Health Care Inflation Down Under ACA, “Patriotic Correctness”, Marquette Adds To Tolkien Collection

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• Healthcare Inflation Down Since Obamacare Came Along

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  Increases in healthcare costs have slowed significantly under Obamacare, a new report shows. The report debunks previous claims by critics that the Affordable Care Act has caused insurance rates to rise. In Wisconsin and nation-wide, ACA enrollment rates are also up, despite uncertainty over the ACA’s future under a Republican administration.

• “Political correctness” is often associated with liberals and has been criticized by conservatives for regulating what kind of speech and behaviors are considered acceptable. We talk to an analyst from the Cato Institute who believes that the right has its own version of political correctness, and he calls it “patriotic correctness.”

• Political Analyst Says Conservatives Have Their Own Version Of Political Correctness

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  A political analyst of a libertarian think tank says both political tribes have their own version of political correctness that is stifling debate and wedging people apart.

  Political correctness has become the pejorative term du jour and a rallying point for conservatives against liberals. It’s often seen as regulating what kind of speech and behaviors are considered acceptable.

  College campuses are becoming common sites for tug-of-wars between free speech and the belief that safe spaces should be provided to students of various backgrounds, particularly minority groups in the United States.

  Alex Nowrasteh, immigration policy analyst at The Cato Institute, recently wrote about how the political right also has its own way of regulating what’s an appropriate way to behave or what’s acceptable to say. He calls it “patriotic correctness.”

  “What’s interesting is everybody seems to be aware of the left-wing variety of political correctness,” Nowrasteh said. “But when it comes to talking about the right-wing variety, the patriotic correctness side, almost nobody is aware of it, especially those people on the political right.”

  Some examples of patriotic correctness Nowrasteh highlights include the so-called war on Christmas, which he said doesn’t exist, and the strong blowback against public-sector unions.

  “I think another double standard is the common idea amongst the patriotically correct that unionized public employees are bad, and especially bad when they can’t be fired. Except for police and border control, which they sort of hold up on this higher plane of existence,” Nowrasteh said.

  He also pointed to conservatives who have criticized the Black Lives Matter movement for not embracing all lives. And yet, he said, many of these same critics will put a Blue Lives Matter sign in their front yard, which, according to their own logic, narrowly defines whose lives are valuable and worth protecting.

  Another example involves the outrage surrounding Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers who has been kneeling during the national anthem throughout the football season.

  For a textbook example of patriotic correctness, Nowrasteh cited Tomi Labren’s appearance on “The Daily Show,” in which the conservative commentator voiced her disgust against athletes who are kneeling during “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

  “I know what that flag means to me, I know what that flag means to those fighting for our country right now, it’s bigger than a piece of cloth, it’s a symbol of patriotism. Our national anthem means a lot to a lot of people. It’s got a lot of people through some very hard times. And this country, it’s got its scars, it’s got its wounds, it’s got its history, but I still believe it’s the greatest nation on the face of the earth, and I believe if you live in this country you can want to better it but to disrespect our flag and our anthem in that way cannot be your outlet to get out whatever aggression you have, whether it be passive or active aggression. I disagree with it.”

  Nowrasteh called Labren’s comments “childish” and “pathetic.”

  “The notion that this is somehow disrespectful to everybody who has ever served in the military or disrespectful to the country as a whole, or that you don’t want to better it by not standing during the national anthem is kind of an extreme leap of logic,” he said.

  He added that it reminds him of some of the scenes playing out on college campuses across the nation in which people are getting “really upset for not using the right pronoun or there’s a perceived injustice against a race that are just silly.”

• The works of J.R.R. Tolkien are much beloved by readers the world over. Marquette University has one of the most comprehensive collections of Tolkien manuscripts and books. Most recently, it added a rare first edition, first printing of “The Hobbit”. We’ll speak with William Fliss–Curator of the J.R.R. Tolkien Collection–about the prized acquisition.

• Rare Edition Of 'The Hobbit' Added To Marquette University Collection

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  When you think of where hobbits can be found, you might think of the Shire. But it turns out that Marquette University in Milwaukee is also a prime location.

  The J.R.R. Tolkien collection at Marquette dates back nearly 60 years and includes thousands of books, manuscripts, drawings, paintings, films and even handwritten notes and drafts of chapters.

  But a new addition to the collection is the source of quite a bit of excitement. It’s a first edition, first printing copy of “The Hobbit,” which Marquette recently acquired for an undisclosed sum at auction in London.

  “It’s not a unique item, but it is rare. There were only 1,500 that were printed when “The Hobbit” was published in 1937,” said William Fliss, an archivist at Marquette University Raynor Memorial Libraries and curator of the J.R.R. Tolkien Collection.

  Fliss said it is an important acquisition for an already impressive collection. “If our ‘Hobbit’ materials at Marquette were like a smile, we’ve had this gap tooth and now the smile is complete,” he said.

  In the five years Fliss has been curating the Tolkien collection, he’s had the goal of acquiring this specific item. And that anticipation made the actual purchase that much more satisfying. In addition, he said that while the book is missing its original dust jacket, it’s in excellent shape, and the illustrations of the story in this edition are Tolkien’s own.

  “It was a great moment to be able to bring it in and to put it alongside the other amazing things we have here, as far as ‘The Hobbit’ goes, most notably all the manuscripts that went into the writing of the story,” Fliss said. “It’s just kind of like the cherry on the sundae, the natural end point for the collection.”