I Wonder

At this beginning of 2013 I'm curious whether anyone living more-or-less paycheck to paycheck still believes what our parents taught us, that if we work hard and save we'll eventually get ahead.  I wonder if any of my fellow class of '87 mates thinks they'll be retired at age 65 or carries on our parents' expectation that their children will be better off than they were.  Does anyone think we'll ever balance our national budget or pay off the debt?  Does anyone think we'll ever have a system in which the tax code isn't a 71,000 page monstrosity designed as a means for those in Congress to wield and retain power and reward their patrons?  Does anyone believe we're moving as a society toward more liberty and self-determination?  I can't answer yes to any of those questions and I wonder if anyone out there can.  And if you can't, are you going to do anything about it?

Briefly, On Government

Government should only be big enough and powerful enough to defend us from foreign aggression and criminal activity and to carry out those few essential functions that can't or won't be done in the private sector.  It cannot and should not try to make fair an essentially unfair existence, it should not try to guarantee an equal outcome for people of different talents, motivations and work ethics, it should not favor one group of people over another and it should not exist to create wealth and power for any individuals or political class.   It should offer minimal interference in the lives of those free people who can and do govern their own behavior.

More here. 

The State of Independence Day

July 4, 2010

This day is a bit more solemn for me than past Independence days. I have come to the full realization that no matter how profound the wisdom of the founders in writing the Constitution, despite the fact that they were aided in their task by divine Providence, despite the genius of the separation of powers, checks and balances and safeguards, and the codification of our God-given rights built into it, it cannot protect and maintain itself. Its ability to do so was predicated on a clear understanding of its meaning and the intent of its writers, and that is no longer a given. Its enemies have succeeded in twisting its meaning and depriving generations of children of their birthright of education in its greatness.

It's no longer enough to rely on our young warriors abroad to protect us from threats without and the Constitution to protect itself from threats within. It is the duty of every citizen from greatest to least to dedicate ourselves as fully to protecting and defending her and our Republic as our military has pledged to do for generations and more fully than her enemies are dedicated to tearing her down. Political activism can no longer be the territory of the enemies of liberty only. It must become an integral part of our everyday lives, too.

So enjoy this day to the fullest, but let it not be solely a day to thank God for our liberty and celebrate those who have preserved it for us in the past and are doing so now. Let it be a day when we dedicate ourselves anew to preserving it for our children and their children and beseech Almighty God his grace and mercy on our land.

On the Need for Economic Literacy

March 26, 2010

Were I Grand Poobah of the United States, I'd require everyone to read a text and pass a test in basic free-market economics. Why?

To put to rest once and for all, economic myths like the one that sellers in a properly regulated capitalist system can set prices "arbitrarily." Or the closely related myth of "price gouging." Or the myth that the "market" is some cruel, impersonal force, rather than the sum total of the free choices of a population of free people.

So people would understand why price supports result in surplus of a commodity, price ceilings result in scarcity of a commodity and wage controls result in scarcity of jobs.

So that anyone who hasn't had the misfortune to live in a communist country or any other centrally-planned, command economy would know how backward, inefficient and wasteful they are, why they don't work, and why an army of a million government planners can never do what prices do automatically in a free market.

So people would understand that no collection of disinterested bureaucrats could ever regulate an industry as well as consumers when there is real competition. That in a competitive environment, the same company that resists or skirts government regulators will quickly fall in line when customer dissatisfaction affects their bottom line, or lose their business to companies that do. Why true competition in the insurance industry is the best thing that could happen to the healthcare consumer.

So that they would never again be led astray by the lies and promises of politicians and demagogues. So they would be able to figure out exactly why the current healthcare "reform" is so bad for the country, stop demonizing people who oppose it, and maybe even consider the better ideas that have so far been ignored.

There is an ever-increasing population of Americans who have never seen the tragic effects of Marxism, who don't realize it's not a new idea that needs to be tried, and who are easy prey for those who are trying to push us toward it. If that population reaches a certain critical mass, we're in trouble.

My recommendation for an interesting and readable text? Basic Economics, by Thomas Sowell.

Knowledge is power, and the truth will make you free.

The Ultimate Regulators

March 21, 2010

In her March 17 column, Ann Coulter said that if the hotel industry were regulated as heavily as the insurance industry, she would be explaining why the government doesn't need to mandate that hotels offer rooms with beds. If they didn't, they'd go out of business.

If insurance consumers had real choice, there wouldn't need to be government regulations against things like lifetime coverage caps or using pre-existing coverage clauses to fraudulently drop existing customers - insurance companies would quickly bow to the wishes of the consumer or quickly go out of business. All with no new gargantuan entitlements, thousands of new IRS employees or rationing of healthcare. In a free market, consumers are the ultimate regulators. With tools like consumer groups, a watchdog media and the internet, the American consumer is savvier and better informed than in any other time in history, and they are more interested and invested in their own protection than a Washington bureaucrat. And they don't cost the taxpayers anything.

Real Healthcare Reform

March 20, 2010

The healthcare legislation that the President and Congressional Democrat leadership are tying themselves in knots to cobble together out of parliamentary gymnastics, multi-billion dollar bribes, threats and coercion, union favors, back room bargaining, constant condescending preaching, demonization of opponents, outright lies, supplying fraudulent information and assumptions to the CBO, and for all we know, duct tape, chewing gum and bailing wire, all while not even fully knowing what is in it, is not about healthcare. It is a last-ditch attempt to salvage what was supposed to be the signature issue of the Obama presidency and realize a century-old dream of the left for the Federal government to be the lord, father figure and provider for every American. It is a Trojan horse that will lay the groundwork for further enormous expansions of government size, power, control and entitlements. It will give government unprecedented control over every aspect of our lives that could even remotely be tied to healthcare. (Like cigars? Rock climbing? Motorcycling?). It is opposed by a clear majority of Americans and has bipartisan opposition in Congress (no such bipartisan support exists for it). I humbly submit that if the issue were really the health of the American people, rather than a codification of the Left's hatred of private enterprise, Congress would immediately drop this multi-thousand page Frankenstein monstrosity into the dustbin of history and reform our health coverage system by doing four things, at zero cost to the taxpayer:

1. Eliminate the antitrust exemptions for the insurance companies, prohibitions on interstate purchasing and State mandates on coverage. If this single step happened, consumers would be able to choose exactly what type of coverage they wanted. Why should a retired man or post-menopausal woman, for example, be forced to purchase a plan that covers contraception and obstetrics? If you could choose, would you buy a plan that covers everthing down to doctor visits for sniffles, or would you cover only serious or catastrophic illness and use the savings as you see fit? You should be able to choose. Can you imagine if health insurance companies had to compete with hundreds of other companies in a marketplace similar to the one for car insurance? Consumers can regulate a consumer-product industry far better than government can. For a better-written and staggeringly commonsense take on this item, see the March 17, 2010 column at http://www.anncoulter.com/. Incidentally, the amount and form of compensation from a company to its employees, including whether or not a company provides or contributes to health insurance for them, should be subject to the mutual agreement of both and no one else, period.

2. Reform medical malpractice laws, not to eliminate lawsuits for actual malpractice as opponents claim, but to allow doctors to make decisions based on what is best for the patient, not to continually work in a combative, defensive state of protecting themselves and their employers from predatory litigation.

There is no such thing as a "right" to healthcare anymore than there is a "right" to be happy, although we have the right to pursue happiness. You do not have a lien on other people's wealth and labor to provide you with healthcare. However, we are a civilized and compassionate nation, and so most of us would not be willing for anyone to suffer because of a real inability to afford healthcare. If we as a nation believe that everyone should have healthcare, then this is my answer:

3. Provide a safety net for those people who truly cannot afford coverage (even under the vastly lower prices that would result from real, competitive, free market system) by providing tax credits or tailored vouchers toward the purchase of private insurance plans. Even if someone is receiving aid, that aid should not go straight from the government to the provider - the aid recipient should be the one to fork over the payment. This would get government out of the equation, force people receiving the government aid to be an active participant in making sure they get the best care for the taxpayers' dollar and eliminate the problem of ever-shrinking reimbursements to doctors and pharmacies for services to Medicare and Medicaid recipients. This safety net would also be how we provide for people suffering from pre-existing conditions. A single-payer system would insert government bureaucrats right into the very center of a highly personal transaction in which they have no business, constitutional or otherwise. Single-payer guarantees a lord/serf relationship between government and the governed. Europe has a long history of serfdom, only relatively recently changed, but it is the exact opposite of the American ideal and what America needs. America has a different history, character and set of founding ideals from Europe, and we need American solutions to our problems.

4. Require themselves and every other member of the Federal government to have whatever kind of healthcare coverage they mandate for the rest of us. The fact that they refuse to do this now speaks volumes.

These are representative of the kind of ideas GOP senators and representatives have been advocating for years now, but in this year's debate they were utterly stonewalled by the President and the newsmedia. I'm no expert on the issue and my expression of these ideas are admittedly simplistic, but at their core is a common-sense desire to reverse the trend of ever-expanding government size, reach and power that I believe is completely consistent with the founding ideals of our nation.

The Ex-President Who Cried Wolf

September 16, 2009

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/15/carter.obama/index.html?section=cnn_latest

Given the need for racial healing in America, it is inexcusable for short-sighted politicians to fan the flames of racial strife and trade decades of progress in race relations for the table scraps of questionable short-term political gain by affixing the motive of racism to all opposition. Do they really mean to say that all disagreement with the President is racist? Do people such as the ever more embarrassing Jimmy Carter not see that every time the word "racism" is misused, hurled indiscriminately, employed to end a losing argument or excuse bad behavior, it is further leached of its meaning and impact, like the unheeded warnings of the boy who cried wolf?

For the unjustly accused, the charge of racism is so hurtful, damaging and impossible to disprove that it ought to be handled like nitroglycerin. Instead, it’s flung about like the enamel in a Jackson Pollock painting. Actual racism is so ugly, despicable and worthy of extinction, that the word ought to have the impact of a freight train. Instead, people are so numbed to hearing it used for any and every reason that they treat it with automatic skepticism, which is most unfortunate.

As long as the Race Card remains the Left’s default response to even the most principled disagreements, the ideal of "not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" will remain a quaint and naive sentiment from a receding past.

Why it Matters

July 4, 2009

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

...And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. "

These incredible words are a big part of what makes America unique, with apologies to our democratic allies. This is why it is impossible for us to be a true member of a mythical "global community" - because so many in that community don't hold these to be truths at all, so many hate and despise these ideals, so many enslave and murder and rape their own people and those of their neighbors. Unfortunately, so many in our own country find these ideas and the men who penned them, repugnant too.

So have a happy Hot Dog and Fireworks Day, but let's celebrate with our eyes open and our brains turned on.

The Governing Class

June 15, 2009

For quite awhile, I have thought that one could classify people politically as one of three types.

The first type live and work under the conviction that in order for free societies to exist and for their citizens to fully enjoy the blessings of liberty, each citizen must govern himself or herself, and those for which he or she is responsible. And they do so, with honesty and self-restraint, and raise their children to do likewise.

The second type, for whatever reason, cannot or will not govern themselves, are a constant danger to others, and are constantly impinging on the liberty of others.

The first type believe that one of the few legitimate roles of government is to restrain the predations of the second type upon the first. The first type would have an easier time living their lives and dealing with the second type but for the presence of a third type.

This third type may or may not govern themselves, but can always be identified by a feverish desire to govern others. Often they belong to what is called the "governing class," and a lack of belief in either God or kings does not preclude their operating as if by divine right. Unfortunately, they are usually far more concerned with the rights of the second type of person than with those of the first type that are their victims. They usually manage to find their way into government, and there act out their desires to govern others with a baffling indifference to restraining the second type of person and a perverse interest in directing the lives of the first, all the while exempting themselves from the strictures they impose on both.

The first type are fully capable of dealing with the second type, but Lord save us all from the third. 

Fighting Words

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

 (MOLON LABE! – “Having come, take!” i.e., “Come and take them [our weapons]!”)

-- King Leonidas of Sparta to King Xerxes of Persia

in response to his demand the Spartans lay down their arms

“For it is better to die of hunger, exempt from fear and guilt than to live in affluence with perturbation”

-- Epictetus

"Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? 

FORBID IT, ALMIGHTY GOD!

I know not what course others may take, but as for me, Give me Liberty, or Give me Death!"

--Patrick Henry

"Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, what should be the reward of such sacrifices?' Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!"

-- Samuel Adams


“They who would give up an essential liberty for a temporary security deserves neither liberty nor security.”

-- Benjamin Franklin


"I wish to have no Connection with any Ship that does not sail fast for I intend to go in harm's way."

"I may sink, but I'll be damned if I strike!"

-- John Paul Jones


"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

-- John Stuart Mill

"We're paratroopers, Lieutenant. We're supposed to be surrounded."

-- Cpt. Richard Winters, E/506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, Bastogne


"NUTS!"

-- Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, 101st Airborne Division, Bastogne, December 1944, to German commander demanding surrender


"We're surrounded.  This simplifies the problem."

--Col. Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, USMC, at Chosin Reservoir, Korea


“It is better to be a live jackal than a dead lion – for jackals, not for men. Men who have the moral courage to fight intelligently for freedom have the best prospects of avoiding the fate of both live jackals and dead lions. Survival is not the be-all and end-all of a life worthy of man. Sometimes the worst thing we can know about a man is that he has survived. Those who say life is living at any cost have already written themselves an epitaph of infamy, for there is no cause and no person they will not betray to stay alive. Man’s vocation should be the use of the arts of intelligence in behalf of human freedom.”

-- Sidney Hook


"This ship is built to fight. You had better know how."

-- Admiral Arleigh "31 Knot" Burke to the crew of the USS Arleigh Burke, DDG-51, at her commissioning


"Are you guys ready? Okay. Let's roll!"

-- Todd Beamer, United Flight 93, September 11, 2001