Dodd was not only the main article on the front page of the most recent print edition of the magazine but it was also picked up by the Providence Journal newspaper.  I know, being proud of accomplishing things is uncouth in today’s PC society where it’s only whether one really tries or really cares that matters, not whether one actually succeeds at something.  But then I was never very good at being PC…

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