The Battle over Christopher Columbus

Was Christopher Columbus a hero or a villain? That is the question at the heart of a cultural debate now raging. It is a debate that is, I believe, crucially important because it cuts to the heart of our national identity. A pair of op-eds highlight the basics of the issue. On the pro-Columbus side is Thomas A. Bowden of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He writes:

“We’ve been taught that Columbus opened the way for rapacious European settlers to unleash a stream of horrors on a virgin continent: slavery, racism, warfare, epidemic, and the cruel oppression of Indians.

“This modern view of Columbus represents an unjust attack upon both our country and the civilization that made it possible. Western civilization did not originate slavery, racism, warfare, or disease--but with America as its exemplar, that civilization created the antidotes.

“Throughout history, prior to the birth of Western civilization in ancient Greece, the world seemed impervious to human understanding. People believed that animistic spirits or capricious deities had supernatural powers to cure diseases, grow crops, and guide the hunter’s arrow toward his prey.

“This pervasive mysticism had practical consequences: festering disease, perpetual poverty, and a desperate quest for survival that made offensive warfare against human beings seem as natural as hunting animals. Such was the plight of America’s Indians before 1492--and such was Europe’s own plight, once the civilizations of Greece and Rome had given way to the mysticism of Christianity and the barbarian tribes.

“It was Western philosophers, scientists, statesmen, and businessmen who liberated mankind from mysticism’s grip. Once scientists revealed a world of natural laws open to human understanding, medical research soon penetrated the mysteries of disease and epidemic

“On a much wider scale, the Industrial Revolution employed science, technology, and engineering to create material goods in profusion, so that even people of average ability could become affluent by historical standards.

“Western civilization’s stress on the value of reason led inexorably to its distinctive individualism. Western thinkers were first to declare that every individual, no matter what his skin color or ancestry, is fully human, possessed of reason and free will--a being of self-made character who deserves to be judged accordingly, not as a member of a racial or tribal collective. And thanks to John Locke and the Founding Fathers, individuals were recognized as possessing individual rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness--rights that made slavery indefensible and led to its eradication, at the cost of a civil war.

“These are the facts we are no longer taught--and the measure of that educational failure is the disdain with which Columbus’s holiday is regarded in the country that owes its existence to his courage. It is time to take back Columbus Day, as an occasion to publicly rejoice, not in the bloodshed that occurred before Columbus’s arrival and after, but in our commitment to the life-serving values of Western civilization: reason and individualism. We do so by honoring the great explorer who opened the way for that civilization to flourish in the New World.”

Giles Howard takes Mr. Bowden to task in his op-ed at The Pitt News entitled, Conservatives, libertarians better off leaving Columbus controversy alone:

“But Bowden’s identification of Columbus as a representative of Western civilization who brought reason and individualism to the Western Hemisphere ignores the historical record.

“Far from Bowden’s construction of Columbus as a Promethean figure who brought liberty and reason to the Americas, contemporary records and Columbus’s own writings depict him as a savage governor, representative of two anti-liberal pillars in Western history: fanatical Catholicism and the government of Ferdinand and Isabella.

“It’s easy to put a positive spin on the grand impact of Columbus’s actions because, after all, none of us would be here today and the United States would not exist if it weren’t for Columbus’s ‘discovery’ of the Western Hemisphere in 1492. That being said, it’s much more difficult to defend Columbus as a man rather than a historical idea because his personal conduct reveals a profound barbarism.

“Indeed, Columbus’s rule was considered so savage during his own time that Ferdinand and Isabella had him arrested, brought back to Spain and imprisoned. Whatever his supposed role in the expansion of Western civilization, Columbus was understood during his own time as a barbaric tyrant and his actions, as recorded by his contemporaries, reveal him as a savage man who instigated countless atrocities in the new world.

“It is fascinating that support for Columbus has emerged nationally from an [O]bjectivist think-tank that’s … adopted their hemisphere’s first slave-trader as a symbol of Western civilization’s ‘reason and individualism.’

“[Instead of] picking a fight with the historians who did so much to discredit Columbus and the indigenous movements that continue to identify Columbus Day as an inappropriate celebration of genocide … The Ayn Rand Center should leave such battles to the religious Right that Ayn Rand herself so disdained and continue to do good work in the service of individual liberty…”

So who’s right? In fact, both are, factually. The real battle is analytical. The resolution of this issue comes down to essentials. In a previous op-ed, Mr. Bowden writes:

“We need not evade or excuse Columbus’s flaws--his religious zealotry, his enslavement and oppression of natives--to recognize that he made history by finding new territory for a civilization that would soon show mankind how to overcome the age-old scourges of slavery, war, and forced religious conversion.

“Thus, the deeper meaning of Columbus Day is to celebrate the rational core of Western civilization, which flourished in the New World like a pot-bound plant liberated from its confining shell, demonstrating to the world what greatness is possible to man at his best.”

The emergence of Western Civilization that Columbus unleashed was a revolutionary new direction for man in his painstaking rise from the cave. All of the negatives cited by Mr. Howard were commonplace during Columbus’ era, and not unique to him. This is the context that must never be forgotten. The essential truth about Christopher Columbus is his achievements and the historical chain of events that they made possible. This is what should be stressed.

In a letter of rebuttal to Mr. Howard, Amesh A. Adalja, MD puts it succinctly:

"Judging Columbus by the standard of today, given the context of the world he lived in, is invalid. If Howard wants to judge Columbus as begetting barbarism, he must apply the same judgment on the natives. For, in comparison to the New World, 15th-century Europeans were ages more civilized than the savage tribes residing in the Americas.

"The world owes Columbus its eternal gratitude for discovering, and paving the way for the civilization of, the New World. The Ayn Rand Institute should be lauded for not cowering in the face of the multiculturalism-worshiping establishment and recognizing the heroism of Columbus."

Human history progresses along a logical, hierarchical path. This is by no means always easily recognized or apparent. Fundamentally, it is ideas … i.e., philosophy … that motivate human beings and ultimately chart mankind’s course. The ideas of reason, science, and individualism that gave rise to Western Civilization and the United States of America… and that Columbus exemplified and advanced to the New World … is the primary historically significant fact. His atrocities are insignificant by comparison to the tremendous human good that Christopher Columbus’ vital role played in bringing it about.

Count me on the side of Christopher Columbus in this battle. Respect for Columbus and his achievements have been eroding for some time. Thomas A. Bowden has done a tremendous service to America by pushing back against the nay-sayers and helping to revive this lost respect. Context is crucial when analyzing history, and Mr. Bowden provides it. Mr. Howard, the “indigenous movements”, and the “historians who did so much to discredit Columbus” have it wrong; not factually but contextually and, consequently, as a matter of justice.

Note: Thomas A. Bowden is the author of The Enemies of Christopher Columbus and the lecture Columbus Day Without Guilt

Obama's Nobel Peace Europeanization Prize

As a follow-up to my post of 10/9/09 On President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, I want to bring attention to the perspective of Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, an Israeli expert on US policy in the Middle East, among other things. Here are some excerpts from his piece, Obama’s Nobel Prize: A blatant attempt to Europeanize US policy:

According to Alfred Nobel's will – and in contrast with other Nobel Prize committees – the members of the Nobel Prize for Peace committee are not experts, but politicians, members of the Norwegian Parliament.

Awarding Obama the Nobel Peace Prize – in spite of the fact that the deadline for nominations was February 1, 10 days into Obama's Administration – constitutes a transparent attempt by European politicians to bolster Obama's determination in the global arena and improve Obama's standing in the domestic arena.

They are encouraging him to sustain his efforts to endear the UN to the American people and legislators and to highlight the UN as the key formulator of international relations. They identify with – and are eager to advance – Obama's world view, as they assess it: that the superpower role of the US is over; that moral equivalence – and not moral superiority – dominates relations between the US and non Western democracies; that the West must reconcile itself to the rise of the Moslem World; that the US must desist from unilateral political and military initiatives; that the US should advance multilateral initiatives which reflect values and attitudes shared by the majority of the UN membership; that there is no military option against Iran; that the battle against Islamic terrorism must be conducted diplomatically, economically and legally and not militarily; that there should not be a surge in Afghanistan; that retreat from Iraq should be accelerated; that the Palestinian issue is the core cause of Middle East turbulence and anti-Western Islamic terrorism, etc.

Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama does not reflect respect, by the Nobel Price Committee, for the American President. It does not intend to express appreciation of the American legacy and American human and mega-billion dollar monetary sacrifice, which spared Europe defeat during World War I and World War II, produced victory over Communism and minimized Islamic terrorism in Europe. The Nobel Peace Prize Committee strives to improve Obama's image among Americans and to leverage his presidency, in order to Europeanize US policy, thus accomplishing the "wet dream" of US critics, rivals and enemies. Reservations expressed by most of the US public, legislators and media suggests that the Norwegian politicians may relive the Biblical episode of Balaam in reverse: They came to bless, but ended up cursing.

The subject of my 10/9/09 post, the hypothesis that "...the premature awarding of the Prize to Obama is an attempt to blunt the coming renewed recognition of Reagan’s indisputable achievement with the arrival next month of the 20th anniversary of the
crumbling of the Berlin Wall – the symbol of the collapse of totalitarian communism.", is consistent with Mr. Ettinger's theses. A "Europeanized" America could never have prevailed in the Cold War.

On President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize

To widespread surprise and even shock, from both the Left and the Right, President Barack Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. According to Yahoo News:

"The announcement drew gasps of surprise and cries of too much, too soon. Yet President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday because the judges found his promise of disarmament and diplomacy too good to ignore."

A promise of disarmament and diplomacy? You know that something is amiss when the Prize is awarded for absolutely no reason whatsoever! The entire Yahoo article is full of statements by prominent world leaders fumbling for a way to say essentially the same thing … nothing. All they accomplished was to fall all over themselves to show just how mesmerized they still are with our president.

Obama certainly joins some prestigious company – Jimmy Carter, Yasser Arafat, and Al Gore, for example. Of course, they at least can boast of some concrete “accomplishments”, if you want to call them that. But still, Obama fits right in with that crowd ideologically.

Yet, there is something that doesn’t make sense. Even for a so corrupt an institution as the Peace Prize sector of the Nobel establishment, this is really over the top. There is not even a pretense of any claim to any kind of actual justification, however shallow, to support this embarrassing decision. The Norwegian Nobel Committee’s gibberish about “an early vote of confidence intended to build global support for the policies of his young administration” and “the change in global mood wrought by Obama's calls for peace and cooperation” and “pledges to reduce the world stock of nuclear arms, ease U.S. conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthen its role in combating climate change” just doesn’t quite cut it, even for this sorry crowd.

What, then, could be the reason for this rush job? There is a critical anniversary coming up on November 9th of this year. This is the clue that makes it all logical.

Obama is an appeaser, a proven path to increased conflict. So was
Carter, who did nothing about Iran’s act of war against us (the 1979 hostage crisis). We’re still paying the price for that. Arafat was a murdering terrorist.
Gore is a global warming statist and profiteer. The Peace Prize is a
Left wing sham.

Though a mixed bag politically and philosophically, Ronald Reagan got
at least one big thing right. He recognized that the Soviet Communist
Empire was an economic and ideological house of cards propped up by
the West. Only a very small handful of others believed that, including
Ayn Rand, Richard Pipes, and Margaret Thatcher. Against almost universal opposition,
Reagan acted. He removed the moral sanction of our détente and
“peaceful coexistence” strategies by declaring the Soviets an Evil
Empire. Opposition dissidents behind the Iron Curtain were electrified
into action.

Then, as Margaret Thatcher recounted in her Reagan funeral eulogy;

“So the President resisted Soviet expansion and pressed down on Soviet
weakness at every point until the day came when communism began to
collapse beneath the combined weight of these pressures and its own
failures.”

With continued Western economic support and moral sanction, the Evil
Empire could have survived for another generation or more, possibly
with cataclysmic consequences. Instead, the ever-present threat of
nuclear war was removed, and a billion people were freed … virtually
without firing a shot.

It is my belief that the premature awarding of the Prize to Obama is an attempt to blunt the coming renewed recognition of Reagan’s indisputable
achievement with the arrival next month of the 20th anniversary of the
crumbling of the Berlin Wall – the symbol of the collapse of totalitarian communism. The Left has never forgiven Reagan for that. When the accolades begin, the Left will attempt to diminish Reagan’s stature with the reminder that “Yes, that was good. But our guy won the Nobel Piece Prize!”

I believe that this award at this time is an attempt to prop up Obama's stature in the face of the coming remembrances of President Ronald Reagan.

But whatever the reason, unless and until it is awarded (posthumously) to
Ronald Reagan (jointly, perhaps, with Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II), the Nobel Peace Prize will remain a sham and a moral abomination.

When Pragmatism Meets Ideology

“Abstract ideas are seen in today’s political world as meaningless curiosities. But bad abstract ideas cannot be allowed to fester and take root, because sooner or later they will be translated into action.”

I issued that warning on April 28, 2008, in Part 1 of my essay, Obama’s Collectivist Manifesto. In Part 3, I wrote:

“Senator Obama is a thoughtful, philosophical, and talented orator.

“[I]n this particular speech, [he] makes no concrete policy proposals. What he is doing is laying the groundwork for Statism. Statism holds that the will and power of the collective is embodied in and carried out by the state. The individual, being subordinate to the collective, is thus in practice subordinate to the state. In Obama’s universe, “We the People” in “America's improbable experiment in democracy” is the collective in whose name an Obama administration will carry out its welfare statist agenda.”

To the philosophically attuned mind, the ideological clarity of Obama’s rhetoric is all that is needed to decipher his policy direction. If one listens intently when Obama speaks, one realizes that he tells us, in abstract terms, all we need to know. That is his style. While people quibble over the details of his policy proposals, Obama forges ahead on the nearly deserted superhighway of ideas.

A good example of this is in the healthcare debate. Obama will entertain all competing ideas, as long as they point in the direction of his ultimate goal of socialized medicine. Bring up free market solutions, the only real alternative, and we are reminded in various ways of what I pointed out his message to us was on inauguration day - “that his agenda is not open to intellectual, philosophical, or moral challenge”:

"On this day", the new president told the nation, "we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics…the time has come to set aside childish things."

Obama media field commander E.J. Dionne makes clear just what those “childish things” and “worn out dogmas” pertain to – individualism and free markets. Time and time again, Obama came clean about what his “remaking of America” would look like. It is therefore shocking – yet, sadly, not surprising – to read Charles Gasparino’s 9/29/09 NY Post article titled Burned by Obama. He writes:

"In the depths of the financial crisis last year, people like Morgan Stanley's John Mack, BlackRock's Larry Fink, Greg Fleming (then of Merrill Lynch), JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein were telling everyone that candidate Barack Obama was a "moderate," and moderation was what this country needed.

"What a difference a year makes. They won't admit it in public -- but in private conversations, the top guys on Wall Street are feeling burned.

"The guy who seemed like such a steady voice -- vowing to curb runaway spending and restoring order to the banking system and the economy as a whole -- is instead so driven to achieve his big-government policy goals that he and his policy people are ignoring their own economic advisers on the severe economic costs that his agenda will cause."

“Let us be our brother’s keeper, let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well,” declared Barack Obama on March 18, 2008. There it is, in black and white. What do those words mean, if not “big-government policy goals”. But those are just words, abstract ideas, not to be confused with practical reality. He'll be sure to do what works, not what's consistent with his beliefs.

Well, practical reality is what those Wall Streeters thought they had in the “moderate” candidate Obama. They fondly remember another Democratic president:

“It's almost the opposite approach, the Wall Street crowd complains, from the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, whose main first-term achievement -- deficit reduction -- was crafted by his chief economic adviser, Robert Rubin.

Like Obama, Clinton and Rubin promised to raise taxes on the "rich," and they did. But Clinton didn't raise taxes to embark on a wild-eyed redistribution of wealth and massive programs.”

What these Wall Street bigs failed to see was that while Clinton was the quintessential pragmatist, Obama, primarily, is not. Forget the “race card”. Obama’s weapon is much more pernicious. He is a philosophically astute, ideologically driven collectivist, who plays the pragmatist card to great effectiveness.

“Obama, according to Wall Street people who regularly deal with his economic and budget officials, is acting as if he has a blank check to do what he wants, while ignoring the longterm costs of his policies.

“As one CEO of a major financial firm told me: 'The economic guys say that when they explain the costs of programs, the policy guys simply thank them for their time and then ignore what they say.'

“In other words, the economic people feel that they have almost no say in this administration's policy decisions.”

Obama doesn’t care about “the longterm costs of his policies”, or of the economy, in any primary way. He doesn't care about the uninsured, or about the runnaway cost of healthcare. He is an altruist-socialist ideologue, who sincerely believes he can make collectivism work in America, contrary to all of the historical, theoretical, humanitarian, and practical evidence piled up by a century's worth of socialist dictatorships. To paraphrase Ayn Rand: Obama's audacity is an offer of "some vague hope that somehow, my gang will do it better".

He has told us that repeatedly. Mr. Gasparino lays it out for the financial titans:

“Wall Street should have seen it coming. Obama was among the most liberal politicians in the country, despite his campaign rhetoric -- and his record in Illinois and the Senate showed it. He has spoken glowingly over the years of the need to redistribute wealth, a measure that always leads to taxes on small businesses, the economy's main economic engine.

“The execs who had such hopes for the president are now wondering fearfully just how radical he really is.”

What can so blind the leaders of some of America’s top financial firms to the obvious? Pragmatism, for one thing. These men simply could not fathom that abstract ideas can connect to reality. Obama garnered their electoral support by exploiting their pragmatic refusal to see the ideological evidence right before their eyes.

But there is a much deeper failure on their part … a failure that points to the reason for American capitalism’s slow destruction. Now that they know the real Obama, how are they fighting back against the man they believe “burned” them? In short, they're not. Instead, they cower in moral, silent fear and ignorance:

“It's almost comical watching the Street's top players squirm when they hear 'class warfare' rhetoric coming from the White House, and it forces them to act in ways they'd never imagined. In addition to recently giving phony speeches about the sins of large compensation packages that they had no problem taking just a few years ago, many Wall Street CEOs are so terrified of being outed as greedy capitalists that they no longer use the corporate credit cards to charge business lunches at their favorite New York restaurants.

“The funniest story I've heard lately came from a former Wall Street executive and longtime Democrat who anxiously recounted a recent conversation with Obama.

“The executive said he told the president that he's at a disadvantage because he's relatively inexperienced in economic matters during a time of economic crisis. ‘That's why I have Valerie’ [Jarrett, who has deep ties to the Windy City's Democratic political machine], came Obama's reply.

“Now you know why Wall Street is so nervous.”

But that’s not the whole “why”. The above is a dramatic example of Why Businessmen Need Philosophy. Philosopher Leonard Peikoff has some indespensible advice for American businessmen:

"The Declaration of Independence states that all men have an inalienable right to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' What does the 'pursuit of happiness' mean? Jefferson does not say that you have a duty to pursue your neighbor’s pleasure or the collective American well-being, let alone the aspirations of the Bosnians. He upholds a selfish principle: each man has the right to live for his own sake, his own personal interests, his own happiness. He does not say: run roughshod over others, or: violate their rights. But he does say: pursue your own goals independently, by your own work, and respect every other individual’s right to do the same for himself.

"In essence, America was conceived by egoists. The Founding Fathers envisioned a land of selfishness and profit-seeking—a nation of the self-made man, the individual, the ego, the 'I.' Today, however, we hear the opposite ideas everywhere...

"The [conventional belief is] the idea that self-sacrifice is the essence of virtue, is no fantasy. It is all around us. Nobody defends selfishness any more: not conservatives, not liberals; not religious people, not atheists; not Republicans, not Democrats.

“The best among you do not believe the altruist mumbo-jumbo. You have, however, long been disarmed by it. Because you are the victim of a crucial power, against which you are helpless. That power is philosophy.

“We are all trained by today’s colleges never to take a firm stand on any subject: to be pragmatists, ready to compromise with anyone on anything. Philosophy and morality, however, do not work by compromise. Just as a healthy body cannot compromise with poison, so too a good man cannot compromise with evil ideas. In such a set up, an evil philosophy, like poison, always wins. The good can win only by being consistent. If it is not, then the evil is given the means to win every time.”

Obama statism is the latest and one of the most virulent strains of the plague that has been increasingly infecting this country more or less steadily for decades. The main victims of the statist trend in America are the businessmen. But they are not only victims. The Wall Street businessmen and others like them are also one of the guiltiest groups for failing to speak out. They are philosophically ignorant and morally disarmed. As a result, they are dragging down with them any American who values his freedom, and in the process helping to smother the unique and revolutionary ideals that gave birth to this great country.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Despite the aura of political pragmatism that he tries to cultivate, Obama understands better than most the power of ideological consistency. But his ideas are merely the skeletal remains of 20th century collectivism. They can only win by default. In concluding his talk, Mr. Peikoff points the way to an effective counter-attack:

“I do not advise you to break any law, but I do advise you to fight an intellectual battle against big government, as many medical doctors did, with real success, against Clinton’s health plan. You may be surprised at how much a good philosophical fight will accomplish for your public image, and also for your pocketbook. For instance, an open public fight for a flat tax, for the end of the capital gains and estate taxes, and for the privatizing of welfare and the gradual phasing out of all government entitlements is urgent. More important than standing for these policies, however, is doing so righteously, not guiltily and timidly. If you understand the philosophic issues involved, you will have a chance to speak up in such a way that you can be heard.

“This kind of fight is not easy, but it can be fought and won. Years ago, a well-known political writer, Isabel Paterson, was talking to a businessman outraged by some government action. She urged him to speak up for his principles. “I agree with you totally,” he said, “but I’m not in a position right now to do it.” “The only position required,” she replied, “is vertical.” (Emphasis added.)

The Devilish Details of Healthcare Reform

In my post of 6/1/09, I described the disturbing nature of a “deal” between the Obama Administration and the representatives of the healthcare industry, in which the business groups “agreed” to offer up $2 trillion worth of “savings” (price cuts) over ten years. I wrote:

"It requires a monumental act of evasion to believe that there is anything “voluntary” about this agreement.

"There is a word for this. It is called extortion.

"[But a] certain amount of moral guilt must accrue to business leaders for not speaking out in opposition to Obama. After all, free speech is still legal in this country. But the pressure of their own government’s threats to “get on board or get run over” was just too much for a philosophically blind, pragmatic group of businessmen to overcome.

"So, in answer to the title question above, the answer is clear. What President Barack Obama hailed as "a watershed event" was coerced out of private industry by brute governmental threats. I doubt that most Americans understand the gravity and enormity of the shift away from the rule of law that has taken place over the past year under two administrations, which is now accelerating."

Two recent events have offered us a window into the scary workings and nature of a mixed economy government shorn of any guiding political principles. The first offers a lesson in making a deal with the devil, rather than taking a principled stand. The second illustrates the essentially tyrannical nature of our mixed economy welfare-regulatory state, and what happens when a private company steps on the toes of politicians wielding arbitrary power.

Paul Hsieh reports at FIRM (Knife In The Back) on a Wall Street Journal article entitled The Innovation Tax: How Max Baucus knifed the medical devices industry. Quoting from the article:

... Convinced by the White House that legislation was inevitable, most of the health-care lobbies decided to negotiate and pay ransoms so Democrats would spare their industries greater harm. Sure enough, the device maker lobby, AdvaMed, was among the "stakeholders" that joined with Mr. Obama in a Rose Garden ceremony in May and pledged to "save" $2 trillion over 10 years to fund his program.

But the word on Capitol Hill is that AdvaMed's tribute wasn't handsome enough for Mr. Baucus's tastes. The massive new tax [the $40 billion "fee" that Mr. Baucus wants to impose on medical devices and diagnostic equipment]—which wasn't a part of any of his policy blueprints released earlier this year—is in part retaliation.

Old Washington hands are saying the device lobby made a "strategic mistake" by not offering Mr. Baucus more protection money, but the real mistake was trying to buy into the ObamaCare process, instead of trying to defeat its worst ideas outright. (Hsieh’s emphasis).

The damage done by the industry’s attempt to curry favor with the administration goes well beyond the Baucus plan’s innovation-killing tax on their business success. By giving a much-needed boost to Obama’s plans for a government takeover of American medicine, they in effect stabbed the American people … including their own customers … in the back. Had they taken a principled moral stand in defense of their rights, Obamacare likely would be in even deeper trouble than it is now … if not dead.

But as I wrote back on 6/1/09, :

"One thing is certain. When the most prominent victims of an advancing tyranny fail to speak out, for whatever reason, the chances of stopping the onslaught are almost nil. And I do believe that fear is the prime driving force."

So what might have been the result had AdvaMed and the other industry representatives taken a firm stand against today’s political leadership? A good example of why fear drives American businessmen into the arms of their own destroyers is currently on display in a case involving Humana Inc. According to a Wall Street Journal article:

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services launched an investigation into Humana Inc.'s effort to enlist beneficiaries to fight proposed cuts to Medicare's private plans.

The investigation, launched Friday, is looking at whether Humana, one of the largest providers of Medicare Advantage plans, violated marketing rules by sending letters to beneficiaries in Michigan, Florida and other states urging them to contact lawmakers to register their opposition to proposed cuts.

The letters state that "millions of seniors and disabled individuals could lose many of the important benefits and services that make Medicare Advantage health plans so valuable" -- a claim congressional Democrats say is false.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.) -- whose proposal to overhaul the health-care system would cut payments to Advantage plans by $123 billion over 10 years -- pushed for the investigation.

Humana is a major participant in a government-run program, which means it must follow strict government marketing rules. Those marketing rules are now being used to silence opposition to proposed legislation by the senator who crafted the legislation, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus.

"[Humana's] tactics do a disservice to beneficiaries by spreading false claims about such an important bill in Congress", Baucus spokesperson Erin Shields blustered. We’re only "cutting the fat [$123b worth!] from the profits of private health plans that deliver Medicare…”

"Funding cuts of that magnitude would result in lower benefits, higher premiums and fewer choices for many of the 10 million Americans in Medicare Advantage plans," Humana spokesman Tom Noland said.

This is an example of how the mixing of government (the realm of legalized force) and the private economy (voluntary production and trade) opens the door to far-reaching threats to all liberty. In this case, the First Amendment is being attacked under the guise of “marketing rule” violations. Writes Don Watkins at Voices for Reason:

The implication is that Humana must be investigated for in effect defrauding its customers by misleading them about the nature of Baucus’s proposal. But what did Humana’s “fraudulent” claim consist of? Well, no one disputes the fact that the budget for Medicare Advantage could be slashed under the health care bills now in Congress. The dispute is over the effects this will have. Humana claimed it could potentially lead to some of its customers losing benefits—not an unreasonable view—but Baucus insists “The health care reform bill we released…strengthens Medicare and does not cut benefits.”

Think for a moment about the mind-numbing complexity of today’s laws... Then: think of what it would mean for politicians—hardly notorious for their scrupulous honesty—to be able to punish Americans because our claims about the effects of a proposed law conflict with their assertions.

In a free country, it is not a crime to question the claims of one’s political leaders. If Baucus’s action is allowed to go unchallenged, however, free speech is gravely threatened.

To be sure, our leaders will insist that the rest of us have nothing to worry about, that Humana is a special case, and that everyone else will remain free to criticize the government. Don’t bet on it. If the government can suppress the political speech of Humana because it opposes those in power, it can suppress the speech of any corporation, and if it can suppress the speech of a corporation (which is nothing more than an association of individuals), then there is no reason in logic why it cannot do the same to individuals.

Whatever one’s views on health care, it should go without saying that nothing could be more dangerous than allowing government representatives to get away with bullying and silencing those who challenge their claims. (Emphasis added.)

One might say that Humana doesn’t have to take Medicare patients, and one would have a point. But the same could be said of a whole myriad of issues relating to government involvement, from collecting unemployment benefits to taking a government job. The same principle will apply: Medicare is a compulsory government program, funded by taxes, and administered by “public servants” funded by taxes. Humana is a group of tax-paying individuals who are in the healthcare business, and thus have a right to participate in it. Does this mean that they forfeit the moral right to criticize it?

The problem for Humana is that they give ideological support to “healthcare reform”. So their situation is morally ambiguous, to say the least. Still, they have a right to speak out without political bullying, in my opinion.

Baucus’ brazen act of intimidation is being perpetrated in the open. As I showed in my post of 8/20/09, the politicians have innumerable ways to pressure private business. Considering the enormous control our government has over the American economy, imagine the hidden pressures, veiled threats, implied warnings, expressions of “concern”, etc., by politicians that must go on behind the scenes to bully American enterprise. It’s a scary thought.

It’s also a good example of why we need the separation of economics and state … i.e., capitalism.

Obamacare is Dead - Long Live Romneycare?

The dirty little secret of the Democrats' latest plan for advancing socialized medicine this year (under the guise of "reform") is that it has morphed into a copy of a Republican scheme. McClatchy-Tribune's Chen May Yee writes::

"Massachusetts is the only state that has adopted the core elements of the plan outlined by President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats: an individual mandate; an employer mandate; subsidies for the poor; insurance market reforms; and an 'exchange,' under which consumers can shop for coverage."

Although she doesn't mention it, the Dems' current scheme is the Baucus bill. And the Massachusetts plan (enacted in 2006) is the state universal healthcare bill enacted by then-Republican governor Mitt Romney.

The plan recently released by Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus is, according to the Wall Street Journal, Public Option Lite. Just like in Massachusetts, the government will set the terms across the board:

“The headline is that Mr. Baucus has dropped the unpopular "public option," but this is a political offering without much policy difference. His plan remains a public option by other means, imposing vast new national insurance regulation, huge new subsidies to pay for the higher insurance costs this regulation will require and all financed by new taxes and penalties on businesses, individuals and health-care providers.

“The centerpiece of the Obama-Baucus plan is a decree that everyone purchase heavily regulated insurance policies or else pay a penalty. This government mandate would require huge subsidies as well as brute force to get anywhere near the goal of universal coverage. The inevitable result would be a vast increase in the government's share of U.S. health spending, forcing doctors, hospitals, insurance companies and other health providers to serve politics as well as or even over and above patients.

“The plan essentially rewrites all insurance contracts, including those offered by businesses to their workers. Benefits and premiums must be tailored to federal specifications.

“Everyone would be forced to buy these government-approved policies, whether or not they suit their needs or budget. Families would face tax penalties as high as $3,800 a year for not complying, singles $950. As one resident of Massachusetts where Mitt Romney imposed an individual mandate in 2006 put it in a Journal story yesterday, this is like taxing the homeless for not buying a mansion."

(Before I go any further, I want to say that at the time of enactment, I expressed reserved support for Romneycare. I have long since changed my mind, for various reasons, but based in large part upon the realization that Romney’s plan for “free market healthcare solutions” was no such thing.)

What we have here is another lesson in the destructive ramifications of a Republican attempt to play Democrat Lite; or, to put it another way, to act without principles. Romney teamed up with Senator Ted Kennedy to craft his “bipartisan” scheme. The result has been 432,000 newly insured individuals, most of them subsidized (including “healthy”, “carefree 20-something” Rebeccah Pearson, who received a policy for $34.60 per month, courtesy of the taxpayers). Ms. Yee writes that:

“Success in expanding coverage has brought its own problems: rising costs and longer waiting times… State costs shot up too. State spending on health care grew $707 million [including $354 million in Federal money].

"It took on average 63 days to see a family doctor [in Boston] for a routine physical exam, compared with 10 days in Minneapolis and seven in Miami, according to Merritt Hawkins, a Texas physician recruitment firm. It said that wait times had lengthened in Boston, while falling in other markets.

“Next, officials want to tackle costs. They want to stop paying doctors for each procedure, which can spur overuse, and pay for outcomes — that is, for keeping patients well. [rationing, in other words]

“As a result, providers are trying different strategies. Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge sends nurses to visit recently discharged patients in their homes, a bid to prevent the next hospitalization. [again, rationing]

“Atrius Health, a large multi-specialty group, is trying out group visits: one doctor sees several patients at once.

“Atrius Chief Executive Dr. Gene Lindsey, a cardiologist, now meets with 10 patients at a time. It takes him an hour and a half, compared with three hours to see each individually.”

Some “success”. Rather than liberate the insurance market from the third-party-payer system, government mandates, and interstate barriers to competition to allow a competitive market to drive down prices and widen affordability, we will instead have to endure higher taxes to cover budget deficits, two month (or longer) waits for routine doctor’s visits, rationing, group (rather than private) consultations for our most personal health problems, etc. – so that the irresponsible “carefree 20-something” Rebeccah Pearsons can get $34.60 a month healthcare – subsidized by us while we wait, of course.

These predictable outcomes are written off as mere growing pains (“lots of kinks and issues", as it is described by Phillip Gonzalez, director of grant-making at the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation). But FIRM’s Dr. Paul Hsieh sees more than kinks. In The Objective Standard, Dr. Hsieh documents at length why the problems with Romneycare were inevitable and destined to grow worse. His article, Mandatory Health Insurance: Wrong for Massachusetts, Wrong for America, concludes with:

“The Massachusetts plan failed because it suffered from all the moral and practical flaws inherent in any system of socialized medicine.47 Mandatory insurance was not right for Massachusetts—and it is not right for America. It is a rights-violating road to disaster.”

Where is all of this leading? Again, from the Yee piece:

“What critics don’t understand, [Lindsey] said, is that reform doesn’t end with universal coverage. It’s like building a house.

‘We’ve just put a basement in, and now we’re walking around and we see there’s a problem with where we wanted to put a bathroom. So we’re having to change direction.’

“The work of health reform, he said, has just begun.”

Just begun! In classic fashion, a government plan is enacted to correct problems caused by prior government interference, leading to more problems and more government controls. Where will the work of health reform end? In total government control of medicine. And, as all to often happens, the incremental creep toward socialized medicine is led and/or sanctioned by the Republican Party. We are on the verge of Obamacare because of one of the 2012 Republican presidential frontrunners, Mitt Romney. To be fair, many republicans and conservatives never liked Romney’s plan. But where would the Obama Democrats be following the summer of the Tea Party/ townhall rebellion against their original “public option”-led healthcare “reform” scheme, without the Romney model? Obama can rightly trumpet the Baucus “compromise” as a bipartisan bill!

The tragedy is that the Massachusetts plan, having been enacted under a Republican administration, operates under the free market capitalist banner. So when national Romneycare fails, if and when it is enacted, the cry will rise that the free market has had it last chance and has failed. After all, didn’t many Republicans and conservatives hail the Massachusetts plan as a “marked-based” solution? We will then be ready for the single payer dream of the American Left.

No other end result is possible, unless we move in a totally different direction. Urges Paul Hsieh:

“The solution to disproportionately high health care costs and poor access is for Americans to recognize that health insurance and health care are commodities that can be produced only by means of the long-range thinking, planning, and risk-taking of businessmen acting in a free market, and that individuals and insurers have the moral right to contract with each other as they see fit. Mandatory insurance fails because it ignores these facts and violates these rights.

“If we Americans value our health and our lives, then we must reject mandatory health insurance. We must demand that the government stop violating individual rights and start protecting them. We must demand a genuine free market in health insurance and health care, because only a free market can provide us with the quality, affordable health care that we all need.”

Objectivist Round Up #115

Objectivist Round Up is a weekly compilation of blog posts focusing on a wide diversity of subjects presented from an Objectivist perspective. I've submitted several posts in recent weeks. This week's is hosted by The Little Things.