In 2016, Donald Trump ran for president as a kinda-sorta, maybe-a-little-bit, “antiwar” candidate.

Once in office, however, he escalated every war he had inherited, ending none of them, “surging” US troops into Syria and Afghanistan, making a public head-fake at withdrawing from Syria before changing his mind, abrogating the Iran “nuclear deal,” and negotiating a withdrawal agreement on Afghanistan that he could have completed, but chose not to, leaving the task to his successor so as to shift blame for what a lost war looks like.

This year, Trump once again ran — and won — as a kinda-sorta, maybe-a-little-bit, “antiwar” candidate, mainly on his claim that he could negotiate a “deal” with Russian president Vladimir Putin to end the US proxy war in Ukraine.

Should we have believed him this time? His prospective appointees to office are a mixed bag on the subject of foreign military entanglements, but a recent event in Congress provides strong evidence that the answer is “no.”

On December 9, Republicans selected US Representative Brian Mast of Florida to chair the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mast was considered a dark horse candidate for the position, entering the race late. How did he win?

“Insiders,”  the Jewish Telegraph Agency reports, “say that President-elect Donald Trump lobbied the Republican Steering Committee, which names committee chairs, to choose Mast.”

If you’re looking for a foreign military misadventure, Mast is your man in Congress to drum one up on demand and with enthusiasm.

He’s most notable for being pretty much the most “pro-Israel” member of the House — so much so that, after the Israel-Gaza war broke out last year, he wore his Israeli Defense Forces uniform to the Capitol.

No, I’m not kidding. In 2015, Mast volunteered with the IDF in a non-combat role (he’s a double amputee, wounded in Afghanistan as an explosive ordnance disposal technician). To each their own, I guess, but a congressman wearing the uniform of a foreign power’s army to the Capitol probably wouldn’t fly if it was any foreign power other than Israel, Washington’s favorite welfare client.

In 2016, Mast called for “an all-out military effort” in Syria.

Last year, supporting Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, he opposed humanitarian aid, claiming it was “not a far stretch to say there are very few innocent Palestinian civilians.”

While he did vote against additional US military aid to Ukraine earlier this year, his reasoning wasn’t that US intervention is a bad idea as such, but rather “because Europe has all the money it needs to ensure Kyiv’s survival if only it would open up its wallet to the extent it expects America to do.”

Mast isn’t just a “hawk.” He’s a warmonger of the first order. And while he’s turned out to be a Trump toady on most issues, his bellicose foreign policy positions are what he’s primarily known for.

Trump’s backing of Mast for a key foreign policy position establishes, to a high degree of confidence, that Trump has no intention of a second term that’s even kinda-sorta, maybe-a-little-bit, “antiwar.”

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

In late November, by a vote of 330 to 275, the British House of Commons supported a bill which will “allow” doctors to assist terminally ill patients, facing prognoses of death within six months, in ending their own lives.

Responses in the United Kingdom and elsewhere range from gratitude to outrage.

Oddly, much of the outrage comes from supporters of a “right to life” who oppose abortion and, when they’re consistent, capital punishment.

Consistency would also dictate recognition of your personal rights of ownership over your life.

Decreeing that you  may not be killed in the womb, or by another person, but that your rights end if you want to end it all, is a claim that you are property without inherent rights.

The “right to life” these advocates assert is, in this context, no different than a “right” to not have their cattle stolen or their slaves escape. It’s not about the opinions of the cattle or the slaves. It’s about exercising ownership rights over the cattle and the slaves.

The basis of any plausible “right to life” — or any other right — is self-ownership. It’s your life. You own it. It’s yours to do with as you wish, so long as you don’t infringe the equal rights of others.

It’s also yours to end, when and how you wish, so long as — again — you don’t violate others’ rights  with the way you end it.

There are obvious areas of reasonable disagreement on when that’s true or not, such as in cases of diminished mental capacity due to youth, dementia, etc.  But there’s no reasonable argument for  conditioning your exercise of that right on the arbitrary whims of government.

Maybe you’re terminally ill and don’t want to face your final moments in pain.

Maybe you’re IN pain that’s incurable, intolerable, and unlikely to cease.

Maybe the love of your life died and you don’t relish living out years or decades in your partner’s absence.

Maybe your situation has you believing that your continued existence will impose undue hardships on people you love.

Those are all reasons. Maybe “good” reasons. But your reasons don’t have to be “good” for the decision to remain, by right, yours and yours alone. Maybe you flipped a coin. Perhaps your religious beliefs say that you’ve reached your permissible lifespan. Your call.

If you don’t possess the right to end your life, you possess no rights at all.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

On December 4, someone murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson near the site of the company’s annual investors’ meeting. Thompson’s killing was clearly planned rather than random, and at least appears to be job-related. As I write this, the suspect remains at large.

The establishment response, as usual with assassinations, combines “thoughts and prayers” with condemnation.

Social media responses, on the other hand, largely riff on Americans’ complaints about healthcare in general, and healthcare firms in particular. On a brief survey, I’m seeing lots of “poetic justice,” and not a little “more, please.”

I certainly feel the plaintiffs’ pains, and confess to frequently finding myself less than satisfied with my family’s (employer-provided) healthcare coverage. If this “targeted killing” is indeed a “customer dissatisfaction” incident, I guess I understand the sentiment even if I don’t approve of the particular penalty imposed upon Mr. Thompson’s person. Insert thoughts/prayers/condemnation language of your choice here.

What I don’t agree with is characterization of the whole matter as relating to “insurance.” It almost certainly doesn’t, because it’s been decades since most American healthcare companies have really offered “insurance.”

The system we’ve lived under since the early 1970s and the inception of the “Health Maintenance Organization” /  “Preferred Provider Organization” isn’t “insurance” — it’s “prepaid healthcare.”

“Insurance” is a hedged betting strategy. The customer makes a small bet that something unlikely and unpleasant will occur. The insurer makes a large bet that it WON’T occur.

To the customer, it’s worth betting $10 a month that he will suffer a heart attack, cancer, etc. and collect a large amount of money to cover his medical costs. The horrific medical emergency may be unlikely, but it’s expensive if it happens. Better $10 a month out of pocket now than $100,000 all at once later.

The insurer takes many such bets, knowing most of those heart attacks, etc. won’t happen. It will win far more often than it loses, and pay out less money than it takes in.

Does that sound like YOUR healthcare plan? Probably not.  Your plan probably at least partially subsidizes  everything from annual exams to routine vaccinations to prescriptions to diagnostic tests (chest CTs, mammograms, and colonoscopies, for example).

Yes, there’s an “insurance” component — you’ve still got that hedged bet in favor of that heart attack, the company still has one in against it — but you’re mostly just paying a middleman to partially cover stuff you’d have paid out of pocket for 60 years ago.

That middleman isn’t prepared to operate at a loss and go bankrupt.

Just as with actual insurance, you (or your employer, ever since World War 2 era tax rules began incentivizing insurance as a “fringe benefit”) WILL fork over more in premiums and “copays” for those benefits than it costs the middleman to provide them.

When a middleman (an employer) pays the piper (the healthcare company), and doctors work as the the piper’s orchestra, patient choice and patient satisfaction cease to be major incentives.

The problem isn’t the Brian Thompsons. It’s the system they — and you — are part of.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY