Posted by in omnibus libertas on 08/31/09

I received this email yesterday from Senator Casey (D; PA):

On Tuesday, September 1st, I will be hosting a public forum to discuss the Affordable Health Choices Act, the Senate's Health Care Bill.  Details for the forum are below.  Please plan to come early.  Doors will open an hour before the event and seating will be on a first-come, first-served basis.

Tuesday, September 1 at 10:00 am
Community College of Allegheny County
Allegheny Campus
Foerster Student Service Center
Ridge Avenue
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Doors open to the public at 9:00 am.
Seating is first-come, first-served.

I called Senator Casey's office to get more details. Here's what I was told by his staffer:

The entire forum will be recorded. Signs, banners, et. al. will be permitted outside, but not inside the auditorium. Recording devices (cell phones, camcorders, et. al.) will be permitted, as long as they are reasonably compact and don't block others or others' view. (I.e., you can't set up a tripod.)

Here is the agenda (times approximate):

10:00 - Senator Casey opening remarks & PowerPoint presentation
10:10 - panel discussion
10:20 - additional remarks by Senator Casey
10:25 - question and answer session (~60 minutes)

(The staffer didn't know exactly who would be on the “panel discussion,” but it's safe to assume it will involve nothing but government sycophants cheerleading for the legislation.)

Here is the way the question and answer session is going to work: upon entering, everyone will be handed a comment card. The comment will request your contact information and your question. There will be a drop box for completed comment cards.

When the Q&A session starts, a moderator from CCAC (not Senator Casey or any of his staff) will collect the comment card box, and in full view of the audience, randomly draw a comment card from it. The person whose card was picked will then approach the microphone (or the closest microphone, if multiple microphones are present), and ask their question to Senator Casey directly. Senator Casey will answer the question, and the moderator will pick another comment card. This process will repeat until the Q&A time is exhausted.

While the person I was speaking with resisted calling it as such, this process essentially means that Senator Casey is using a lottery system to determine who will be permitted to ask questions.

This is very important, because while the lottery system is a fair way to determine who gets to ask questions (assuming no dirty tricks, like pre-stuffing the comment box with pro-government people's names), it means that the proportion of pro-liberty versus pro-government questions Senator Casey is asked will depend directly upon the proportion of pro-liberty versus pro-government people in the audience.

We can rest assured that unions and other pro-government groups will attempt to pack this forum. Therefore, pro-liberty people must pack this event as well. The Foerster Student Service Center auditorium only seats 300 people-that's just 20 rows of 15 people! Get there early. Bring a friend, if you can. The more pro-liberty people we can get into the forum, the more critical questions Senator Casey will be peppered with.

(I called the CCAC Allegheny campus, and according to them, for tomorrow, visitors can park in any student parking spot; you don't need to obtain a parking tag first. Student parking lots are listed on the CCAC virtual tour map.)

Some tips for attendees:

• We can't trust Senator Casey not to heavily edit the recording his staff will make. Bring recording devices, and record everything you can.
• Pro-government groups have characterized pro-liberty people as mindless rabble-rousers who wish only to disrupt these types of public forums; it is important that we don't lend any credence to these false characterizations.
• No matter what outrageous claims Senator Casey attempts to make, don't try to shout him down from the audience. If you do, expect to be ejected. Similarly, if you attempt to shout down people selected to ask questions, expect to be ejected.
• Write down your best question on the comment card, but have a mental list of multiple questions prepared, in case someone asks your intended question first.
• If you are selected to ask your question, be short, polite, and to the point. You should be able to ask your question in under 15 seconds. 10 seconds would be even better; 5 would be better still. Practice your questions in advance.
• Again: be polite. It wouldn't hurt to preface your question with, "Senator, I know you have the best of intentions, but..." Don't ask "so when did you stop beating your wife?" -style unfair questions, like "When is government going to stop driving up health cares costs?" Asking unfair questions will only make you (and pro-liberty people) look bad.

Let's make sure Senator Casey gets some tough questions, folks!

Posted by in omnibus libertas on 08/19/09
Last updated 08/19/09

There were a few interesting posts on the Daily Reckoning today.

First, Doug Casey posted a scathing review of the George W. Bush administration.

Now, attacks against Bush are nothing new, and goodness knows, he deserves most of them. But attacks against Bush that come from a Left-leaning perspective frequently ignore what I think will be Bush’s most harmful legacy: passing off his insufferable corporatism and cronyism as the free market. Doug writes:

“The worst shame of Bush—worse than the spending, the new agencies, the torture, or the wars—is that he used so much pro-liberty and pro-free-market rhetoric in the very process of destroying those institutions. That makes his actions ten times worse than if an avowed socialist had done the same thing. People will blame the full suite of disasters Bush caused on the free market simply because Bush constantly said he believed in it.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Bill Bonner also posted an article in which he advises us to learn to love the Depression. A choice excerpt (emphasis is original):

“[The Feds] are borrowing and spending trillions—$8 trillion is to be added to US debt over the next 8 years. So far, this money has done nothing to relieve the underlying problem: the consumer has too much debt and too little income. The government can give him a tax rebate... or give him a check for a clunker. These giveaways will produce a temporary boost. But when the giveaways give way there is nothing left. Does the guy who bought a car with government cash in 2009 buy another one in 2010? Does the fellow who brought his mortgage up-to-date with a tax rebate in 2008 go out and buy a new house in 2009?

The problems are real... at the heart of the real economy. They are not problems that can be solved by monkeying with the money supply, interest rates, or even fiscal policy. They are problems that need to be solved by the real economy... in the real economy... by consumers, who need to pay off their debts, and by businessmen, who need to adjust to the realities of the real world—adapting their capacity so as to produce things for people who can actually afford to buy them. It’s a long process... with many bankruptcies and disappointments along the way...”

If you don’t currently subscribe to the Daily Reckoning feed, you should. (It’s worth it for no other reason to read the hilarious articles by The Mogambo Guru.)