Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Islamo-socialism

In what is probably the most abysmal of the right-wing talking points on the London/Glasgow plots, Powerline endorses the developing view at National Review's The Corner that it's all the fault of the NHS --

... the high percentage of non-British doctors practicing in England under the NHS. Socialized medicine, it seems, tends to chase British doctors into other careers or other countries.

The UK is not that big a country. Its population can't do everything. The health services have to come from somewhere if the locals find that other occupations, those part of the UK's comparative advantage, if you will, are more attractive. Do they want fewer British people working in financial services and more in the NHS, just to keep out the Islamo-doctors? Of course those wily Islamo-doctors would then all become Islamo-brokers and then the scandal would be that it's all the fault of the City of London.

Note also the awkward problem with their claim that socialized medicine is still an attractive career for people in other countries. And it's not just the Middle East. French doctors find the British system attractive too. The better argument about NHS hiring practices would be in terms of brain-drain, not in terms of the particular occupational details of this plot.

UPDATE 5 JULY: Fox News takes the argument up to 11.

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