Health Care- From the Federalist ‘How To Opt Out Of Obamacare,’ or things to think about involving your health and legal obligations to purchase health-insurance, despite the mess.  Avik Roy at Forbes discusses the political challenges for Republicans and the likelihood of Obamacare sticking around.  Wonkblog acts as though the Act is fine and gives you a nice online brochure.

Libertarian law/economics thinker Richard Epstein still makes sense to this blog, even if it’s wishful:

‘As I have noted before, there is only one type of reform that can make progress in meeting the three goals of a sensible health care system: cost reduction, quality improvements, and public access. That reform requires massive deregulation of the many market impediments that are already in place. Lower the costs, drop the excessive mandates, and thin out administrative costs, and people will flock back to the system voluntarily.’

Are you just waiting to see what happens?

Addition: Who knows what’s happening exactly….anyone….anyone out there?  Ross Douthat:

‘Presumably we should continue to expect the unexpected, and be prepared for developments that don’t just fall somewhere in between “ringing success” and “death spiral,” but surprise us with where exactly they fall, and how their consequences play out.’

Foreign Policy-Walter Russell Mead on Russia, China & Iran (whatever happened to Brazil? addition: that’s economic, along with India that make up the BRICs ).  The End Of History Ends:

‘If the Central Powers continue to work together and to make joint progress across Eurasia, however, either this administration or its successor is going to have to take another look at world politics. For the first time since the Cold War, the United States is going to have to adopt a coherent Eurasian strategy that integrates European, Middle Eastern, South Asian and East Asian policy into a comprehensive design. We shall have to think about “issues” like non-proliferation and democracy promotion in a geopolitical context and we shall have to prioritize the repair and defense of alliances in ways that no post Cold War presidents have done.’

I could be on-board with a more comprehensive Western strategy, perhaps even a return to realism at home with some compromise to be made with our European allies.  This focus on very narrow, possibly poorly-negotiated peace-deals with non-allies and foes is unnerving.  Telegraphing our ‘peaceful’ intentions, and working just towards human rights and Western liberal-Left democracy promotion through a liberal internationalist order can ignore just as many moving parts, if not more, than other schools of thought.

This is risky business.

See this blog’s post and comments on Fukuyama’s new ‘The Origins Of Political Order‘ for some of the Hegelian intellectual foundations on which Fukuyama built The End Of History, and how he defined human freedom and its manifestation in political order.  If you stop to think how influential Marxism has been in one form or another around the globe, and Fukuyama’s response to it, this makes some practical sense even if grand theory isn’t your thing.

Related On This Site: Update And Repost- From YouTube: Leo Strauss On The Meno-More On The Fact/Value Distinction?’…From Darwinian Conservatism: ‘Nietzsche–Aristocratic Radical or Aristocratic Liberal?’…From The Atlantic: Samuel Huntington’s Death And Life’s Work…From The American Interest Online: Francis Fukuyama On Samuel Huntington…From Foreign Affairs Via The A & L Daily: ‘Conflict Or Cooperation: Three Visions Revisited’