Asymmetrical Information

More brilliance from Lileks: But

More brilliance from Lileks:

But the Castro-worship just fascinates me. Why? Some applaud the way he thumbs his nose at the US, which always strikes a certain crowd as the hallmark of integrity; if you wrap your derision in the big red flag you’ll always have a claque of bootlickers eager to excuse whatever you do. (The enemy of my enemy is my President for Life.) The usual gang of collectivists admire the way he organizes society from the top down to the city block, because they love power; they love force; they have a romantic attachment to anyone who uses the cudgel to hasten the arrival of heaven on earth. My favorite defense, though, is “free health care” and “literacy.”

Take the second one first. There’s no excuse for not being literate in America. Oh, we could impose literacy on the illiterate here, but it wouldn’t be pretty. We could make English proficiency a requirement for jobs, institute nationwide standards for graduation that mandated a high degree of literacy - and made the students' fulfillment of those standards a criterion for advancement in the educational establishment.

Let us pause to cogitate how well that would go over.

Health care: supposedly, it’s universal; supposedly, it’s high quality. Egalitarian. (muffled laugh.) Ask yourself this. You’re poor. You have a heart attack. Do you want to be in Havana or New York? Which phone system summons the EMTs faster? Which emergency response team is better equipped? Which hospital is better staffed with highly-paid doctors who have come from all over the world to work here?

Somehow I suspect that a heart attack in Havana at 3 AM means bundling Uncle Raul into your block captain’s ‘57 Belair and hoping it doesn’t break down before you get to the hospital.

But let’s assume that health care in Cuba is the equal of health care in America. If this is the reason to admire Cuba, then this is what some American citizens believe is more important than anything else. Free health care. They will give up elections, the free press, the freedom to travel, the freedom to dissent, the freedom to own a personal computer, for heaven’s sake - they’ve been banned for personal use. But for some, all of those freedoms are negotiable. They’ll give it all up for free health care. That’s their price.

Interesting.

Indeed.