Some Links, 9/30/2025

Michael Cannon on America's socialized health care; Steve Stewart-Williams on online sadism; and on autism; James Devereaux on presidents, democracy, and power

Michael Cannon writes,

the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reports that in the United States, government controls 84% of health spending. In fact, government controls a larger share of health spending in the United States than in 27 out of 38 OECD-member nations, including the United Kingdom (83%) and Canada (73%), each of which has an explicitly socialized health-care system. When it comes to government control of health spending, the United States is closer to communist Cuba (89%) than the average OECD nation (75%).

The myth is that government interventions increase access to health care. In reality, government interventions subsidize demand and restrict supply. Read Cannon’s whole essay before you attempt to rebut him.

Steve Stewart-Williams writes,

When it comes to shaming people online, schadenfreude is often a bigger motivator than moral outrage. In other words, pile-ons are often less about making the world a better place than getting a sadistic kick from another person’s suffering. [Link.]

Lately, I’m starting to think that thrill at the suffering of others is one of the most powerful forces in human nature. Somehow, we managed to incorporate a norm against torture in spite of the fact that so many people really are inclined to want to see somebody get tortured.

He also writes,

First, autism is highly heritable. It’s largely due to genes. Second, the relative influence of genetic vs. environmental causes hasn’t changed since the 1980s. This suggests that the increase in autism rates over that period isn’t driven by an increase in the environmental causes of autism. [Link.]

James Deveraux writes,

Weber viewed political authority in three co-existing but competing frameworks: legal authority, traditional authority, and charismatic authority. The latter may sound familiar to modern ears, who are familiar with the presidency as a “cult of personality.” This has been used to describe several recent presidents. The threat is that we are moving away from legal authority as establishing legitimacy, particularly in the English common law as modified through American constitutionalism. This translates into a gradual undermining of constitutional authority, both as a document and in the institutional arrangements outlined therein. While neutral principles of law still exist, they cannot be easily erased, even with a series of elections; the trend toward charismatic authority poses a legitimate threat to the rule of law. Principally, that law constrains those in power as much as it authorizes them to act on behalf of the people.

…While democratic selection of the president remains, Congress will continue to play second fiddle to the presidency.

In short, the process of electing a President selects for someone who will exercise “charismatic authority,” resisting Constitutional restraints. And Congress is doomed to losing its formal powers.

substacks referenced above: @

Invisible Tigers, a New View of Autism, and the Gender-Equality Paradox