The New Clarion

The Tea Party movement represents the best hope of halting the federal Leviathan. We have written many words on the subject. In fact, several of us have participated in events for the first time in our lives. However, the whole affair elicits trepidation and pause. While a lot of the slogans, statements, and views are refreshing and spot on, a popular movement attracts those who would get out in front of it and use it to achieve real power.

Its decentralized nature is a blessing and a curse. The lack of central leadership means that no one person or group controls the message; its fractious nature engenders distrust of anyone who would try to do so. In a way, this makes the tea party a marketplace of ideas: the best ones garner the support and crackpots get shunted to the periphery. But with this dispersion comes the risk of a tent too open, unprincipled and unable to advance its ends effectively. The tea party movement rallied in support of Scott Brown’s election to the Senate to replace the late Ted Kennedy. He scared the dickens out of the Administration because he could play a pivotal role in blocking their agenda. But he’s already playing politics as usual, and displaying his superficial support for limited government. These sorts of hollow victories will continue to plague the tea party movement until and unless it firms up its core set of principles.

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According to this article in the Washington Times, Kenyans are voting for a new constitution. I did a search for a copy of it and found one here.It’s a long document and it seems to be trying to address every possible contingency. While I haven’t read the whole thing, there are some things I like in it but far too many I don’t. I’m afraid the fingerprints of collectivism and a really bad epistemology are all over it leading to contradictions and and just plain wishful thinking. (more…)

At a polling place yesterday Aug 3rd I was handing out literature for a Republican candidate who is running against the U.S. House seat of lifer Democrat Sander Levin whom I want out. I took a lunch break at home and decided to catch up on my email. (more…)

The Wednesday July 14th Detroit News carries an op-ed by NYT writer David Brooks who wants us to know there are two kinds of people in the business world. But Mr. Brooks, like so many in the educated class, has a hard time forming concepts in any hierarchy or at least doesn’t want us to. (more…)

Today’s cartoon by Eric Allie is apt as usual:

Talk radio host and Detroit News columnist Frank Beckmann had an oped on Wed. 3/24 “Dem’s health care claims lack real proof” which testifies to the kind of education they received. While Mr. Beckmann makes his point well, my point is that they don’t need proof, at least not empirical proof. (more…)

As a historian, it irritates me when people cite historical evidence after a superficial Internet search (or, worse yet, treat Wikipedia as a primary source). Matthew Yglesias—I know, I know, I may as well be reading Krugman—today argues that opposition to mass transit stems at its root from jingoism. This is a familiar refrain and fallback position for the left when they can detect no traces of racism. To support his notion that publicly-funded mass transit is American, he looks to our history in an attempt to showcase his straw men’s hypocrisy.

He discovers that the biggest subways are in non-European cities and that most of the prominent rapid transit systems are domestic. A commenter helpfully added further support:

Here’s a postcard from live free or die New Hampshire, circa 1877. And, oh no — Socialism!

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Healthcare is not a right. It is a good and service to be bought voluntarily from willing providers, like anything else. Do I tell my barber that a haircut is my right, and then force him to provide me with the haircut of my choice at the price that I dictate to him? That is what socialized medicine does to doctors.

If it is my right to that haircut, what has happened to the right of the barber to offer his service on terms agreeable to him? And if his rights are violated — if he is reduced to the status of an unwilling servant — imagine how lousy my haircuts will look, as he rushes them along to provide them at the price set by government.

Now consider that this same scenario plays out right now with a far more vital service, one upon which all of our lives depend. Today about 50% of medical costs are paid for by the government under terms set by government. We have 50%-socialized medicine in the United States. The problems we have are due to this high level of socialism that already exists.

The solution is not to drink the whole bottle of poison and condemn all of us, doctors and their patients, to life-shortening medical “care” by rights-less doctors and their disgruntled, sick patients.

The solution is freedom. It has never really been tried. Abolish government funding of medical care. Eliminate the rules that bind insurance companies and doctors from offering the care that customers want. Respect the rights of doctors and their patients to freely contract with each other for medical services.

Healthcare is not a right, and our lives depend on acknowledging this fact.

Say “no” to any scheme to further entrench socialized medicine.

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Originally posted here on a website that is soliciting solutions for the problems in healthcare. Register your vote.

Ever since Obama was elected president the conservative press has been referring to him as the ‘Messiah,’ the ‘anointed one,’ the ‘savior,’ and so on largely in response to how the liberal press fawned and cooed over him and was loath to question or mention any criticism of him. (more…)

Usually at year’s end it is customary to look back and take inventory of all the events that impacted us for good or ill. I sometimes cut out an article or two of special interest to me and file it.

But today I want to take a lighter approach and look forward to headlines I would like to see in 2010. There is no particular order to these. Of course readers are free to add their own preferences in the comments. First, in the 2010 election I would like to see these headlines:

1>”Democrats lose 60 seat majority in Senate.”

2>”Senator Harry Reid out.”

3>”Democrat congressman Sander Levin (my congressman) ousted by fellow Democrat and fiscal conservative Mickey Switalski. Party still hopping mad at Mickey.”

4>”Liberal Dems take beating in election along with a few liberal Republicans.”

5>”Democrats promising to abandon needs based legislation in favor of rights protecting legislation win by landslides.”

6>”Conservative Rupublicans promising mega-compassion lose in record landslides.”

And in non-election news:

7>”In test case Supreme Court rules Obamacare unconstitutional.”

8>”Cap and trade bill dies in congress. Obama threatens to give EPA executive powers. New congress vows to cut off EPA funding. Obama livid.”

9>”Congress opens hearings on Climategate. Mann, Bradley, Hughes et al on hot seat regarding connections to Hadley email scandal. Value of IPCC Assessment Reports questioned.”

10>”Copies of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead flying off shelves faster than in 2009.”

11>”More CEOs defending themselves and capitalism.”

12>”NYT and WAPO circulation and stock price hit new lows, more layoffs loom.”

13>”Another Al Gore lecture on GW cancelled due to extreme cold.”

14>”George Soros and/or Michael Moore file for bankruptcy.” ( this is a perennial for me.)

15>”New student rebellion protesting campus censorship and lack of diverse ideas is gaining momentum.”

Well that’s it for the wishful thinking for now but if just 4 of these 15 actually happen, it will bode well for the future.

This is the “public option” that statists and those in government want you to see:

This is the “public option” as it really is:

In Monday’s 11/09/09 Detroit Free Press is a typical but unflattering to Detroit article by writer Mark W. Smith which demonstrates the lack of understanding by Detroit’s leaders of the concept of property rights and particularly what property rights are for.

The article focuses on a WSJ article about an old truck that was pushed off the fourth floor of the long abandoned Packard building by people referred to as “urban explorers.” It even has a video of the event and a link the the WSJ article.

Reading this story is like watching insects crawling through the skeletal remains of what was once a living, thriving organism, the City of Detroit. According to the WSJ article:

“Detroit has 80,000 abandoned lots and buildings, according to the city’s planning department. Old housing projects, homes, strip malls and even high-rise buildings sit empty across much of the city. Motown has more vacant office, retail and industrial space than nearly every other big city in the country.”

But the Packard plant is just the latest example of Detroit’s political leaders not understanding the nature and purpose of property rights.

The purpose of property rights is to transform the ideal of individual rights, the ‘right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ into practical reality. To survive, a man must have the right to use and dispose of the fruits of his labor as he judges best while respecting the same rights of others. The fruits of his labor are his property. Without property rights there can be no other rights.

Where there are no humans there is no property, only nature. Where there are humans, property rights identify, define and protect the fruits of each man’s labor. The basic, fundamental purpose of property rights then is to serve human survival in some objective way. That is why there should be a time limit on how long an owner can let a property sit completely idle not serving any purpose whatsoever.

The details of what kind of limits should be placed on what kind of property are not important here and can be worked out by those schooled in property rights law. What’s important here, and needs to be recognized by our laws, is the principle that property must serve some human purpose and cannot be held idle in perpetuity.

The future of Detroit can be either the nation’s biggest ghost town or a thriving metropolis again. But Detroit’s rebirth will not happen until Detroit and Lansing discover the real nature of property rights and enact policy accordingly. Right now all governments view property as a source of income instead of a source of human survival. That is what really has to change.

I keep thinking about the doctors. What must they be thinking? I spent 10 years of education and interning — so I can work for the government? I’ll be part of a vast bureaucracy, forced to follow a shelf full of regulations meant to substitute for my independent judgment.

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann lay out how it happened. Obama bought off special interests. Their piece could serve as an appendix to Henry Hazlitt’s Economics In One Lesson, a real life example of how money goes to special interests to the detriment of the general good. Their list also reminds me of Bastiat’s aphorism, “The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.”

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For about 80 yrs now the government has been trying to be everything to everyone, trying to provide everyone with their daily bread and failing miserably. Why?
Because the government has nothing to offer. All it has is its monopoly on physical force. All it can do is stand over the productive members of society with the club of physical force and compel obedience. Case in point: An editorial in today’s New York Times champions the new House health care bill saying in part:

“The bill requires employers, except for small businesses, to offer health coverage to their workers and pay a substantial share of the premiums or face a big penalty. That would be a useful prod to make insurance more available and affordable to employees.” (bold mine)

No Senator, Congressman, judge or member of the executive branch is going to insure anyone. All they can do is point a gun at the insurance companies, doctors and other health care professionals and decree ‘sacrifice or else.’ Then point another gun at the heads of citizens and decree ‘accept these sacrificial offerings or else.’

It is really sad to see an establishment of professional intellectuals like the Times advocating the government initiate force against citizens. It’s even sadder that professional organizations like the AMA and the ANA (American Nurses Assoc.) are willing to go along with the sacrifice of its members. But as long as people think sacrifice itself, for any reason, is virtuous, the destruction of medicine and our society will continue. It is trade not sacrifice that is virtuous. Trade represents voluntary relationships. Sacrifice requires force because it is contrary to human nature. Sacrifice is not the giving up of a value for some desired result. The loss of the value is the desired result.

To Canadians’ great shame, it was Canada’s province of Saskatchewan that initiated socialist politics in N. America, under Tommy Douglas.

Douglas brought to N. America, the unoriginal, yet winning, political trick…

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Two points, to start.

1. My father’s heart arrhythmias have settled, and his sodium levels have been managed through intravenous fluids and fluid intake restriction.  Though he could barely walk, he was deemed strong enough, to no longer be eligible for a hospital bed.  Indeed, if he chose to stay, three doors from my mother, he would be charged $750 per day!

2. Now, my mother’s TSH (Thyroid Stimulating Hormone) levels are unusually high, due to a benign pituitary tumor, causing her thyroid to be dysfunctional.  As a result, she has sudden blackouts due to rapid blood pressure drops (syncope), and must stay in bed.  Her dramatic collapses to the floor —unconscious, eyes open & staring— are terribly distressing.  So far, her falls have been caught every time but one, which fortunately only caused minor bruising.   According to her condition, she can still stay in a hospital bed, for ‘free‘.

Notice how the above bolded portions indicate the rules of socialized medicine that determine the care of the patient.  Sure, Dad could stay in hospital, but the cost is obscene, and the price is clearly set so as to drive patients out.  Only under altruism would such ‘logic’, such treatment, be seen as appropriate, because it serves others in the system.  In a private system the same choice would not be so starkly enforced,  Patients in a free market would have a multitude of choices that are not available in the government system.

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Ron Bloom, Obama’s manufacturing czar, produced this remarkable quote:

“Generally speaking, we get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense. We know that the whole point is to game the system … we know that this is largely about power. That this is an adults only, no limit game. We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun. And we get it that if you want a friend you should get a dog.”

Can you believe the cynicism?

A politician who can say that is capable of anything. Every sentence in that quote can be used to rationalize violating individual rights.

In response to my post, My Father and Socialized Medicine, comments made by Greg Paulhus deserve a full post in response.  They are typical of arguments for socialized medicine, that in final analysis do not stand.

My Dad’s situation may not be entirely ‘routine’, as Paulhus suggests, but his inappropriate care, is no less disgusting for being so readily accepted, and is no less a function of  ‘the system’.  There are many other such occurrences.  Paulhus’s uncle’s experience may be a ‘majority’ example, but that kind of success can be found in any large scale operation.

That is, “Lemon” cars exist, but smart shoppers still look for the vehicle make and model that is least likely to result in their buying a lemon.  By his ‘majority’ argument Paulhus (unthinkingly) presumes it is okay to sacrifice My father to the system, since His uncle is doing fine.  Would he care to  have them switch places, and give his uncle the ‘lemon’… it is, after all, the same “fantastic” system?

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Obama’s response to his Nobel Prize was the best thing I’ve heard from him. He recognizes that it was awarded too soon & reflects no serious achievement.  Though his speech changes nothing, & is surely politic, he has, at least, put his award in a relatively sensible context (excluding his absurd mention of climate change). Obama sees that he has not earned the prize by the principles Alfred Nobel defined.

In fact Obama sees that his prize only means that he stands for the hope of peace.

This view, of the Far Left Nobel Committee, is as appalling as it is unsurprising.  Does the Nobel Committee see Obama’s wishes as sufficient reason for his award?  Sure, Obama wants peace, but even he knows he has not succeeded in achieving what peace requires.  His wish for that achievement means nothing.

As the expression goes, “if wishes were horses, beggars would ride“.  Does the Nobel Committee hope to give Obama a horse, (more…)

The American people have spoken. A large portion of them do not want bigger government, specifically socialized medicine.

So what do the statists conclude from from the mass demonstrations and the town hell meetings? Simple: the problem is that the people found out what they were doing. If only the people had been kept ignorant, there would have been no problem!

Thus the philosopher-kings in Washington, DC, our benevolent masters, are now working on ways to increase government without the people’s understanding of what is going on. They are intent on taking over the lives of all those idiotic American people for their own good. The trail to collectivism must be blazed in darkness and ignorance.

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