March 16, 2007, 11:17 pm

I am always floored by the number of progressives who embrace all kinds of wacky non-scientific health theories. These are the same folks who criticize creationists as being anti-scientific. I am not a creationist, but I might be able to embrace it faster than I could, say, the insanity that is homeopathic medicine**.

Unfortunately, these are the same folks who will likely make up the backbone of the socialized medicine bureaucracy when and if the US finally decides to hand health care over to a consortium of the Post Office and Walther Reed. So here is a preview of what we will get:

Tom and Donna (not their real names) are professional

shamen. They teach classes in shamanism at a "foundation", where you

can learn "soul retrieval healing", help the dead "continue their

journey into the Hereafter", and investigate "the Fairy Kingdom". These

soul retrievers and Fairy Kingdom investigators also work for the NHS "”

where, according to Tom's foundation profile, they "use complementary

therapies to help those with mental health difficulties". Shaman

therapies are not the only unorthodox treatments for which the NHS will

gladly pay. Taxpayers are also subsidising Emotional

Freedom Technique (EFT) "therapy", in which, according to one NHS

trust, "subtle energies" are reordered via "tapping with the fingertips

to stimulate certain meridian energy points while the client is "˜tuned

in' to the problem". "¦If EFT doesn't do the job, an NHS foot massage

might help. Reflexologists believe that each part of the foot maps to a

different organ, and that massaging a particular point can treat that

organ. Medical doctors think it's absurd. "¦Most depressing of all for

the rational taxpayer is the NHS Directory for Alternative and

Complementary Medicine, which aims to promote "dowsers", "flower

therapists" and "crystal healers". We've just learnt that some

hospitals are removing every third light bulb to save money, and that

nurses are being paid half the minimum wage "” or being asked to work

for nothing "” at others. That's how bad the financial crisis has

become. Meanwhile, the National Health Service is employing shaman

fairy enthusiasts as psychological counsellors, enthusiastically

providing treatments invented by "an ordained minister and a personal

performance coach" who thinks tapping your body can cure diabetes,

promoting dowsers and crystal healers and spending vast amounts on

therapies that can't be scientifically supported.

Just as with the Walther Reed mess, the left wants to write off this stuff as just bad management, as an exception. But unfortunately, this is the rule for government management. It always goes bad. Mismatched incentives + lack of individual choice + strong unionized bureaucracy most concerned with its own job security + impossibly complex information flows = mess. Always. I get very tired of the excuse, as I wrote here, that "if only we were in charge, everything would work great."

Throughout these years, libertarians like myself argued that there

were at least three problems with all of this technocratic statism: You don't have the right to make decisions for other people.

Period. No matter how high-minded and idealistic you want to portray

it, at the end of the day you are proposing to use force to coerce

another man into doing your will. You may stop them from using force

or fraud against others, but an adult may make decisions for

themselves, even if they are bad. I am reminded of a great line from

the HBO show Deadwood, "Can you let me go to hell the way I want to?" You can't make better decisions for other people, even if you

are smarter, because every person has different wants, needs, values,

etc., and thus make trade-offs differently. Tedy Bruschi of the

Patriots is willing to take post-stroke risks by playing pro football again I would never take, but that doesn't mean its a incorrect decision for him. Technocratic idealists ALWAYS lose control of the game. It may

feel good at first when the trains start running on time, but the

technocrats are soon swept away by the thugs, and the patina of

idealism is swept away, and only fascism is left. Interestingly, the

technocrats always cry "our only mistake was letting those other guys

take control". No, the mistake was accepting the right to use force on

another man. Everything after that was inevitable.

Everyone has had a turn running the place (except libertarians, I might observe) and everyone has screwed things up.

** I am amazed I have not posted a rant on homeopathic medicine, but searching through my archives, I don't find anything. If you don't know, here is the fast answer why homeopathy is silly. Advocates of homeopathy argue that they can make certain substances more effective by diluting them, and the more they dilute them, the more effective they are. Go to one of their web sites, and you will see dilution rations that translate into having less than one molecule of the active ingredient in a mass of water the volume of all the world's oceans. Advocates argue that even though the molecules are gone, some sort of resonance remains. Uhh, right.