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Monday, July 13, 2009
The Choice is Profits or Guns, Freedom or Tyranny
Two recent letters published in the NJ Star-Ledger on June 25, 2009 highlight an issue crucial to a free society.
Michael G. Busche writes (Insurance companies scared):
Here's the proposition that health insurance agencies are trying to sell to the Congress and us voters: You don't want a government bureaucrat deciding what medical procedures are appropriate and what they should cost. It's much better to have a profit-driven health insurance company executive do it instead.
They're out to convince us that a corporate bureaucrat whose future depends on how much money he makes for his company will treat us better that a government bureaucrat who doesn't have that pressure.
And Rita Reisman writes (Health reform needed):
I participate in an annual marathon walk to help people who are un- or under-insured get the care and treatment they need for that disease. Why is this massive fundraiser and all the other massive fundraisers necessary in a country we are so proud to proclaim is the greatest on the face of the earth?
We need [a strong public health option] that is available nationwide to everyone who wants decent health insurance. We need to make all these disease-oriented fundraiser marathons a thing of the past.
A dangerous fallacy underlies the reasoning of both letter-writers, and that of most Americans and political leaders.
Michael G. Busche and Rita Reisman miss a crucial distinction between government and the private sector…between political and economic power. The government and the government alone has a legal monopoly on the use of physical force. This is its nature, as distinct from private individuals and organizations. This is necessary to its proper role as protector of individual rights from domestic criminals and foreign enemies, as explicitly defined in the Declaration of Independence. But this unique attribute is what necessitates a constitution, the sole purpose of which is to limit the government’s legal power of physical force from being turned against the very citizens whose rights it is its solemn duty to protect.
In an essay entitled The Dollar and the Gun, Harry Binswanger writes:
Put another way, a “government bureaucrat” has a gun, a “profit-driven health insurance company executive” does not. “A corporate bureaucrat whose future depends on how much money he makes for his company” will indeed treat us better than “a government bureaucrat who doesn't have that pressure”. A private company’s revenues (and thus profits) depend on the voluntary consent of its contractual customers. A government bureaucrat gets his revenues by taxation…i.e., by force. A profit-driven private company depends on the satisfaction of its customers, who can move to a competing company at any time. A government bureaucrat collects, and holds, its “customers” by force. A private company cannot grow and prosper long-term by doing bad things to its customers. A government bean-counting bureaucrat can do what he pleases regardless of the needs or desires of the individual lives his decisions hold in his hands, because he “doesn’t have that pressure”. A government bureaucrat doesn’t work for a “profit-driven health insurance company”, so has no need to worry about “how much money he makes”. A dictator never does. He has a gun. (Never mind “insurance companies…lobbying Congress”, or any other special interest lobbyists. It is only Congress…i.e., government power…that can legally impose that which they are lobbying for. Political pressure groups don’t exist under Capitalism, only under a mixed economy.)
What of the seeming “power” of private insurance company bureaucrats over our healthcare? That is a result of our government-imposed, tax-distortion created third-party-payer system of health insurance. Perversely, the insurance company works not for the consumer of healthcare, but for a third party (employer, union, etc.). When it seeks to deny coverage for some expense, it is trying to promote the interests of the third party (its contractual customer), not the consumer who didn’t purchase the policy. The insurer’s profits depend upon a satisfied customer. But unlike the freer sectors of the economy, that is not the consumer. It is the third party that is paying the premiums. It is the third party that can bolt. It is the third party that needs to be satisfied. In a free market, the consumer and the customer are one and the same, as it should be. Without government interference…i.e., in a free market…the consumer of healthcare would buy his insurance directly from a dynamic, competitive, entrepreneurial industry free to tailor policy choices to market realities. The “power” of the insurer would be only that which is granted by the consumer/customer, by way of a voluntary contract entered into by both parties by mutual agreement to mutual advantage.
A further crucial point relates to the government’s nature as an impartial, objective arbiter of contractual disputes. All parties to a contractual agreement are subject to laws against fraud and breach of contract. The civil courts mediate honest disputes, and the criminal courts prosecute offenders. There is no such contractual protection for consumers under government-run programs. The rules can be changed at any time, by bureaucratic or political fiat. Take, for example, Social Security. No one has any actual rights under SS, only privileges granted by government. Taxes could be raised and benefits can be cut or eliminated at any time.
The “public option” advocated by Mr. Busche and Ms. Reisman is exactly the wrong solution to a problem created by government itself. It would further undermine the rule of law of a government already breaking free of the constitutional constraints that a free society depends on. The “public option” is a socialist Trojan Horse, and everyone from the village idiot on up knows it.
Special interest-driven politicians will use the government’s unique powers of physical force to promote its “public option” into a single-payer dictatorship, administered by armed bureaucrats unencumbered by the pressure to earn a profit. As Robert E. Moffit of the Heritage Foundation puts it: “Let's be honest: The idea that Congress is going to create a genuine ‘level playing field’ for competition between the newly created government health plan and private health plans is nonsense. Congress will be the rule-maker, financier, umpire and owner of a team in the ‘competition.’ ” The politicians will do whatever it takes to prop up their “public option” creation. They will use their taxing powers to keep premiums “affordable”; regulatory powers to hamper private insurers; licensing and other means to force below-market prices on providers; explicit or implied “back-room” threats of regulatory, IRS, or antitrust reprisals to “distract” private executives, etc.
Are private insurers scared? Just as scared as are any victims of an advancing dictatorship. Any American worthy of that title should be scared, too. Mr. Busche doesn’t understand that. Thomas Jefferson did. When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty, he warned.
To claim that there can be competition between a government plan and a private company is to see no difference between an armed thug and his victims. A “public option” is legalized criminality. It is organized crime on a scale that an Al Capone could never conceive of.
The “public option” is designed to destroy private insurers, regardless of what any lying politician says to the contrary. To say otherwise is naive, to be extraordinarily polite. “How dumb do they think we are?” A “public option” not backed by government power is a contradiction, and in any event would be pointless as a means to “keep private insurers honest”. There are already 1300 private insurers. What would be the point of 1301? Once their monopoly is in place, the “non-profit” government bureaucrats will then dictate every aspect of our healthcare and lifestyles, through such euphemisms as “cost containment”, “efficiency”, “comparative effectiveness”, “preventive care”, etc. Their “customers” won’t have any other place to run.
We will have learned the difference between profits and a gun; between freedom and tyranny. The Ms. Reismans of the country will no longer “need to make all these disease-oriented fundraiser marathons”. No need to seek voluntary contributions from people of good will. We will have forfeited the very principles that had made America “a country we are so proud to proclaim is the greatest on the face of the earth.” We will have our Federal crime family able to simply take those “contributions” at gunpoint.
As I have been documenting, the “crisis” in American healthcare, if you want to call it that, is a government creation. A free market is the only moral solution. But if Michael G. Busche, Rita Reisman, and their ilk have their way, we will have only fading memories of that glorious and historically radical American phenomenon that was “a government that fears its people”, and become just another “people that fears its government”.
Michael G. Busche writes (Insurance companies scared):
Here's the proposition that health insurance agencies are trying to sell to the Congress and us voters: You don't want a government bureaucrat deciding what medical procedures are appropriate and what they should cost. It's much better to have a profit-driven health insurance company executive do it instead.
They're out to convince us that a corporate bureaucrat whose future depends on how much money he makes for his company will treat us better that a government bureaucrat who doesn't have that pressure.
And Rita Reisman writes (Health reform needed):
I participate in an annual marathon walk to help people who are un- or under-insured get the care and treatment they need for that disease. Why is this massive fundraiser and all the other massive fundraisers necessary in a country we are so proud to proclaim is the greatest on the face of the earth?
We need [a strong public health option] that is available nationwide to everyone who wants decent health insurance. We need to make all these disease-oriented fundraiser marathons a thing of the past.
A dangerous fallacy underlies the reasoning of both letter-writers, and that of most Americans and political leaders.
Michael G. Busche and Rita Reisman miss a crucial distinction between government and the private sector…between political and economic power. The government and the government alone has a legal monopoly on the use of physical force. This is its nature, as distinct from private individuals and organizations. This is necessary to its proper role as protector of individual rights from domestic criminals and foreign enemies, as explicitly defined in the Declaration of Independence. But this unique attribute is what necessitates a constitution, the sole purpose of which is to limit the government’s legal power of physical force from being turned against the very citizens whose rights it is its solemn duty to protect.
In an essay entitled The Dollar and the Gun, Harry Binswanger writes:
The fallacy is equivocation—the equivocation between economic power and political power.
“Political power” refers to the power of government. Only a government can make laws—i.e., rules of social conduct backed up by physical force.
A non-governmental organization can make rules, pass resolutions, etc., but these are not laws precisely because they cannot be enforced on those who choose not to deal with that organization. The penalty for breaking the rules of e.g., a fraternal organization is expulsion from the association. The penalty for breaking the law is fines, imprisonment, and ultimately, death. The symbol of political power is a gun.
A proper government points that gun only at those who violate individual rights, to answer the physical force they have initiated, but it is a gun nonetheless.
Economic power, on the other hand, is the ability to produce material values and offer them for sale. E.g., the power of Big Oil is the power to discover, drill and bring to market a large amount of oil. Economic power lies in assets—i.e., the factors of production, the inventory and the cash possessed by businesses. The symbol of economic power is the dollar.
Put another way, a “government bureaucrat” has a gun, a “profit-driven health insurance company executive” does not. “A corporate bureaucrat whose future depends on how much money he makes for his company” will indeed treat us better than “a government bureaucrat who doesn't have that pressure”. A private company’s revenues (and thus profits) depend on the voluntary consent of its contractual customers. A government bureaucrat gets his revenues by taxation…i.e., by force. A profit-driven private company depends on the satisfaction of its customers, who can move to a competing company at any time. A government bureaucrat collects, and holds, its “customers” by force. A private company cannot grow and prosper long-term by doing bad things to its customers. A government bean-counting bureaucrat can do what he pleases regardless of the needs or desires of the individual lives his decisions hold in his hands, because he “doesn’t have that pressure”. A government bureaucrat doesn’t work for a “profit-driven health insurance company”, so has no need to worry about “how much money he makes”. A dictator never does. He has a gun. (Never mind “insurance companies…lobbying Congress”, or any other special interest lobbyists. It is only Congress…i.e., government power…that can legally impose that which they are lobbying for. Political pressure groups don’t exist under Capitalism, only under a mixed economy.)
What of the seeming “power” of private insurance company bureaucrats over our healthcare? That is a result of our government-imposed, tax-distortion created third-party-payer system of health insurance. Perversely, the insurance company works not for the consumer of healthcare, but for a third party (employer, union, etc.). When it seeks to deny coverage for some expense, it is trying to promote the interests of the third party (its contractual customer), not the consumer who didn’t purchase the policy. The insurer’s profits depend upon a satisfied customer. But unlike the freer sectors of the economy, that is not the consumer. It is the third party that is paying the premiums. It is the third party that can bolt. It is the third party that needs to be satisfied. In a free market, the consumer and the customer are one and the same, as it should be. Without government interference…i.e., in a free market…the consumer of healthcare would buy his insurance directly from a dynamic, competitive, entrepreneurial industry free to tailor policy choices to market realities. The “power” of the insurer would be only that which is granted by the consumer/customer, by way of a voluntary contract entered into by both parties by mutual agreement to mutual advantage.
A further crucial point relates to the government’s nature as an impartial, objective arbiter of contractual disputes. All parties to a contractual agreement are subject to laws against fraud and breach of contract. The civil courts mediate honest disputes, and the criminal courts prosecute offenders. There is no such contractual protection for consumers under government-run programs. The rules can be changed at any time, by bureaucratic or political fiat. Take, for example, Social Security. No one has any actual rights under SS, only privileges granted by government. Taxes could be raised and benefits can be cut or eliminated at any time.
The “public option” advocated by Mr. Busche and Ms. Reisman is exactly the wrong solution to a problem created by government itself. It would further undermine the rule of law of a government already breaking free of the constitutional constraints that a free society depends on. The “public option” is a socialist Trojan Horse, and everyone from the village idiot on up knows it.
Special interest-driven politicians will use the government’s unique powers of physical force to promote its “public option” into a single-payer dictatorship, administered by armed bureaucrats unencumbered by the pressure to earn a profit. As Robert E. Moffit of the Heritage Foundation puts it: “Let's be honest: The idea that Congress is going to create a genuine ‘level playing field’ for competition between the newly created government health plan and private health plans is nonsense. Congress will be the rule-maker, financier, umpire and owner of a team in the ‘competition.’ ” The politicians will do whatever it takes to prop up their “public option” creation. They will use their taxing powers to keep premiums “affordable”; regulatory powers to hamper private insurers; licensing and other means to force below-market prices on providers; explicit or implied “back-room” threats of regulatory, IRS, or antitrust reprisals to “distract” private executives, etc.
Are private insurers scared? Just as scared as are any victims of an advancing dictatorship. Any American worthy of that title should be scared, too. Mr. Busche doesn’t understand that. Thomas Jefferson did. When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty, he warned.
To claim that there can be competition between a government plan and a private company is to see no difference between an armed thug and his victims. A “public option” is legalized criminality. It is organized crime on a scale that an Al Capone could never conceive of.
The “public option” is designed to destroy private insurers, regardless of what any lying politician says to the contrary. To say otherwise is naive, to be extraordinarily polite. “How dumb do they think we are?” A “public option” not backed by government power is a contradiction, and in any event would be pointless as a means to “keep private insurers honest”. There are already 1300 private insurers. What would be the point of 1301? Once their monopoly is in place, the “non-profit” government bureaucrats will then dictate every aspect of our healthcare and lifestyles, through such euphemisms as “cost containment”, “efficiency”, “comparative effectiveness”, “preventive care”, etc. Their “customers” won’t have any other place to run.
We will have learned the difference between profits and a gun; between freedom and tyranny. The Ms. Reismans of the country will no longer “need to make all these disease-oriented fundraiser marathons”. No need to seek voluntary contributions from people of good will. We will have forfeited the very principles that had made America “a country we are so proud to proclaim is the greatest on the face of the earth.” We will have our Federal crime family able to simply take those “contributions” at gunpoint.
As I have been documenting, the “crisis” in American healthcare, if you want to call it that, is a government creation. A free market is the only moral solution. But if Michael G. Busche, Rita Reisman, and their ilk have their way, we will have only fading memories of that glorious and historically radical American phenomenon that was “a government that fears its people”, and become just another “people that fears its government”.
Labels: Government, Healthcare, Philosophy, Politics
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Obama's Christian Strategy
Two recent events have, I believe, solidified my hypothesis that President Obama is and has been making a concerted effort to break the Republican electoral hold on the Christian vote. The first event was his Commencement Address to the graduating class of Notre Dame University, a leading Catholic institution. The second was his nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.
The Notre Dame speech set off a firestorm of protest against the university’s president, the Rev. John I. Jenkins, for inviting him. Many of Obama’s supporters wondered why he would venture into the lion’s den, given his “pro-choice” abortion views. But both Jenkins and Obama understand the stakes as being much higher than the abortion debate.
In that speech, Obama sought to soften the abortion divide, vowing “to honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion”. The key to understanding his real motive, though, is in seeing how deeply he plumbed the depths of the Christian faith. Said the president:
"In short, we must find a way to live together as one human family.
Unfortunately, finding that common ground – recognising that our fates are tied up, as Dr. King said, in a 'single garment of destiny' – is not easy. Part of the problem, of course, lies in the imperfections of man – our selfishness, our pride, our stubbornness, our acquisitiveness, our insecurities, our egos; all the cruelties large and small that those of us in the Christian tradition understand to be rooted in original sin."
These comments make it obvious how tying capitalism to the Christian faith presents a profound and fatal contradiction for Religious Rightists, such as Mark Levin and Paul Johnson. Our selfishness (the pursuit of one’s own individual happiness), our pride (confidence in one’s own moral worth and ability to achieve one’s goals), our stubbornness (consistent adherence to one’s own judgement and principles), our acquisitiveness (one’s quest for knowledge), our egos (one’s self-esteem, or the confidence in one’s own mind and its ability to cope with existence), are all of the “cruelties” that flourish when people are left free under capitalism.
Those “cruelties”, which are actually among man’s highest virtues and are the antidote to “our insecurities”, are incompatible with finding “a way to live together as one human family”…i.e., world collectivism. In an obvious, implied reference to the Christian antipathy to wealth and to the Sermon on the Mount, Obama attacks “immediate self-interest and crass materialism”. “The strong too often dominate the weak”, he said, “and too many of those with wealth and with power find all manner of justification for their own privilege in the face of poverty and injustice.”
It is not capitalism, the only system that protects the individual rights of all people, that the “weak” have to fear. “Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law”, eliminating the forcible domination of anyone over anyone. Indeed, it is the so-called “rich and powerful” who are vulnerable under capitalism…to the allegedly “weak” members of the economic “underclass” who are simultaneously protected and freed to rise as far as their ambition, talent, ingenuity, and intelligence will carry them. The regulations, controls, and taxes of an overbearing “mixed (or worse) economy” government tends to entrench the established “rich and powerful” moneyed and corporate interests. The upward mobility of a truly free, capitalist society that enables entrepreneurial upstarts to constantly challenge the economic leaders is stifled…in a regulated economy…by the smothering blanket of politically-connected industry leaders. But it is not capitalism, the great liberator of the “weak”, that is Obama’s driving passion.
Notice his equation of wealth with “power”, without defining the nature of that power. It is not political power – the power of physical force – that he is condemning. It is the “power” of production...i.e., earning one’s own wealth by providing to others values they are voluntarily willing to purchase through trade.
(Never mind the “power” that comes with buying political influence. Under laissez-faire capitalism, this method of converting economic power to political power vanishes. Laissez-faire means the separation of economics and state. No private economic power can legally force anyone, without the political connections possible only under a mixed economy.) What “manner of justification” does one need for one’s “privilege” (one’s earned wealth)? Under capitalism, property rights are sacrosanct. Without the right to earn, keep, and dispose of one’s own property, there is no right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Without the means to sustain one’s life, no freedom is possible. The Rights of Man are the justification for one’s “privilege”…i.e., one’s earned wealth and “power”. But what are rights – this “manner of justification” – “in the face of poverty and injustice”? It is for the sake of those who did not earn it…those lacking in all of those sinful “cruelties"...that your rights, wealth, and “power” are to be sacrificed. Obama upholds the reign of the unearned, and connects it to fundamental, deep-rooted Christian dogma. “[W]e are not making a gift of our possessions. We are only handing over to him what is his. The world is given to all, and not only to the rich." – St. Ambrose said. President Obama fully concurs, in defiance of actual justice.
E.J. Dionne, a very astute observer who understands better than most on the Left where Obama is going, said the following about the Notre Dame speech:
"Acknowledging the Roman Catholic Church's role in supporting his early community organizing work, the president drew on the resources of Catholic social thought. It combines opposition to abortion with a sharp critique of economic injustice and thus doesn't squeeze into the round holes of contemporary ideology.
Yet his argument drew on very old ideas, notably original sin and the common good."
Original Sin is a fundamental justification for the sacrifice of the individual to “the common good”. It is a view held by pro-capitalist Christians. "In the civil society,[man] is free to discover his own potential and pursue his own legitimate interests, tempered, however, by a moral order that has its foundation in faith and guides his life and all human life through the prudent exercise of judgement." (Mark Levin, Liberty and Tyranny, Page 3) “I'm not saying that a businessman should primarily pursue moral aims. That would be asking too much, and I suspect it wouldn't work. [I]t is desirable, to my mind, that all business activities be rooted in Judeo-Christian teaching…” (Paul Johnson, Pursuing Success is Not Enough)
Those two concepts, Original Sin and “the common good”, fit quite nicely into Obama’s socialist agenda, and leave capitalism in the moral wilderness, at best. With which social system, then, does “Judeo-Christian teaching” morally align? Who can claim the moral high ground...Mark Levin and Paul Johnson, or Barack Obama? Can you envision Obama declaring that each American has a right to his own life, his own liberty, the pursuit of his own goals, welfare, and happiness – free from coercive interference by government – in order to justify imposing socialized medicine on us all? Absurd? No more absurd than upholding the moral doctrine that “we are all our brothers’ keepers” while advocating the system of the selfish pursuit of personal happiness.
The Sotomayor nomination is even more interesting. Rush Limbaugh recently shocked his listeners by seriously declaring that “I can see a possibility of supporting this nomination…” At the same time, the Left became angry and disillusioned by the fact that Obama nominated someone without the unequivocal record of support for Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized unrestricted first term abortions. Indeed, in an article in the NJ Star-Ledger, Paul Mulshine wrote:
But did he? I don’t think so. As in the case of his choice of Pastor Rick Warren for his inaugural invocation, and his extension of Bush’s Faith-Based Initiative, Obama’s vision for America renders the angst of his constituents irrelevant. While the Left grumbles about “broken promises”, Obama understands the value of key Christian tenets to his attempt to correct what he sees as the “fundamental flaw” in our founding documents. Whether Sotomayor is ultimately “pro-choice” or not is beside the point. What is the risk of overturning Roe v. Wade next to Obama’s grand strategy to overturn the American Revolution?
President Obama’s political strategy is clear, a philosophical masterstroke, and potentially devastating for capitalism and freedom. His grand strategy for remaking America into a nation ruled by the collective should be obvious to anyone who understands the power of ideas and of morality.
But to advocate socialism openly and honestly is and always has been a loser in America. After the tyranny, wars, and unprecedented mass murder wrought by the socialist regimes of Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, Red China, and the many smaller variants of the 20th century, socialism is dead as an intellectual force. Notice how Obama and the American Left run from the socialist label as from the plague, despite the obvious socialist (albeit through the fascist back door) underpinnings of their agenda. How, then, to pursue a socialist agenda in America?
Enter what one might call Obama’s “Christian Strategy”. The President, a philosophically astute man (unlike most of his GOP rivals), is and has been attempting to forge an alliance with American Christianity based upon a common moral foundation…altruism. Unlike socialism, religion is a live and growing force in America, and Christianity is the dominant religion. Since socialism and Christianity share the same ethical premise…that the good consists of living for others or putting others above self…Obama’s brilliant strategy is to hitch his socialist agenda to Judeo-Christian ethics.
America was founded on the opposite ethical principle, though those principles were never explicitly defined until the 20th century. The Founding Fathers created a nation based upon the supreme value of the individual possessing the unalienable rights to his own life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. They rejected the tribal view that man must live for others (i.e., the collective). But it was philosopher-novelist Ayn Rand who comprehensively defined the philosophical underpinnings for the American Revolution. Through her classic novels The Fountainhead and especially Atlas Shrugged…and through her philosophy of Objectivism…she presents the moral case for the American Revolution and capitalism.
It is only Ayn Rand who provides the vital intellectual ammunition to counter the accelerating collectivist trend in America, and thus save our individual freedom, because she can defend the individual’s right to exist for his own sake…and prove it. She offers the anti-dote to the doctrine that “we are all our brother’s keepers”, the moral root of Obama’s policies and the root of all variants of socialism. If Obama is to be stopped, Capitalism must be discovered. For Capitalism to be discovered, our Founding principles must be rediscovered and fully understood. For our Founding principles to be fully understood, Ayn Rand and Objectivism must be discovered and embraced.
The President is right that we are at “a rare inflection point in history”. He intends to steer America away from its Founding ideals by hitching his socialist car to the engine of Christianity. With the Christian Left already in his pocket, he has taken aim at the Christian Right, as well as the politically neutral or inactive “middle”. With this strategy, he and his minions mean to isolate the Mark Levins and Sean Hannitys as the “extreme Right”. .
It remains to be seen how successful he will be. But Obama understands fully that morality is the key to the direction America will take. It’s time that Capitalism’s defenders understood that, too.
The Notre Dame speech set off a firestorm of protest against the university’s president, the Rev. John I. Jenkins, for inviting him. Many of Obama’s supporters wondered why he would venture into the lion’s den, given his “pro-choice” abortion views. But both Jenkins and Obama understand the stakes as being much higher than the abortion debate.
In that speech, Obama sought to soften the abortion divide, vowing “to honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion”. The key to understanding his real motive, though, is in seeing how deeply he plumbed the depths of the Christian faith. Said the president:
"In short, we must find a way to live together as one human family.
Unfortunately, finding that common ground – recognising that our fates are tied up, as Dr. King said, in a 'single garment of destiny' – is not easy. Part of the problem, of course, lies in the imperfections of man – our selfishness, our pride, our stubbornness, our acquisitiveness, our insecurities, our egos; all the cruelties large and small that those of us in the Christian tradition understand to be rooted in original sin."
These comments make it obvious how tying capitalism to the Christian faith presents a profound and fatal contradiction for Religious Rightists, such as Mark Levin and Paul Johnson. Our selfishness (the pursuit of one’s own individual happiness), our pride (confidence in one’s own moral worth and ability to achieve one’s goals), our stubbornness (consistent adherence to one’s own judgement and principles), our acquisitiveness (one’s quest for knowledge), our egos (one’s self-esteem, or the confidence in one’s own mind and its ability to cope with existence), are all of the “cruelties” that flourish when people are left free under capitalism.
Those “cruelties”, which are actually among man’s highest virtues and are the antidote to “our insecurities”, are incompatible with finding “a way to live together as one human family”…i.e., world collectivism. In an obvious, implied reference to the Christian antipathy to wealth and to the Sermon on the Mount, Obama attacks “immediate self-interest and crass materialism”. “The strong too often dominate the weak”, he said, “and too many of those with wealth and with power find all manner of justification for their own privilege in the face of poverty and injustice.”
It is not capitalism, the only system that protects the individual rights of all people, that the “weak” have to fear. “Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law”, eliminating the forcible domination of anyone over anyone. Indeed, it is the so-called “rich and powerful” who are vulnerable under capitalism…to the allegedly “weak” members of the economic “underclass” who are simultaneously protected and freed to rise as far as their ambition, talent, ingenuity, and intelligence will carry them. The regulations, controls, and taxes of an overbearing “mixed (or worse) economy” government tends to entrench the established “rich and powerful” moneyed and corporate interests. The upward mobility of a truly free, capitalist society that enables entrepreneurial upstarts to constantly challenge the economic leaders is stifled…in a regulated economy…by the smothering blanket of politically-connected industry leaders. But it is not capitalism, the great liberator of the “weak”, that is Obama’s driving passion.
Notice his equation of wealth with “power”, without defining the nature of that power. It is not political power – the power of physical force – that he is condemning. It is the “power” of production...i.e., earning one’s own wealth by providing to others values they are voluntarily willing to purchase through trade.
(Never mind the “power” that comes with buying political influence. Under laissez-faire capitalism, this method of converting economic power to political power vanishes. Laissez-faire means the separation of economics and state. No private economic power can legally force anyone, without the political connections possible only under a mixed economy.) What “manner of justification” does one need for one’s “privilege” (one’s earned wealth)? Under capitalism, property rights are sacrosanct. Without the right to earn, keep, and dispose of one’s own property, there is no right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Without the means to sustain one’s life, no freedom is possible. The Rights of Man are the justification for one’s “privilege”…i.e., one’s earned wealth and “power”. But what are rights – this “manner of justification” – “in the face of poverty and injustice”? It is for the sake of those who did not earn it…those lacking in all of those sinful “cruelties"...that your rights, wealth, and “power” are to be sacrificed. Obama upholds the reign of the unearned, and connects it to fundamental, deep-rooted Christian dogma. “[W]e are not making a gift of our possessions. We are only handing over to him what is his. The world is given to all, and not only to the rich." – St. Ambrose said. President Obama fully concurs, in defiance of actual justice.
E.J. Dionne, a very astute observer who understands better than most on the Left where Obama is going, said the following about the Notre Dame speech:
"Acknowledging the Roman Catholic Church's role in supporting his early community organizing work, the president drew on the resources of Catholic social thought. It combines opposition to abortion with a sharp critique of economic injustice and thus doesn't squeeze into the round holes of contemporary ideology.
Yet his argument drew on very old ideas, notably original sin and the common good."
Original Sin is a fundamental justification for the sacrifice of the individual to “the common good”. It is a view held by pro-capitalist Christians. "In the civil society,[man] is free to discover his own potential and pursue his own legitimate interests, tempered, however, by a moral order that has its foundation in faith and guides his life and all human life through the prudent exercise of judgement." (Mark Levin, Liberty and Tyranny, Page 3) “I'm not saying that a businessman should primarily pursue moral aims. That would be asking too much, and I suspect it wouldn't work. [I]t is desirable, to my mind, that all business activities be rooted in Judeo-Christian teaching…” (Paul Johnson, Pursuing Success is Not Enough)
Those two concepts, Original Sin and “the common good”, fit quite nicely into Obama’s socialist agenda, and leave capitalism in the moral wilderness, at best. With which social system, then, does “Judeo-Christian teaching” morally align? Who can claim the moral high ground...Mark Levin and Paul Johnson, or Barack Obama? Can you envision Obama declaring that each American has a right to his own life, his own liberty, the pursuit of his own goals, welfare, and happiness – free from coercive interference by government – in order to justify imposing socialized medicine on us all? Absurd? No more absurd than upholding the moral doctrine that “we are all our brothers’ keepers” while advocating the system of the selfish pursuit of personal happiness.
The Sotomayor nomination is even more interesting. Rush Limbaugh recently shocked his listeners by seriously declaring that “I can see a possibility of supporting this nomination…” At the same time, the Left became angry and disillusioned by the fact that Obama nominated someone without the unequivocal record of support for Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized unrestricted first term abortions. Indeed, in an article in the NJ Star-Ledger, Paul Mulshine wrote:
There's an old saying that goes, "Be careful what you wish for. You may get it."
After all the hosannas to the first Latin-American female nominee to the high court died down last week, someone noticed that there is no evidence that Sotomayor supports abortion rights. There are even a few hints her empathy might be on the other side of that issue.
[A]s a federal appeals court judge, she wrote an opinion dismissing an attempt by a group that supports abortion rights to throw out the so-called "Mexico City Rule." This was a Bush administration initiative that banned funding for groups in foreign countries that permit abortion.
Obama may have overlooked the fact that Latin-Americans are not generally known for favoring abortion rights. (Emphasis added.)
But did he? I don’t think so. As in the case of his choice of Pastor Rick Warren for his inaugural invocation, and his extension of Bush’s Faith-Based Initiative, Obama’s vision for America renders the angst of his constituents irrelevant. While the Left grumbles about “broken promises”, Obama understands the value of key Christian tenets to his attempt to correct what he sees as the “fundamental flaw” in our founding documents. Whether Sotomayor is ultimately “pro-choice” or not is beside the point. What is the risk of overturning Roe v. Wade next to Obama’s grand strategy to overturn the American Revolution?
President Obama’s political strategy is clear, a philosophical masterstroke, and potentially devastating for capitalism and freedom. His grand strategy for remaking America into a nation ruled by the collective should be obvious to anyone who understands the power of ideas and of morality.
But to advocate socialism openly and honestly is and always has been a loser in America. After the tyranny, wars, and unprecedented mass murder wrought by the socialist regimes of Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, Red China, and the many smaller variants of the 20th century, socialism is dead as an intellectual force. Notice how Obama and the American Left run from the socialist label as from the plague, despite the obvious socialist (albeit through the fascist back door) underpinnings of their agenda. How, then, to pursue a socialist agenda in America?
Enter what one might call Obama’s “Christian Strategy”. The President, a philosophically astute man (unlike most of his GOP rivals), is and has been attempting to forge an alliance with American Christianity based upon a common moral foundation…altruism. Unlike socialism, religion is a live and growing force in America, and Christianity is the dominant religion. Since socialism and Christianity share the same ethical premise…that the good consists of living for others or putting others above self…Obama’s brilliant strategy is to hitch his socialist agenda to Judeo-Christian ethics.
America was founded on the opposite ethical principle, though those principles were never explicitly defined until the 20th century. The Founding Fathers created a nation based upon the supreme value of the individual possessing the unalienable rights to his own life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. They rejected the tribal view that man must live for others (i.e., the collective). But it was philosopher-novelist Ayn Rand who comprehensively defined the philosophical underpinnings for the American Revolution. Through her classic novels The Fountainhead and especially Atlas Shrugged…and through her philosophy of Objectivism…she presents the moral case for the American Revolution and capitalism.
It is only Ayn Rand who provides the vital intellectual ammunition to counter the accelerating collectivist trend in America, and thus save our individual freedom, because she can defend the individual’s right to exist for his own sake…and prove it. She offers the anti-dote to the doctrine that “we are all our brother’s keepers”, the moral root of Obama’s policies and the root of all variants of socialism. If Obama is to be stopped, Capitalism must be discovered. For Capitalism to be discovered, our Founding principles must be rediscovered and fully understood. For our Founding principles to be fully understood, Ayn Rand and Objectivism must be discovered and embraced.
The President is right that we are at “a rare inflection point in history”. He intends to steer America away from its Founding ideals by hitching his socialist car to the engine of Christianity. With the Christian Left already in his pocket, he has taken aim at the Christian Right, as well as the politically neutral or inactive “middle”. With this strategy, he and his minions mean to isolate the Mark Levins and Sean Hannitys as the “extreme Right”. .
It remains to be seen how successful he will be. But Obama understands fully that morality is the key to the direction America will take. It’s time that Capitalism’s defenders understood that, too.
Labels: Morality, Obama's Christian Strategy, Politics, Religion
Friday, July 3, 2009
Independence Day - Bittersweet, But Hope for the Future
The Fourth of July is a national holiday that, to me, stands far above all of the others. It represents the greatest political achievement in world history. More than that, the birth of the United States of America represents a towering and unprecedented philosophical achievement: although a full, explicit, systematic declaration of that achievement was not made until the 20th century. America, born of the Enlightenment, is the first nation founded on the principle that man the individual has a fundamental, natural right to his own life, and that government’s responsibility is to protect that right…that the people act by right, while the government acts by permission.
I quote from Michael S. Berliner’s June 26, 2008 post at Principles in Practice
“ ‘Independence Day’ is a critically important title. It signifies the fundamental meaning of this nation, not just of the holiday. The American Revolution remains unique in human history: a revolution--and a nation--founded on a moral principle, the principle of individual rights…
“The Declaration of Independence was a declaration against servitude, not just servitude to the Crown but servitude to anyone…
“Political independence is not a primary. It rests on a more fundamental type of independence: the independence of the human mind. It is the ability of a human being to think for himself and guide his own life that makes political independence possible and necessary…
“To the Founding Fathers, there was no authority higher than the individual mind, not King George, not God, not society. Reason, wrote Ethan Allen, is ‘the only oracle of man,’ and Thomas Jefferson advised us to ‘fix reason firmly in her seat and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God.’ That is the meaning of independence: trust in your own judgment, in reason; do not sacrifice your mind to the state, the church, the race, the nation, or your neighbors.
“Independence is the foundation of America. Independence is what should be celebrated on Independence Day. That is the legacy our Founding Fathers left us.”
Americans are more and more ignoring and moving away from the glorious principle of which Mr. Berliner speaks, “the independence of the human mind.” This is what gives Independence Day a bittersweet quality for me. Our freedom erodes steadily as its only real guardian, intellectual independence, gradually gives way to a growing entitlement mindset. Just surrender one more bit of our individual self-determination and personal responsibility in exchange for the free lunch of the illusion of government-guaranteed security, and our “national” problems can be solved…in healthcare, in education, in finance, in housing, in energy.
As a result, America is moving towards a time when the government acts by right, but the people act by permission. Or, as America’s Philosopher, Ayn Rand, puts it:
“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.”
But our drift toward statism is not inevitable. There is no such thing as historical determinism. Ideas move human history. The ideas that created America still exist, waiting to be rediscovered. That rediscovery is beginning to emerge. This time, however, those ideas come armed with a full philosophical and moral defense and justification. That armament is Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand.
So the bittersweet feeling that, for me, accompanies Independence Day should not be mistaken for pessimism or cynicism. If I thought that the fight to save America long term was futile, I would not have started this blog, or speak up at every opportunity for my beliefs in conversation, online forums, or any other medium open to me. And I am not alone, as the two linked articles in this piece show.
So I will continue to do my part as a patriotic American citizen by exercising “the independence of the human mind”…my own. This has and will continue to include the radical, but quintessentially American, Jeffersonian urging to “Question with boldness… every fact, every opinion.” I will continue at the task of "Changing the Wind.”
Have a great and happy Independence Day.
I quote from Michael S. Berliner’s June 26, 2008 post at Principles in Practice
“ ‘Independence Day’ is a critically important title. It signifies the fundamental meaning of this nation, not just of the holiday. The American Revolution remains unique in human history: a revolution--and a nation--founded on a moral principle, the principle of individual rights…
“The Declaration of Independence was a declaration against servitude, not just servitude to the Crown but servitude to anyone…
“Political independence is not a primary. It rests on a more fundamental type of independence: the independence of the human mind. It is the ability of a human being to think for himself and guide his own life that makes political independence possible and necessary…
“To the Founding Fathers, there was no authority higher than the individual mind, not King George, not God, not society. Reason, wrote Ethan Allen, is ‘the only oracle of man,’ and Thomas Jefferson advised us to ‘fix reason firmly in her seat and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God.’ That is the meaning of independence: trust in your own judgment, in reason; do not sacrifice your mind to the state, the church, the race, the nation, or your neighbors.
“Independence is the foundation of America. Independence is what should be celebrated on Independence Day. That is the legacy our Founding Fathers left us.”
Americans are more and more ignoring and moving away from the glorious principle of which Mr. Berliner speaks, “the independence of the human mind.” This is what gives Independence Day a bittersweet quality for me. Our freedom erodes steadily as its only real guardian, intellectual independence, gradually gives way to a growing entitlement mindset. Just surrender one more bit of our individual self-determination and personal responsibility in exchange for the free lunch of the illusion of government-guaranteed security, and our “national” problems can be solved…in healthcare, in education, in finance, in housing, in energy.
As a result, America is moving towards a time when the government acts by right, but the people act by permission. Or, as America’s Philosopher, Ayn Rand, puts it:
“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.”
But our drift toward statism is not inevitable. There is no such thing as historical determinism. Ideas move human history. The ideas that created America still exist, waiting to be rediscovered. That rediscovery is beginning to emerge. This time, however, those ideas come armed with a full philosophical and moral defense and justification. That armament is Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand.
So the bittersweet feeling that, for me, accompanies Independence Day should not be mistaken for pessimism or cynicism. If I thought that the fight to save America long term was futile, I would not have started this blog, or speak up at every opportunity for my beliefs in conversation, online forums, or any other medium open to me. And I am not alone, as the two linked articles in this piece show.
So I will continue to do my part as a patriotic American citizen by exercising “the independence of the human mind”…my own. This has and will continue to include the radical, but quintessentially American, Jeffersonian urging to “Question with boldness… every fact, every opinion.” I will continue at the task of "Changing the Wind.”
Have a great and happy Independence Day.
Labels: Holidays
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
On the Upcoming July 4 "Tea Parties"
A Note to My Valued Visitors
During the month of July, I will be on “vacation”, sort of. Family will be visiting from out of state…namely, my 4 grandchildren with their mother (my daughter), while their father pursues his doctorate elsewhere.
So, together with my wife and my other 2 NJ grandchildren and their parents, I will be quite busy. So, my posting here may be light. I’ll be back in earnest come August.
In the meantime, I’ll fill the gaps by re-publishing some of my favorite posts that are still relevant today.
Have a great summer!
Mike Zemack
Don Watkins of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights has published a flier intended for the upcoming Independence Day round of Tea Parties. Mr. Watkins writes over at Voices for Reason:
"Here is a flyer I wrote for the upcoming Independence Day Tea Parties. Many of those attending today’s Tea Parties are fed up with the assault on freedom they read about in each morning’s paper–but they have no positive alternative to offer. If the Tea Parties are to have a lasting impact it will be because they go from being a grassroots outpouring of frustration to a movement that stands for limited government, individualism, and individual rights. This, I argue, is the value of Atlas Shrugged to Tea Party attendees: it provides a powerful and revolutionary defense of those ideals."
Here is the flier written by Mr. Watkins. A downloadable version is available from the Tea Party page of ARC:
* * *
“I refuse to apologize for my ability–I refuse to apologize for my success–I refuse to apologize for my money.”
The U.S. economy is in shambles, with every nightly newscast bringing word of new government interventions. Americans are alarmed and desperate for answers: How did we get here? How will we recover? That might sound like a description of today’s world, but in fact it’s also a sketch of the world Ayn Rand created in her classic novel Atlas Shrugged.
The Tea Parties testify to the outrage that many Americans feel toward Washington’s explosive growth in the past few decades–especially under Presidents Bush and Obama. Atlas Shrugged not only gives voice to this outrage, it provides both a profound explanation of the cause of today’s crisis–and a positive, radical solution to it.
Why is it that every problem seems to call for increased government intervention at the expense of freedom? Why is it that businessmen inevitably take the blame for any crisis? Why are the most competent, most successful Americans smeared as greedy and selfish? To these questions and many others, Atlas Shrugged gives answers unlike anything you’ve ever heard.
“Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns–or dollars. Take your choice–there is no other–and your time is running out.”
* * *
“If we who were the movers, the providers, the benefactors of mankind, were willing to let the brand of evil be stamped upon us, and silently to bear punishment for our virtues–what sort of ‘good’ did we expect to triumph in the world?”
* * *
“Yes, this is an age of moral crisis. Yes, you are bearing punishment for your evil. But it is not man who is now on trial and it is not human nature that will take the blame. It is your moral code that’s through, this time. Your moral code has reached its climax, the blind alley at the end of its course. And if you wish to go on living, what you now need is not to return to morality . . . but to discover it.”
Learn the meaning of these quotes—and the revolutionary ideas behind them—by picking up Atlas Shrugged. Discover why Ayn Rand held that nothing less than a total separation between state and economics can save this country. Discover Ayn Rand’s defense of the individual’s moral right to pursue his own happiness–the indispensable precondition of his political right to pursue his own happiness. Discover a gripping novel that challenges today’s intellectual mainstream and provides an alternative to the anti-freedom ideas that are undermining American liberty.
Discover Atlas Shrugged.
I should add that the "Tea Party" phenomenon is beginning to fray. I have evidence that the never-clearly-focused movement is being infiltrated by people and groups who are either ignorant of, or hostile to, the principle of individual rights. This is why it is not a good idea to unequivacally endorse any "tea party" without knowing the motives of the organizers, because you may end up promoting bad ideas.
Therefor, I urge you to read the opening statement on the web page ARC and the Tea Parties
Friday, June 26, 2009
Universal Healthcare and the "Nanny State on Steroids"
In a January Op-Ed in the Christian Science Monitor, Dr. Paul Hsieh, co-founder of FIRM, warned that government control of medicine would inevitably lead to further and further loss of freedom. He wrote:
Imagine a country where the government regularly checks the waistlines of citizens over age 40. Anyone deemed too fat would be required to undergo diet counseling. Those who fail to lose sufficient weight could face further "reeducation" and their communities subject to stiff fines.
Is this some nightmarish dystopia?
No, this is contemporary Japan.
The Japanese government argues that it must regulate citizens' lifestyles because it is paying their health costs. This highlights one of the greatly underappreciated dangers of "universal healthcare." Any government that attempts to guarantee healthcare must also control its costs. The inevitable next step will be to seek to control citizens' health and their behavior. Hence, Americans should beware that if we adopt universal healthcare, we also risk creating a "nanny state on steroids" antithetical to core American principles. (Emphasis added.)
The key point here is that whoever pays sets the terms. Ask the companies that received the government’s TARP bailout money and now find President Obama firing CEOs and dictating salaries, among other types of meddling. Ask any teenager living under his parents’ roof. When you hand over your money to government, in exchange for the “security” of “knowing” that you will get your “free” appendectomy or cholesterol pill, you hand over your rights to life and liberty.
It didn’t take long for Dr. Hsieh to be proved right. In a Politico article entitled Barack Obama Says Shape Up Now, Carrie Budoff Brown writes:
Obama and Congress are moving across several fronts to give government a central role in making America healthier — raising expectations among public health experts of a new era of activism unlike any before.
Any health care reform plan that Obama signs is almost certain to call for nutrition counseling, obesity screenings and wellness programs at workplaces and community centers. He wants more time in the school day for physical fitness, more nutritious school lunches and more bike paths, walking paths and grocery stores in underserved areas.
The president is filling top posts at Health and Human Services with officials who, in their previous jobs, outlawed trans fats, banned public smoking or required restaurants to provide a calorie count with that slice of banana cream pie.
Even Congress is getting into the act, giving serious consideration to taxing sugary drinks and alcohol to help pay for the overhaul.
Bike and walking paths? As you can see, the government’s controls will extend well beyond any narrow interpretation of what effects one’s health. The list of things that can be construed as negative to your health, and thus represent a cost to the government, is limited only by the imagination. On the flip side, what if you don’t use the brand new bike and walking paths that the government paid for to keep you healthy? If you don’t walk, you can get flabby, and the obesity screener will report this as a potential cost to “the system”. Will you be forced to use the paths, under threat of losing your “universal” coverage, which you paid for through your taxes?
In a free market…i.e., a free country…you are responsible for your own cost of healthcare. If you don’t take care of yourself and end up with preventable health problems, it is not a threat to anyone else’s pocket book. But in a socialized system, where everyone is forced to pay for everyone else’s healthcare, everyone becomes everyone else’s business. And the government, as representative of “the public”, can and will protect “the taxpayers” by regulating lifestyles. Ms. Brown:
The public health community has worked intensively in recent years to build a body of evidence in support of the very initiatives Obama and lawmakers are now embracing. They frame the issue as one of money: Chronic diseases account for 75 percent of the nation’s $2 trillion in medical costs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Emphasis added.)
Money is noble and good, when in the hands of the people who earned it. It represents your productive efforts, which can be used to purchase the things that enrich your life but that are produced by others…i.e., money is a tool of exchange among producers. But when money is increasingly controlled by those who didn’t earn it, control of the lives of those whose work did produce it is also shifted to those who didn’t earn it. Money then becomes not an instrument of freedom and independence, but a tool of dependence, slavery and tyranny.
Dr. Hsieh concludes:
Nanny state regulations and universal healthcare…feed a vicious cycle of increasing government control over individuals. Both undermine individual responsibility and habituate citizens to ever-worsening erosions of their individual rights. Both promote dependence on government. Both undermine the virtues of independence and rationality. Both jeopardize the very foundations of a free society.
The American Founding Fathers who fought and died for our freedoms would be appalled to know their descendants were allowing the government to dictate what they could eat and drink. The Founders correctly understood that the proper role of government is to protect individual rights and otherwise leave men free to live – not tell us how many eggs we should eat.
If we still value our freedoms, we must reject both the nanny state and universal healthcare.
Imagine a country where the government regularly checks the waistlines of citizens over age 40. Anyone deemed too fat would be required to undergo diet counseling. Those who fail to lose sufficient weight could face further "reeducation" and their communities subject to stiff fines.
Is this some nightmarish dystopia?
No, this is contemporary Japan.
The Japanese government argues that it must regulate citizens' lifestyles because it is paying their health costs. This highlights one of the greatly underappreciated dangers of "universal healthcare." Any government that attempts to guarantee healthcare must also control its costs. The inevitable next step will be to seek to control citizens' health and their behavior. Hence, Americans should beware that if we adopt universal healthcare, we also risk creating a "nanny state on steroids" antithetical to core American principles. (Emphasis added.)
The key point here is that whoever pays sets the terms. Ask the companies that received the government’s TARP bailout money and now find President Obama firing CEOs and dictating salaries, among other types of meddling. Ask any teenager living under his parents’ roof. When you hand over your money to government, in exchange for the “security” of “knowing” that you will get your “free” appendectomy or cholesterol pill, you hand over your rights to life and liberty.
It didn’t take long for Dr. Hsieh to be proved right. In a Politico article entitled Barack Obama Says Shape Up Now, Carrie Budoff Brown writes:
Obama and Congress are moving across several fronts to give government a central role in making America healthier — raising expectations among public health experts of a new era of activism unlike any before.
Any health care reform plan that Obama signs is almost certain to call for nutrition counseling, obesity screenings and wellness programs at workplaces and community centers. He wants more time in the school day for physical fitness, more nutritious school lunches and more bike paths, walking paths and grocery stores in underserved areas.
The president is filling top posts at Health and Human Services with officials who, in their previous jobs, outlawed trans fats, banned public smoking or required restaurants to provide a calorie count with that slice of banana cream pie.
Even Congress is getting into the act, giving serious consideration to taxing sugary drinks and alcohol to help pay for the overhaul.
Bike and walking paths? As you can see, the government’s controls will extend well beyond any narrow interpretation of what effects one’s health. The list of things that can be construed as negative to your health, and thus represent a cost to the government, is limited only by the imagination. On the flip side, what if you don’t use the brand new bike and walking paths that the government paid for to keep you healthy? If you don’t walk, you can get flabby, and the obesity screener will report this as a potential cost to “the system”. Will you be forced to use the paths, under threat of losing your “universal” coverage, which you paid for through your taxes?
In a free market…i.e., a free country…you are responsible for your own cost of healthcare. If you don’t take care of yourself and end up with preventable health problems, it is not a threat to anyone else’s pocket book. But in a socialized system, where everyone is forced to pay for everyone else’s healthcare, everyone becomes everyone else’s business. And the government, as representative of “the public”, can and will protect “the taxpayers” by regulating lifestyles. Ms. Brown:
The public health community has worked intensively in recent years to build a body of evidence in support of the very initiatives Obama and lawmakers are now embracing. They frame the issue as one of money: Chronic diseases account for 75 percent of the nation’s $2 trillion in medical costs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Emphasis added.)
Money is noble and good, when in the hands of the people who earned it. It represents your productive efforts, which can be used to purchase the things that enrich your life but that are produced by others…i.e., money is a tool of exchange among producers. But when money is increasingly controlled by those who didn’t earn it, control of the lives of those whose work did produce it is also shifted to those who didn’t earn it. Money then becomes not an instrument of freedom and independence, but a tool of dependence, slavery and tyranny.
Dr. Hsieh concludes:
Nanny state regulations and universal healthcare…feed a vicious cycle of increasing government control over individuals. Both undermine individual responsibility and habituate citizens to ever-worsening erosions of their individual rights. Both promote dependence on government. Both undermine the virtues of independence and rationality. Both jeopardize the very foundations of a free society.
The American Founding Fathers who fought and died for our freedoms would be appalled to know their descendants were allowing the government to dictate what they could eat and drink. The Founders correctly understood that the proper role of government is to protect individual rights and otherwise leave men free to live – not tell us how many eggs we should eat.
If we still value our freedoms, we must reject both the nanny state and universal healthcare.
Labels: Healthcare, Individual Rights
Sunday, June 21, 2009
"Patch and Fill Health Care Reform" and Postmodern Denial
Why Patch and Fill Health Care Reform Won't Work, by Marie Cocco
Marie Cocco, an advocate of single payer medicine, indicates in this piece that the Obamacare healthcare agenda is beginning to crumble. There are other instances of anecdotal evidence as well. (click here and here, and here.) She writes:
I'm not so optimistic, though. While the drive toward total government control may be slowing, any reform that adds even a smidgen of government interference keeps the trend in place. In my commentary, I show where Ms. Cocco is wrong to lament "patch and fill".
More interestingly, and more importantly, the mindset behind the pro single-payer crowd is on desplay here, both in Ms. Cocco's piece and in the comments of hsteach, who writes:
The rule of unreality and unreason is what makes our battle against the collective mentality so daunting. This guy (or gal) hsteach not only wants to ban words, but he wants his son's health in the hands of unknown central planners because, in so many of his own words, he's too dumb to make his own healthcare decisions!
Here is My Commentary
Marie Cocco, an advocate of single payer medicine, indicates in this piece that the Obamacare healthcare agenda is beginning to crumble. There are other instances of anecdotal evidence as well. (click here and here, and here.) She writes:
Lawmakers of every political leaning are putting forward their own ideas, none of them as tough-minded or comprehensive as a single administration-initiated proposal might have been.
The result is a raft of proposals that are patch-and-fill jobs on the current system - a system that pretty much everyone believes is crumbling to the point of collapse.
Advocates of a single, national insurance system that would involve explicit cost controls and guidelines for care - that might put an end to such wasteful practices as over-testing - have been shunted aside. This is in part because Democrats quiver when Republicans call them "socialists."
But Republicans cry "socialist" even when Democrats promote weak reforms that barely nick the vested interests. That's what's happening now.
No one has seriously proposed an overhaul that would achieve what a single-payer system has been shown to accomplish in most other countries:
universal coverage with lower costs that delivers better results than we now get in the United States.
Instead, Democrats have all but abandoned the idea that everyone be covered without exception. They've so far avoided endorsing clear cost-containment measures that would pass the budget-scorers' test of legitimacy. The wished-for savings that Obama says he wants the private insurance industry to achieve are exactly that - wishes.
The winners so far are health-industry lobbyists. They sense that their chances of protecting the interests of big insurers, drug companies, medical specialties, technology companies and the like are improving every day. They're probably right.
I'm not so optimistic, though. While the drive toward total government control may be slowing, any reform that adds even a smidgen of government interference keeps the trend in place. In my commentary, I show where Ms. Cocco is wrong to lament "patch and fill".
More interestingly, and more importantly, the mindset behind the pro single-payer crowd is on desplay here, both in Ms. Cocco's piece and in the comments of hsteach, who writes:
I don't think the free market works for health care because there is a moral component that market-based systems aren't equipped to handle. I can't be trusted to be a responsible consumer of health care where my son is concerned. I am not going to shop around for the best price for a procedure he needs, and therefore there is no competition that should control prices. The doctor that treats my son is, in a sense, working with a captive audience. The other reason I can't be trusted is my lack of knowledge. I can't do the research and understand the studies about the best treatment for a medical issue the way I can consult conumer reports when I am buying a T.V.
His medical care is not something I am willing to shop. I want the best for my son, even if I can't afford it.
We would also be well served by banning the use of the world Socialist. Labelling an idea socialist is convenient shorthand for a "bad" idea. An idea is good or bad inddpendent from labels.
The rule of unreality and unreason is what makes our battle against the collective mentality so daunting. This guy (or gal) hsteach not only wants to ban words, but he wants his son's health in the hands of unknown central planners because, in so many of his own words, he's too dumb to make his own healthcare decisions!
Here is My Commentary
by Mike Zemack on June 20th, 6:03 pm
No discussion of "reform" is honest without a thorough examination of history. The problems in American healthcare have grown in lock step with the growth of government intervention, and represent a failure, not of freedom, but of statism. The problems began in the 1930s and 40s with the insertion of tax distortions into the fledgling health insurance industry, and the creation of the third-party-payer system. The interventions grew over the decades until we arrived at the current semi-socialized, semi-free concoction. The "patch and fill" method has worked quite well at advancing us toward total government control. More patch and fill will continue that trend. So I don"t really understand Ms. Cocco"s angst. Patch and fill has served the purpose of camouflaging the long-term goal of the Left, by keeping the steps toward tyranny small and the process imperceptible to a Progressive-educated population. This fraud has served them well.
This was necessary, of course, because to advocate socialism openly and honestly is and always has been a loser in America. After the tyranny, wars, and unprecedented mass murder wrought by the socialist regimes of Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, Red China, and the many smaller variants of the 20th century, socialism is dead as an intellectual force. That is why Obama and the American Left run from the socialist label as from the plague, despite the obvious socialist (albeit through the fascist back door) underpinnings of their agenda. How, then, to pursue a socialist agenda in America?
Enter Postmodernism, the denial of reality and reason. Just don't call socialized medicine "socialism", and it won't be socialism. Better yet, let's just repeal the First Amendment, and ban the word "socialism" as one correspondent incredibly suggests. While we're at it, we might as well ban the words "unalienable individual rights" and "liberty" as well. But words have meanings that describe reality. Words don't create reality. Reality isn"t altered or cease to exist by banning words. In any war between human whims and reality, reality will always win.
So playing the game of Postmodern Pretend doesn't change these facts. When government pays, government sets the terms. When we hand over our money to a central planning government bureaucracy, we forfeit our freedom, as individuals, to make our own decisions on healthcare and anything the state deems to effect our health. It"s a lose-lose proposition, except for the political powerlusters and (for a time) their parasitic constituents who seek an eternal something-for-nothing or an escape from judgement and personal responsibility. State bureaucrats backed by government's unique monopoly on physical force will determine who gets what treatment and when, as well as our diets and exercise regimen. Doctors will be forced into enslavement to one monopolistic employer (communism, essentially, or is that word banned too?), forbidden to act upon their own judgement. "Cost containment" and "comparative effectiveness" edicts will replace the needs of the patient. Control of medical progress shifts from the market (the voluntary choices of free individuals) to the central planners, effectively ending innovation. The long-term investments in time and money won't be made by entrepreneurs whose work and investment can be cancelled on the whim of whatever "cost-containment" fantasy happens to pop into the brain of the bureaucrat of the moment.
Government bureaucrats deemed incompetent and forbidden to make their own healthcare decisions will control every aspect of the nearly 20 % of the US economy that is the healthcare industry. The best minds will slowly leave the field, or refuse to enter it to begin with. The most talented people don't submit to the edicts of mental midgets. Medicare's $38 trillion "unfunded liability" will be dwarfed under "universal healthcare" despite "cost containment", bankrupting the country. Totalitarian socialism in medicine will have arrived, whether one calls it that or not.
Ms. Cocco would have us believe that this nightmare scenario of medical tyranny is preferable to a free market, the system of individual rights that leaves providers, consumers, insurers, and patients free to contract and trade voluntarily with each other, each to his own advantage. She would have us believe that the people we depend upon to provide us with the healthcare products we need are the villains because they are defending their rights and their livelihoods, and the politicians who produce nothing are the heroes because they would loot and enslave them. She would have us believe that "slavery is freedom".
Give me a free market capitalist economy full of "insurers, drug companies, medical specialties, technology companies and the like" competing to sell me their life-giving products, and the freedom to make my own choices based upon my own self-interest. Give me the freedom to exercise my unalienable individual rights to my life and liberty. Give me a government that protects those rights. Give me a moral social system that protects me and the doctors I depend on from predators who think their need and ignorance is a license to loot and enslave. Give me America - if that word hasn't yet been banned - not Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, or England's NHS.
Labels: Healthcare, Philosophy
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
A Positive Sign for the GOP
In the face of the statist Obama onslaught, there is a seemingly unending drumbeat of disheartening Republican me-too-ism. Senator Judd Gregg, for example, proposed a healthcare overhaul plan that amounts to socialism light.
“To be effective, health care reform must include insurance coverage for everyone…
“CPR—Coverage, Prevention, Reform—is a plan I have proposed that sets up a system where every American will be required to purchase meaningful health insurance to ensure each family will be protected against bankruptcy if a family member becomes seriously ill or injured. No family should lose their home or life-savings because of illness or injury. For those who may not be able to afford this plan, you will have assistance getting coverage.”
Gregg and most of the current Republican leadership shares with the democrats the basic premise that it is government’s job to guarantee healthcare to every American. Once that collectivist/statist premise is accepted, government-run healthcare--with all of the devastating consequences that that implies—is only a matter of time. Gregg’s plan, and others like it such as Mitt Romney's, amounts to an admission (in voters’ minds) that the democrats are right and the GOP is irrelevant or hippocritical.
As the momentous debate that will determine the future of 20% of the U.S. economy and a healthy piece of our freedom heats up, the opposition Republicans quibble that “we are moving too fast” or that “we haven’t figured out how to pay for it”, etc. Newt Gingrich tells Sean Hannity that a more “centrist” approach is needed.
In other words, there is no principled opposition; which means, no opposition at all.
Against this backdrop comes a refreshing dose of good news…and fresh air.
With the GOP floundering and searching for new ideas, some republicans may be waking up to the fact that fundamental change – real fundamental change -- is needed.
Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, delivered the keynote address to the 2009 Virginia Republican convention. Mr. Brook gave a rousing presentation advocating a radical new direction for the Republican Party; a direction based upon an uncompromising stand for individual rights. Mr. Brook pulled no punches, declaring that the primary guilt for the statist trend of the past century lies not with the openly socialist democrats, but with the allegedly pro-capitalist republicans. He gave the reasons why, and laid out the path the GOP must take; a vision for the future based upon America’s founding principles.
What is so encouraging about this event is the fact that his speech was the keynote of the convention. This is an indication that at least some in the GOP understand what is at stake for America and that America desperately needs a voice for true Americanism. But beyond that, the speech was enthusiastically received. Mr. Brook was repeatedly interrupted by applause, and his address ended with a standing ovation.
Yes, this is just one small GOP gathering in just one state. But the emergence of an effective republican counter-force to Obama statism has to build from the ground up. The party’s top tier is worse than useless, offering no essential alternative and thus paving the way for the more consistent democrats.
As I have been arguing, the Republican Party must become “the party of the individual". This address to a Republican state convention by the head of the premier Washington, D.C. voice for the ideas of Ayn Rand is potentially a very good long-term sign. Virginia’s off-year gubernatorial race between Democrat Creigh Deeds and Republican Bob McConnell bears watching.
“To be effective, health care reform must include insurance coverage for everyone…
“CPR—Coverage, Prevention, Reform—is a plan I have proposed that sets up a system where every American will be required to purchase meaningful health insurance to ensure each family will be protected against bankruptcy if a family member becomes seriously ill or injured. No family should lose their home or life-savings because of illness or injury. For those who may not be able to afford this plan, you will have assistance getting coverage.”
Gregg and most of the current Republican leadership shares with the democrats the basic premise that it is government’s job to guarantee healthcare to every American. Once that collectivist/statist premise is accepted, government-run healthcare--with all of the devastating consequences that that implies—is only a matter of time. Gregg’s plan, and others like it such as Mitt Romney's, amounts to an admission (in voters’ minds) that the democrats are right and the GOP is irrelevant or hippocritical.
As the momentous debate that will determine the future of 20% of the U.S. economy and a healthy piece of our freedom heats up, the opposition Republicans quibble that “we are moving too fast” or that “we haven’t figured out how to pay for it”, etc. Newt Gingrich tells Sean Hannity that a more “centrist” approach is needed.
In other words, there is no principled opposition; which means, no opposition at all.
Against this backdrop comes a refreshing dose of good news…and fresh air.
With the GOP floundering and searching for new ideas, some republicans may be waking up to the fact that fundamental change – real fundamental change -- is needed.
Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, delivered the keynote address to the 2009 Virginia Republican convention. Mr. Brook gave a rousing presentation advocating a radical new direction for the Republican Party; a direction based upon an uncompromising stand for individual rights. Mr. Brook pulled no punches, declaring that the primary guilt for the statist trend of the past century lies not with the openly socialist democrats, but with the allegedly pro-capitalist republicans. He gave the reasons why, and laid out the path the GOP must take; a vision for the future based upon America’s founding principles.
What is so encouraging about this event is the fact that his speech was the keynote of the convention. This is an indication that at least some in the GOP understand what is at stake for America and that America desperately needs a voice for true Americanism. But beyond that, the speech was enthusiastically received. Mr. Brook was repeatedly interrupted by applause, and his address ended with a standing ovation.
Yes, this is just one small GOP gathering in just one state. But the emergence of an effective republican counter-force to Obama statism has to build from the ground up. The party’s top tier is worse than useless, offering no essential alternative and thus paving the way for the more consistent democrats.
As I have been arguing, the Republican Party must become “the party of the individual". This address to a Republican state convention by the head of the premier Washington, D.C. voice for the ideas of Ayn Rand is potentially a very good long-term sign. Virginia’s off-year gubernatorial race between Democrat Creigh Deeds and Republican Bob McConnell bears watching.
Labels: Individual Rights, Philosophy, Politics
