Fredicare In The Worker's Carribean Paradise

Fred Thompson, still the un-candidate, writes today on the myth of high quality socialized medicine under El Commandante Fidel. He leads in with his thoughts on that insipid creator (I cannot say catalouger as that would imply an element of veracity) of modern leftist truth, Michael Moore, and his latest jaunt to Cuba for some of that high quality and free communist healthcare.

You might have read the stories about filmmaker Michael Moore taking ailing workers from Ground Zero in Manhattan to Cuba for free medical treatments. According to reports, he filmed the trip for a new movie that bashes America for not having government-provided health care.

Now, I have no expectation that Moore is going to tell the truth about Cuba or health care. I defend his right to do what he does, but Moore's talent for clever falsehoods has been too well documented. Simply calling his movies documentaries rather than works of fiction, I think, may be the biggest fiction of all.

While this PR stunt has obviously been successful -- here I am talking about it -- Moore's a piker compared to Fidel Castro and his regime. Moore just parrots the story they created -- one of the most successful public relations coups in history. This is the story of free, high quality Cuban health care.

The truth is that Cuban medical care has never recovered from Castro's takeover -- when the country’s health care ranked among the world's best. He won the support of the Cuban people by promising to replace Batista’s dictatorship with free elections, and to end corruption. Once in power, though, he made himself dictator and instituted Soviet-style Communism. Cubans not only failed to regain their democratic rights, their economy plunged into centrally planned poverty.

As many as half of Cuba's doctors fled almost immediately -- and defections continue to this day. Castro won't allow observers in to monitor his nation's true state, but defectors tell us that many Cubans live with permanent malnutrition and long waits for even basic medical services. Many treatments we take for granted aren't available at all -- except to the Communist elite or foreigners with dollars.

For them, Castro keeps "show" clinics equipped with the best medicines and technologies available. It was almost certainly one of these that Moore went to, if the stories in the NY Post and The Daily News are true.

Nothing about this story inspires doubt, though. Elements in Hollywood have been infatuated with the Cuban commander for years. It always leaves me shaking my head when I read about some big-time actor or director going to Cuba and gushing all over Castro. And, regular as rain, they bring up the health care myth when they come home.

What is it that leads people to value theoretically "free" health care, even when it's lousy or nonexistent, over a free society that actually delivers health care? You might have to deal with creditors after you go to the emergency ward in America, but no one is denied medical care here. I guarantee even the poorest Americans are getting far better medical services than many Cubans.

According to Forbes magazine, by the way, Castro is now personally worth approximately $900 million. So when he desperately needed medical treatment recently, he could afford to fly a Spanish surgeon, with equipment, on a chartered jet to Cuba. What does that say about free Cuban health care?

The other thing that irks me about Moore and his cohort in Hollywood is their complete lack of sympathy for fellow artists persecuted for opposing the Castro regime. Pro-democracy activists are routinely threatened and imprisoned, but Castro remains a hero to many here. According to human rights organizations, these prisoners of conscience are often beaten and denied medical treatment, sanitation or even adequate nutrition. . . .

Read the whole article here. e-Run, Fred, e-Run.

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ASSASSINATION. Instapundit looks at the desirability of the government using targeted assassination and responds to criticism by Paul Campos.

[T]he Bush Administration might have been better off trying to use covert action to kill Iranian nuclear scientists and radical mullahs, instead of having to look at the massive air strikes now reportedly being planned, which would surely kill more people. He hurts his credibility up front by saying that Iran is not at war with us -- when, in fact, it has been since 1979, with the deaths of many Americans, soldiers and otherwise, on its hands.

Read the whole post.

In making his case that numerous leaders of both parties have looked at assassination as a legitimate state tool (Biden, Feinstein, Robb), Instapundit misses John F. Kennedy, who authorized the successful assassination of the President of South Vietnam, Ngo Diem, and authorized numerous attempts at the assassination of Castro.

The problem with utopian ideals of Paul Campos is that, while laudible, there has to be a line in the sand where such ideals meet reality. If the true attainment of utopian ideals were possible, there would no murder, there would have been no 9-11, no Taliban imposing their dark ages world view, the theocracy in Iran would be benign, and there would be no need to defend ourselves. But the reality is that such utopian ideals, while laudible, if adhered to with blind obedience, can be very destructive.

Really, from a moralistic standpoint, this is an age old question, similar in many respects to the decision to use the atomic weapon to end WW II. By using the bomb, we killed some 220,000 Japanese, mostly civilians, but it saved the lives of an estimated 500,000 U.S. soldiers who would have died in an assault on the mainland, as well as Japanese civilian casualties estimated to have numbered in the millions during and after such a military campaign. In sum, given a bellicose enemy actively involved in hostilities against Americans, is the murder of one or more people justified to prevent far greater death and destruction? I think that the answer is an easy one -- of course.

Update: Instapundit responds in a news article.

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