I’ve been in an incredibly foul mood the last couple of days, and until this morning I did not understand why.

We’re planning on moving to where we actually want to be. We’re constantly being asked why we want to move to the middle of nowhere. I tell everyone, “because I feel hemmed in and trapped.” Almost no one understands what I mean. Until this morning I could not explain the feeling of being a rat in a cage. Now I can.

This morning I woke up on my “don’t remove the tag” mattress, walked through my building code compliant house, used the federally compliant toilet, dressed the kids and drove them to their “state certified” charter school where they’ll eat a state approved lunch.

I got back in my state registered, emissions compliant, insured (by state requirement) car and drove the legal speed limit back to the house. I then walked through my Scottsdale code compliant yard (no weeds in our “desert” landscaping”)into the house, drank pasteurized (USDA required) juice, and ate cereal processed in an inspected facility with milk from an USDA compliant dairy. I then took my FDA approved prescription pills (from a licensed pharmacy of course) and played with the state-licensed dogs.

I took a call on my federally taxed cell phone (instead of the federally taxed land line), stopped by our FDIC insured bank (which received TARP money that it didn’t want and is not allowed to pay back), and drove along city streets (paid for by sales and property taxes) to the closest Costco (which has a business license of course and pays mandated worker’s comp). I bought beef franks made from inspected beef in an inspected facility, buns made in an OSHA compliant factory, and a gallon of Frank’s in an approved plastic bottle.

All of this before 10:15 am.

This is not restricted to me of course. This is normal daily life for the vast majority of Americans. Almost everything we do is touched by one agency or another.

In preparation for moving I’ve been researching what I want to do with the land. We want to build our own house and outbuildings and drink our own water and make our own electricity.

In order for this to work we have to:

* Buy land with the proper zoning.
* Wait for the required escrow to be completed.
* Apply for building permits and well permits.
* Possibly apply for a zoning variance in order to raise a wind turbine.
* Build code-compliant buildings.
* Wire the electricity according to code.
* Pay sales tax on all materials used.

My biggest dream is to grow an orchard, plant some vegetables and grains, and raise our own milk and meat. In order for this to happen we have to

* Buy only trees that can be delivered to the correct state (as decided by each state’s government).
* Use only approved pesticides (like we could buy anything else).
* Buy a tractor (with applicable state tax).

If we find ourselves with an excess of food and would like to sell it we have to

* Apply for a license.
* Obtain a tax i.d. number.
* Collect sales tax.
* Label the goods according to code.
* Submit to random inspections of the dairy operation.
* Submit to random inspections of the meat process.
* In order to sell prepared foods (like jams) submit to inspections of the “commercial” kitchen (which cannot be used to prepare the family’s food).
* Pay sales tax on all goods and materials used.

In order to set up the business properly, we have to

* Apply for a business license.
* Obtain a tax i.d. number.
* Obtain permission from the state to use the name.
* Collect sales tax.

God forbid we deal with the local fauna. We plan on moving in an area thick with moose and wolves, but in order to hunt we have to obtain

* A hunting license.
* A controlled-hunt tag for the moose (if we’re lucky enough to get one).
* Forget about the wolves, they’re “protected”.

Should we need to protect our livestock from the moose or wolves we are allowed to dispose of the threat, but we must

* Inform game and fish.
* Turn the carcass over to the state.

If we use firearms to dispose of the threat, we must

* Use a “legal” firearm (as determined by the NFA and ATF).
* If we choose to use a suppressor (because of dogs, horses, and our own hearing) we must pay the stamp.

This doesn’t even account for all of the hoops the realtor and the vendors have to go through.

All of this instead of

* Pay for property. Make contract with owner.
* Build.
* Dig well.
* Wire.
* Buy tractor.
* Plant.
* Sell food.
* Sell services.
* Protect livestock.

No wonder I feel trapped. I can’t do a single thing with my own property that doesn’t involve one government agency or another (or several). I feel like a rat being funneled through a maze, and I am cognizant of the danger that someone will block off the exit. It’s my claustrophobia writ large.

This is just wrong. I’m a grown woman. Why does the government have to meddle in all of my affairs? Why do I have to jump through hoops just to accomplish the most simple things in life?

It’s all about power and control. Always has been always will be.

I’m sure in the beginning the encroachment began with simple things. After all, isn’t the government supposed to protect our rights? Isn’t having a dedicated police force, justice system, military, etc. worth a little in taxes?

Then a little more encroachment. Who can disagree with a little tax to pay for state roads? That’s entirely reasonable, right?

Then enforcement of standards. Who can disagree with licensing teachers? Making sure underage kids can’t marry?

Then the panics set in. Contaminated meat? The government should “do something” so it won’t happen again! E coli? Pasteurize EVERYTHING!

Of course, the NIMBY’S added their own input. Nuclear power plant? Not in my backyard! Enforce zoning so I won’t have to worry about it! Require my neighbor to clean up their yard so my house values don’t go down!

Then the lobbyists. Require farm inspections and multiple hoops so small farmers give up and “our big backers don’t have competition”. Give into the “green” lobby so they don’t pull their campaign contributions.

Of course there’s always the pure tax whores. “It’s just a little reasonable fee. On everything. You want to pay your share, right?”

Of course all of this gets codified into law, and the ultimate persuasive tactic is put into play.

“You don’t want to be a criminal, do you? You don’t want to go to prison, do you?”

This is exactly how we went from a system in which the government’s job of protecting our rights to a system where government determines WHO is ALLOWED to trample on our rights.

Well I have a message for all you busybodies, bureaucrats, rent-seekers, and whored-out legislators.

LEAVE US THE HELL ALONE.

Get out of my contracts.

Get off of my land.

Leave my property alone.

Stay the hell out of my bedroom.

Most of all, KEEP YOUR NOSES OUT OF MY BUSINESS.

And everyone else’s for that matter.

Mel

I haven’t mentioned my wife here very much, because she generally doesn’t write about libertarian issues; but I have to say, for this (and so many other reasons. For one thing, she’d rather buy guns, boats, motorcycles, and airplanes than shoes or jewelery), I am the luckiest man in the world. I happen to think this piece is the best thing she’s ever written.

For decades the cost of medical care has risen relative to prices in general and relative to people’s incomes. Today [1994] a semi-private hospital room typically costs $1,000 to $1,500 per day, exclusive of all medical procedures, such as X-rays, surgery, or even a visit by one’s physician. Basic room charges of $500 per day or more are routinely tripled just by the inclusion of normal hospital pharmacy and supplies charges (the cost of a Tylenol tablet can be as much as $20). And typically the cost of the various medical procedures is commensurate. In such conditions, people who are not exceptionally wealthy, who lack extensive medical insurance, or who fear losing the insurance they do have if they become unemployed, must dread the financial consequences of any serious illness almost as much as the illness itself. At the same time, no end to the rise in medical costs is in sight. Thus it is no wonder that a great clamor has arisen in favor of reform – radical reform – that will put an end to a situation that bears the earmarks of financial lunacy.

Thus begins an essay that noted Objectivist economist George Reissman penned during Clinton’s efforts to ‘reform’ health care.

Given the current debate, it’s a good essay to reread, and the folks at the Mises Institute have obliged by posting it on their fine website.

Reisman argues against many of propositions that are assumed to be true by proponents of govenrment medicine, economic ideas that are based on primitive emotions and have no basis in actual economics:

For over a century, virtually all proposals for economic or social reform have been based on the thoroughly mistaken philosophical and theoretical foundations of Marxism, and have aimed at the ultimate achievement of a socialist society, in the belief that socialism represented the most rational and moral system of mankind’s social organization. On the basis of this conviction, individual freedom was progressively restricted and the power of the state progressively enlarged. Individual freedom – laissez faire capitalism – was assumed to be a system of chaos and of the exploitation of the masses by the capitalists. The onslaught of the socialists (who in this country call themselves “liberals”) – the step-by-step achievement of their political agenda – encountered virtually no philosophical resistance. Not surprisingly, again and again, the “liberals” defeated their ill-equipped conservative adversaries, who at most could only delay their advance. The victories of the “liberals” were inevitable because it was a battle of men with the seeming vision of a better world that could be achieved by means of intelligent human effort based on a body of ideas (however mistaken those ideas were), against men who, while they valued the relatively free world they saw around them, had no significant philosophical or theoretical knowledge of how to defend it.

In the last few years, some of the most profound and fundamental changes in the political and intellectual history of mankind have taken place. The philosophy of socialism and the economic theory of Marxism have been recognized as a blatant failure almost everywhere, and have been abandoned by tens of millions of former supporters. All over the world, the cry is heard “no more socialism!” One socialist regime after another has recognized the chaos and tyranny of socialism and has become dedicated to the achievement of a capitalist society. Thus, the intellectual base and the driving force of American “liberalism” has largely disintegrated.

Considered against this backdrop, the Clinton administration’s proposal for the government’s takeover of medical care in the United States appears as a ludicrous anachronism. It reads like the work of twentieth-century Rip Van Winkles who have been sleeping since the 1930s and who have not had a chance to read the newspapers. In effect, America’s politicians and intellectuals who support the proposal are still riding a train that more intelligent people the world over have recognized can take them nowhere but to hell and have therefore jumped off.

Now I know many skeptical readers will argue that while that may have seemed true then, that the current economic crisis is a sign of the failures of deregulation and laissez faire capitalism. Au contraire! One need look no further than Lew Rockwell’s 2005 essay on George Bush’s hybridizations of socialist and mercantilist economics, Bush’s 10 Economic Errors.

Then Reisman turns to the question of a right to medical care:

… no one has the right to such a thing as a house as such. What one has is the right to buy a house, or to buy the things necessary to build it. One’s right to a house is violated not when one cannot afford to buy or build a house, but when one could afford to buy or build a house if one were not forcibly prevented from doing so. … In exactly the same way, the right to medical care does not mean a right to medical care as such, but to the medical care one can buy from willing providers. One’s right to medical care is violated not when there is medical care that one cannot afford to buy, but when there is medical care that one could afford to buy if one were not prevented from doing so by the initiation of physical force. It is violated by medical licensing legislation and by every other form of legislation and regulation that artificially raises the cost of medical care and thereby prevents people from obtaining the medical care they otherwise could have obtained from willing providers. The precise nature of such legislation and regulation we shall see in detail, in due course.

I have said that the causes of the present crisis in medical care can all be subsumed under the heading of the government’s violation and/or perversion of the individual’s right to medical care. By this last, I mean its use of the alleged need-based right to medical care rather than the actual, rational right to medical care as the basis of various policies it has adopted over the years. Seen in this light, the origins of the present medical crisis go back all the way to the government’s establishment of various forms of medical licensing as early as the nineteenth century, and the subsequent increase in licensing requirements it has imposed in the course of this century.

…

Ironically, the main driving force behind medical licensing has always come from within the medical profession itself, many of whose members have sought the monopoly privileges that licensing bestows and thereby the artificial rise in their own incomes that it makes possible. There is nothing that should be surprising in this. It simply means that physicians have often acted in the same mean spirit as carpenters or plumbers who form coercive labor unions, farmers who seek government subsidies, or businessmen who seek protective tariffs. It is an expression of the mentality that underlies most government intervention into the economic system, namely, the mistaken belief that it is possible to serve one’s self-interest by means of the initiation of physical force against others, coupled with a willingness to serve it by such means. Such a policy is irrational and ultimately self-destructive. Indeed, its self-destructiveness is illustrated precisely by the plight of today’s physicians. For what is ironic in the fact that physicians have been the driving force behind medical licensing legislation is that, in effect, they first sent around to others precisely what has more recently been coming around to them, namely, the violation of individual rights in the field of medicine. The effects of medical licensing have played a major role in encouraging demands for socialized medicine and the threat to the rights of physicians that socialized medicine represents.

Medical licensing has played into the hands of the advocates of socialized medicine precisely by making medical care scarcer and more expensive, thereby reducing the amount of medical care obtained, particularly by the poor. Because the effect of medical licensing was greatly to increase the difficulties of poor people in obtaining medical care, socialized medicine was perceived as all the more necessary. It was a classic case of what von Mises describes as prior government intervention serving as the cause of problems used to justify later government intervention, this time against the beneficiaries of the prior intervention.

The essential goal of socialized medicine is that the individual should be relieved of financial responsibility for his and his family’s medical care. Medical care should be provided to him without charge by the government, paid for out of taxes. To this extent, allegedly, his life will be worry free, because the government will take care of him. Medical care will simply come to him according to his need, paid for by others, presumably according to their ability. It should be obvious that such an arrangement entails the utter perversion of the right to medical care. The right to medical care ceases to be the individual’s right to take the actions required to secure his medical care – namely, to buy it from willing providers. Instead it becomes an alleged right to the fruits of others’ labor and ability, with or without their consent, for that it is the only way it can be obtained if the individual himself is not to pay for it and yet is to have a right to it merely because he needs it. As I have shown, its existence is in direct contradiction of all actual rights, which center precisely on the individual’s freedom from involuntary servitude.

I will skip over the thorough description of how various government interventions have produced the broken system we have today (although everyone should read it). But I will share the following summary:

True, this system exists for the most part in an environment of privately owned business firms and is financed for the most part by those business firms. But when one recalls how the system was started and how it was spread, namely, by price-control officials and by coercive labor unions, and that throughout the years it has been deliberately supported by a discriminatory tax policy in its favor, one must characterize the system as imposed and maintained by the government, and not as a product of the competitive processes of a free market. Furthermore, as will become apparent later on, additional forms of government coercion serve to maintain the system by making it financially prohibitive for most people to step outside of it. Thus, the system is socialistic in the further essential respect that it is the product of government coercion, not of voluntary choice.

Now this collectivistic system of governmentally imposed “private” medical insurance is the leading cause of the continuous rise in medical costs that we have experienced. To help my students understand this point, I ask them to imagine that after class they all go out together for a meal somewhere, on the understanding that the check will be divided evenly, irrespective of what anyone orders. I explain how this will greatly affect what they order.

I point out, for example, that someone who might be thinking of choosing between, say, a $3 hamburger and a $15 steak, will now be much more inclined to order the steak. This is because instead of the additional cost to him being the full difference of $12, which it would be if each student had to pay his own check, the additional cost to him will now be perhaps just 50¢, that is, it will be the additional $12 divided by 24 (which happens to be the usual number of students in my class). I point out that to the extent that the students behave this way, the size of the total check must increase. Obviously, if what all 24 students ordered were affected in this way, the size of the check that each of them would have to pay would end up being $15 instead of $3, because each of them would experience the effect of 23 other students shifting 50¢ of their additional costs to him. In other words, it would be a situation of mutual plunder, in which all would lose.

He points out that the attempts by well meaning people to provide medical care as a matter of right have certain inevitable consequenses:

1. The potential for a limitless rise in the price of medical services

Insofar as medical services or facilities are limited in supply, the notion of the need-based right to medical care and the collectivization of medical costs to finance it create the potential for a limitless rise in the price of medical services. To understand this, imagine an auction. There are a large number of units of some good for sale. But there are not enough units for sale to satisfy all the bidders for all of their requirements. Thus some bidders must go away empty handed, or at least with fewer units than they would like. (As I indicated before, there could have been a larger number of units for sale, but the government does not let them on to the floor of the auction. It keeps them out by means of licensing legislation.) To the extent that the equivalent of the perverted notion of the need-based right to medical care prevails at this auction and the individual is relieved of financial responsibility by virtue of being able to charge his bids to a collective, there is simply nothing present to stop the rise in the bidding. No matter how high prices go, people still assert their alleged right to the item and go on meeting or exceeding ever higher bids, in the knowledge that their bid will be paid for by their collective. If this is an auction market for medical services, they go on bidding in the knowledge that their bids will be paid for by their insurance company or by the government. The only people who are eliminated from the bidding are those who lack medical insurance or the medical coverage of some government program. The rise in prices only stops if there are enough uninsured bidders who can be made to drop out of the bidding so that, for the moment at least, the insured ones can be satisfied. … Understanding these facts, incidentally, should make clear why the Clinton administration’s current proposal to force employers to provide medical insurance for the 37 million Americans who remain uninsured, leaves absolutely no alternative but price controls and rationing as the means of controlling costs. This is because if virtually everyone is now to have the need-based right to medical care and have his bills sent to the collective for payment, there will be absolutely no limit to the bidding and the rise in prices unless the government restricts the medical care he is allowed to have and determines the price that is to be paid for it. Try to imagine, for example, a situation in which there are 100 units of a supply available and 137 bidders, each of whom would like to have one unit of that supply and is in a position to send the bill for his bid to the government. The rise in cost to the government can only be controlled if the government imposes some kind of limitation on the amount anyone is allowed to bid for in this manner, such as 100/137 of a unit of the supply, and refuses to allow anyone to attempt to buy more by raising his bid even with his own money, because that too would increase the cost to the government.

2. The potential for a practically limitless increase in the quantity of medical care demanded

The notion of the need-based right to medical care and the collectivization of medical costs to finance it create the potential for a practically limitless increase in the quantity of medical care demanded. When visits to doctor’s offices are made free or almost free, the frequency of such visits increases. More importantly, physicians quickly come to realize that there is little or no financial cost to the patient as the result of the course of treatment they prescribe. The result is an enormous increase in the volume of medical tests, hospitalizations and the length of hospital stays, and of surgeries and other medical procedures. Usually, there is some genuine value to be gained from these things. They represent additional precautions or are objectively desirable in some other way. It is just that there is no longer any consideration of the costs involved. The situation is comparable to individuals who need to buy some kind of automobile, say, being relieved of the responsibility of having to pay for it, and so being placed in a position in which the automobile they choose is a very expensive top-of-the-line model. In such conditions, the patient does gain something additional, and so do the medical providers, who are placed, in effect, in the happy position of automobile salesmen dealing with customers for whom the sky is the limit. In such circumstances, the potential for medical cost increases is truly stupendous. It has no fixed limit. For example, there are some 2,000 different possible tests of a patient’s blood that can be performed without harm to the patient and from which useful information can be derived. If each of these tests had a cost of just $1, the total cost, if all 2,000 tests were applied to everyone in the United States, would be more than $250 billion per year. Under the system that has prevailed since World War II, it is only a question of time before such cost increases actually take place, unless they are deliberately prevented by outside action. There is nothing in the system itself to stop them, and everything to encourage them.

4. Perverting technological progress into a source of higher costs rather than lower costs

The notion of the need-based right to medical care and the collectivization of medical costs to finance it are responsible for the perverse effects caused by new technology in the field of medicine. In virtually every other field – automobiles, computers, farming, whatever – improvements in technology represent a combination of higher quality and lower real cost. Thanks to improvements in technology, we now obtain far better goods than we used to and have to devote much less of our working time to being able to earn the money to buy any of them. Today, for example, thanks to improvements in technology, the average worker works perhaps forty hours a week and is able to buy with the wages he earns the array of goods that quantitatively and qualitatively constitutes today’s average standard of living. A few generations ago, the average worker worked sixty hours a week and received much less in terms of the goods he could buy with the money he earned. Thus, calculated in terms of the amount of labor that must be expended to earn a unit of goods, the effect of improvements in technology has been progressively to reduce the price of everything. That is, because of improvements in technology, people have been able to obtain virtually everything for the expenditure of progressively fewer and fewer hours and minutes of their labor than in the past.

Medical care, in the last few decades, is the exception.

The only reason it is the exception is the existence of the notion of the need-based right to medical care and the collectivization of medical costs to finance it. If there were a notion of a need-based right to computers, say, and the collectivization of the costs individuals incurred to buy computers, then improvements in computer technology would have the same perverse effect. Then the development of every improved computer chip, hard drive, monitor or whatever would immediately be accompanied by an immense demand. Everyone who could benefit from such things would want them, in the knowledge that he could have them at little or no cost to himself, because the collective would pay.

Improvements in technology do not have such effects in the case of computers or any other good besides medical care for the simple reason that people must buy these goods with their own money. Thus they weigh the benefits against the costs. To the extent that new technologies are expensive, the initial buyers are confined to those who value them above their high price. In the case of consumers’ goods, this means both people with a relatively great, intense need or desire for the item rather than people with a relatively modest need or desire for the item, and richer people rather than poorer people. The buyers are those who have the greatest combination of need and desire and wealth and income. In the case of capital goods, the initial buyers are confined to those in a position to derive a monetary gain from the improvement that is substantial enough to justify paying its high cost.

As the item develops a market, and experience is gained in producing it, its cost of production tends to fall and its quality to improve. Competition, even the mere possibility of competition, also operates very powerfully to reduce costs and prices and improve quality. In this way, on the basis of falling prices accompanied by improving quality, the new technologies become more and more affordable and thus reach wider and wider markets. They enrich the growing number of individuals who can afford to buy them and thus “society as a whole,” which is comprised of nothing but its individual members. They certainly do not impoverish “society,” as people ignorant of economic principles frequently allege to be the case with regard to improvements in medical technology.

8. Bureaucratic interference with medicine and the rise in administrative costs

As we have seen repeatedly, the effect of the alleged need-based right to medical care and the collectivization of costs to finance it, is to make the cost of medical care rise beyond all bounds. But as the last two points of discussion indicate, sooner or later the continuous rise in medical costs encounters resistance – not from the great majority of individual citizens to whom everything still appears to be free, but from the officials of the collectives that must meet the ever rising charges. Thus, in an effort to limit the rise in costs, more and more bureaucratic controls are introduced by all the various collectives that must pay the costs. Under the controls, the insurance companies and the government agencies administering the Medicare and Medicaid programs must be kept advised of every step of the treatment of each of the patients insured or covered by them. A mountain of paperwork develops. The filing of all the various bureaucratic forms is inevitably accompanied by frequent haggling back and forth on a case by case basis between physicians and hospitals, on the one side, and the insurance companies and federal and state governments, on the other. The inevitable further result is another major source of higher medical costs, namely, a sharp rise in administrative costs. While the rise in administrative costs is less than the altogether boundless rise in costs that would otherwise take place, it is nonetheless very substantial in its own right, and represents a further loss to the general public that must be charged to the perverted notion of the need-based right to medical care. (A rather seamy, related aspect of the collectives’ attempt to control costs is the apparent practice of some private insurance companies of “losing” many of the insurance claims submitted to them or of suddenly finding the need for additional, often irrelevant information. These are ruses designed to postpone payment and thus reduce the pressure of cost increases outstripping rate increases. This, of course, adds further to administrative costs by making the physicians, hospitals, and clinics who are claimants, go to the trouble of repeatedly refiling or amending their claims.)

In addition to everything that can be traced specifically to the perversion of the right to medical care, there is the impact on the cost of medical care of government regulation in general. Alleged safety regulations, environmental regulations, labor regulations, and so on all add more or less substantially to the cost of medical care, just as to the cost of everything else. Probably, they have added more to the cost of medical care than to the cost of most other things, because of the lack of buyer resistance that the perverted notion of the need-based right to medical care engenders in the field. For example, the resistance to the employment of unnecessary workers in connection with union featherbedding practices is certain to be less in hospitals to the extent that the hospitals know they can pass the extra cost on to the insurance companies or to the government.
Thus, in all of these ways, the perverted notion of the need-based right to medical care, that is, an alleged right to medical care with or without the consent of those who are to pay for it or provide it – that is, an alleged right to medical care as entailing a right to steal and enslave – has progressively raised the cost of medical care. It and it alone is responsible for the crisis of the ever rising cost of medical care. At the same time, as the corollary of its destructiveness, this perverted notion of the right to medical care has systematically undermined the actual, rational right to medical care. This cannot be stressed too strongly. In each and every instance in which it has raised the cost of medical care, as explained under the eight points I have listed, it has represented a case in which individuals who could have afforded to buy medical care from willing providers have been prevented from doing so by the initiation of physical force. In other words, therefore, it is the government’s violation of the actual, rational right to medical care that is equally responsible for the crisis in medical care.

In view of all this, it is difficult to decide which is the more astonishing: the utter ignorance of all of the above facts Mrs. Clinton revealed in her declaration that “On psychological as well as economic grounds, some form of discipline [i.e., price controls] in a marketplace that, frankly, has had none, seems to us a feature that needs to be there as a backup,” or the fact that Mrs. Clinton has somehow managed to acquire the reputation of being an expert on the subject she has been spending so much time speaking about lately. It should be obvious to anyone who can understand even the barest essentials of economic theory, that the cause of the crisis in medical costs is precisely the philosophy of collectivism and government interference Mrs. Clinton advocates and now wants to extend further. (Mrs. Clinton’s statement appeared in the Orange County Register, Oct. 10, 1993, p. 2.)

He also proposes solutions:

The actual solution to the problem of runaway medical costs lies in the precise opposite of the direction chosen by the Clinton plan. It is not the final destruction of the individual’s rational right to medical care, which is what the Clinton plan would achieve, but the restoration and full implementation of that right – that is, the removal of all government interference that stands between buyers and sellers of medical care or in any way causes medical care to be more expensive than it otherwise would be.
In economic terms, the solution is the establishment of a market in medical care that is open to all comers and is dominated by buyers and sellers operating with their own money when acting in their individual self-interest. On the one hand, in such a market – provided that it is free from government interference – the cost of medical care is as low as the prevailing supply of human talent and state of capital accumulation, technology, and competition make it possible to be, and is headed still lower by virtue of further capital accumulation, technological progress, and competition. On the other hand, however, medical care always still has a cost, and the need to take into account costs that come out of one’s own pocket automatically eliminates wasteful, uneconomic medical care.

Thus, insofar as the market is free, individuals prepare themselves for and enter those particular occupations and industries in which, other things being equal, they can earn the most. In this way, the supply of human talent flows to where the buyers need and want it the most, as demonstrated by their willingness to pay for it the most. If all branches of the market are legally open to all comers, no field in which wages or profits are higher is deprived of talent by virtue of the necessary talent being confined to other fields where wages or profits are lower. Thus, in the case of medical care, everyone tends to enter the field if his talents are more valued in the provision of medical care than in the provision of other services he is capable of rendering. In other words, medical care attracts all the talent it is capable of attracting short of the point of asking individuals to give up more remunerative uses for their abilities in other occupations. This is true both of medical care in general and each of its specific occupations, from nurse’s aide to brain surgeon.

As a further matter of economic principle, the same freedom of occupation that enables each individual to maximize his income, simultaneously serves to minimize the price of all services requiring relatively scarce talents. This is precisely because of the presence in such occupations of the largest possible number of those capable of performing them consistent with their own self-interest. Thus, under the freedom of occupation, the prices of the relatively scarce special talents that are necessary to provide medical care would be as low as they could reasonably be rendered. For example, individuals who are presently compelled to remain as pharmacists but who have the ability to be physicians, would be attracted by the higher income of physicians and become physicians. The effect of the larger supply of physicians would be to reduce the fees of physicians.
As I have indicated, all this is in sharpest contrast to the conditions that exist under medical licensing. Under those conditions, a more or less considerable portion of the relatively scarce talents required to provide medical care is forcibly denied entry into the field and made to work at lower incomes in other lines. By the same token, the prices of medical services and the incomes derived from their rendition are kept artificially high. For example, the pharmacist with the ability to be a physician is forced to remain as a lower-paid pharmacist, with the result that the fees and incomes of physicians are kept artificially high.

I highly recommend it, especially for people who are struggling to understand why libertarians are opposing government provisioning of health. We’re not meanies. We’re not blinded by ideology.

We’ve seen this before and know it’s not going to end well.

Enrollment in U.S. higher education, by institution type: 1967–97

Until 1960 or so, the percentage of people getting college degrees was relatively low. There was plenty of work for people who had ‘merely’ graduated from high school, and a high school graduate could support a family.

Then came the Vietnam War, where the United States government would happily enslave high-school graduates, but not students in college. The number of students entering college zoomed upward, and the number of colleges proliferated.

But the war ended in the early 1970’s, and the U.S. government stopped enslaving young men, although it does reserve the capability to start doing so at any time.

Yet, despite this pressure, the number of people entering college continued to increase. Why? Quite simply because it started to become difficult for a high school graduate to find a job. An increasing number of companies started demanding a college degree for jobs that clearly don’t require anything more than the education that could be acquired at a half-way decent high school.

Why would employers do this? What could prompt such a strange change? As usual, dig down into the matter, and the answer becomes clear.  In a paper posted at the John William Pope Canter for Higher Education, Bryan O’Keefe and Richard Vedder argue that the reduced employment opportunities for high-school graduates and the resulting rise of the higher education bubble is an unintended consequence of the 1964 Civil Right Act, namely this part of Section VII:

It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer –

(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or

(2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

At the time this law was passed employers routinely classified prospective employees via pre-employment testing.  This testing was used to determine things like knowledge, technical aptitude, personality compatibility and, yes, the race of applicants.  At the time the law was being debated, its opponents raised the objection that this law could outlaw non-racist testing alongside racist testing.  To which the proponents of the bill replied:

There is no requirement in Title VII that employers abandon bona fide qualification tests where, because of differences in background and educations, members of some groups are able to perform better on these tests than members of other groups.  An employer may set his qualification as high as he likes, he may test to determine which applicants have these qualifications, and he may hire, assign, and promote on the basis of test performance.

Of course, like Madison’s claims that the Federal Government would obviously be limited to the powers described in Section 8 of Article I of the U.S. Constitution, these legislators claims did not survive actual contact with the courts.  In the case Griggs v. Duke Power, the U.S. Supreme Court described what criteria can be used for pre-employment testing:

• A test where members of one race performed more poorly than members of another race – demonstrating a “disparate” performance – was assumed to be discriminatory with respect to race, even if that was not the intention of the test.
• Tests with disparate results are illegal unless the test has a direct business necessity.

Since, most businesses weren’t interested in wasting money on tests that were not necessary to screening out unfit employees or identifying the most fit employees, they were stunned.  The Supreme Court had a very complicated definition of what constituted “Direct Business Necessity”, one that was difficult to meet and gave considerable deference to the employee of the Equal Opportunity Commission who was deciding whether or not to accuse a company of illegal discrimination.  Only the simplest tests, such as requiring a prospective driver to pass a driving test could reasonably pass muster.  Other tests, which businessmen clearly felt were useful to reducing the risk of hiring the wrong person for the job,  now could get them sued.

Companies began casting about for a way to screen out the-incompetent or unfit in a way that would not result in them being sued.  The simplest solution is to demand a college degree.  Any racial discrimination demonstrated in the pool of degreed people would be the colleges’ liability, and the business could get on with the business of hiring new employees without being worried about lawsuits.

It has taken thirty years for this unfortunate unintended consequence to play out;

• People entering the workforce have been kept idle for four years unnecessarily.
• People entering the workforce are saddled with debts that are difficult to pay off.
• Colleges have gotten away with lowering educational standards because their graduates are in such high demand.

When summed across the millions of people who have entered the workforce in the last two decades, the economic costs imposed by this well-intended but horrendously misguided effort are staggering.  They include

• Almost 100 million man-years’ lost productivity.
• An additional 10 million man-years spent paying off college loans
• Increased pressure on children to engage in organized activities designed to win the child a scholarship at the expense of their personal development.

Had the proponents of the Civil Rights Act limited their aim at racial discrimination by the government, they would have been crafting a very socially beneficial law.  But by seeking to use the law to force people not to racially discriminate, they wreaked massive damage on the economy.  Ironically, this damage disproportionately affects minorities who are far more likely to be at the mercy of awful government schools than other ethnic/racial groups.

THIS BOOK IS BASED on a single idea: You should be allowed to do whatever you want with your own person and property, as long as you don’t physically harm the person or property of a nonconsenting other.

Thus begins a book that everyone interested in politics should read; Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Country by Peter McWilliams.  Published in 1998, it is a damning survey of how the United States had become a state composed of “clergymen with billy-clubs”.  It analyzes the consequences of punishing so-called victimless crimes from numerous viewpoints, demonstrating that regardless of what you think is the most important organizing principle or purpose of society the investigation, prosecution and punishment of these non-crimes is harmful to society.

This remarkable book is now posted online, and if one can bear to wade through the awful website design, one will find lots of thought-provoking worthwhile commentary, analysis, theory and history.

His final chapter, on how to change the system, while consisting mainly of pie-in-the-sky, ineffective suggestions of working within the system, starts of with an extremely good bit of advice that I urge all our readers to try:

The single most effective form of change is one-on-one interaction with the people you come into contact with day-by-day. The next time someone condemns a consensual activity in your presence, you can ask the simple question, “Well, isn’t that their own business?” Asking this, of course, may be like hitting a beehive with a baseball bat, and it may seem—after the commotion (and emotion) has died down—that attitudes have not changed. If, however, a beehive is hit often enough, the bees move somewhere else. Of course, you don’t have to hit the same hive every time. If all the people who agree that the laws against consensual crimes should be repealed post haste would go around whacking (or at least firmly tapping) every beehive that presented itself, the bees would buzz less often.

I highly recommend this book.  Even though I have some pretty fundamental disagreements with some of his proposals, I think that this book is a fine addition to the bookshelf of any advocate of freedom and civilization.

Hat Tip: J.D. Tuccille of Disloyal Opposition.

She is being called Neda. The person who uploaded the video to Youtube claims that he was nearly half a mile away from the demonstrations when a sharpshooter shot a teenage girl standing nearby with her father. Within a few seconds, she was dead, her eyes turn to the camera before being obscured by the pools blood that pour out of her mouth and nose.

A student at Kent State University gunned down by U.S. government troops.

Many people are arguing that this is the sort of thing that democracy is supposed to prevent. Of course, democracies also shoot people opposed to the government’s policies.

Why? because government, at its heart, is an organization that uses force to get its way. It is incapable of limiting its violence to socially beneficial causes like apprehending murderers. At some point, it points a gun at a group of people and demands they submit, and anyone who refuses gets a bullet.

This is government. Over there or over here, it is the same; the few exploit the many, and they are ready to use beatings, kidnappings and murder to get their way.

So who are the real terrorists?

I rise in reluctant opposition to H Res 560, which condemns the Iranian government for its recent actions during the unrest in that country. While I never condone violence, much less the violence that governments are only too willing to mete out to their own citizens, I am always very cautious about “condemning” the actions of governments overseas. As an elected member of the United States House of Representatives, I have always questioned our constitutional authority to sit in judgment of the actions of foreign governments of which we are not representatives. I have always hesitated when my colleagues rush to pronounce final judgment on events thousands of miles away about which we know very little. And we know very little beyond limited press reports about what is happening in Iran.

I applaud Ron Paul for taking his usual principled stand. Our Congress does not need to be spending their time issuing Resolutions toothless moralistic statements about America, much less other countries. Even if I were to retreat from my cautious anarchist tendencies and accept that Congress actually deserves real responsibilities, that responsibility is to legislate, not preach.

But a part of those anarchist tendencies is Heinlein’s rational anarchy. All actions are ultimately morally within the hands of individuals. Immaterial of laws or society, it is the individual who is morally responsible for acting rightly or wrongly.

So I don’t ask Congress to speak on Iran. Taking a chance to personalize H Res 560, let me do it myself:

Resolved, That Brad Warbiany –

1. expresses his support for all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law;
2. condemns the ongoing violence against demonstrators by the Government of Iran and pro-government militias, as well as the ongoing government suppression of independent electronic communication through interference with the Internet and cellphones; and
3. affirms the universality of individual rights and considers any government which infringes upon those individual rights to be illegitimate.

Iran is at a very important point. In a mere matter of hours, this may come to a head. The mullahs have signaled that they will resort to violence with a call that any who continue protesting “will be held responsible for the consequences and chaos.” Many people in Iran have said that they’re going to protest anyway.

As I write this in California, it is 10:15 AM in Iran. Much will happen in the next few hours. To those Iranians who are not sure what will happen next, I can only wish you safety and success. I’m not sure you’ll have the former, but if you don’t I at least hope you achieve the latter.

During oral arguments, the government’s attorney revealed that campaign finance law as currently written could be interpreted to restrict not only documentaries such as “Hillary” but any other political speech “broadcast” during a campaign. A banned “broadcast” could include a store advertising the sale of candidate dolls, toys, or action figures. Even if the advertisement makes no direct endorsements nor advocates the defeat of a candidate, the mere mention of a candidate’s name or likeness would violate current election law.

But surely books would be safe…right?

Not if the book is “broadcast” on a device such as a Kindle, says the government’s attorney. While the FEC believes “dead tree editions” are currently safe from FEC regulation, former Chief of Staff and Council of the FEC Allison Hayward, says that such regulations could be imposed if congress brought such an interpretation into the law.

In the very beginning of the video below, Steve Simpson, Senior Attorney for the Institute for Justice says something which bears repeating here because he captures exactly the First Amendment problems found in current campaign finance law:

“The problem is not too much money in politics; the problem is too much power in government. Government regulates everything and of course, people want to affect the course of the government. So the campaign finance reformers ultimately what they want to prevent is that. It’s the ability to affect the course of our government; it’s the ability to affect which way people vote. That’s the dirty little secret of campaign finance law. They don’t just want to control money, they want to control speech.”

I would like to believe that free speech will ultimately prevail in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, but given SCOTUS’s history, ruling on the side of the Constitution is by no means sure thing. I also can’t help but wonder how an Obama appointed Justice would rule if this case was before him or her. Which side would receive the most “empathy,” the federal government or a private organization or individual citizen? We already know that such a judge would not be considering “abstract legal theories” such as entailed in the First Amendment.

However, some of the well-meaning arguments used by the left regarding hate crime legislation make no sense to me, either.  Most of my progressive friends are fairly bright people — and they are certainly smart enough to know that they probably won’t control Congress and the White House forever.  It seems that the progressive movement is promoting a slippery-slope issue which will ultimately be used to target the left side of the aisle should the social conservatives ever take over.

When the Department of Homeland Security report branding of most people on the right as potential terrorist threats was made public, I had a difficult time being sympathetic to those who applauded President Bush’s egregious abuse of executive power and blatant disregard for civil liberties.  Now that the worm has turned on them, a lot of conservatives are once again concerned about more than one of the first ten amendments to the Constitution.  Their problem is similar to the same general slippery-slope the left is currently creating with the hate crime legislation soon to hit the Senate floor.

“Personal bias in officers or prosecution is absolutely indicative of what’s going to happen sometimes,” said Judy Shepard, the mother of Matthew Shepard, on The Rachel Maddow Show the other night. “Not always, but sometimes.”

While it isn’t the point that Ms. Shepard was trying to make, she brings up a very valid topic.  Personal and political bias will happen as a matter of public policy should extreme social conservatives manage to gain political control. Imagine a President Mike Huckabee, Vice President Rick Santorum, Attorney General John Yoo, and Senator Ralph Reed.

If you don’t think social conservatives will do everything they can to define those in opposition to their agenda as hate-mongers, think again.  They already call folks opposed to the Iraq War or the Patriot Act part of the “Hate America” crowd.  With control of Congress and the White House, it would be easy to expand the definition of hate crime to suit their purposes.

Next, imagine that some gay guy murders some straight person. While he admitted some dislike for straight people in his confession, there is still doubt in the minds of some intelligent and reasonable people about his true intent.  What is established is that the police found evidence that the suspect had participated in local Pride parades and his personal library contains works by Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Oscar Wilde and Gore Vidal.

If you don’t think social conservatives would use ownership of books like these as evidence, think again.  If you don’t think the right is capable of stretching a legal definition to suit their own purposes, I’ll suggest that you go ask John Yoo about his definition of torture.

If the intent of the left is to provide some level of federal oversight to crimes ignored at the local level, please do the right thing and amend the Constitution if you don’t feel that the 14th Amendment provides enough protection in these sorts of cases.

By creating and now expanding hate crime laws, the left is unwittedly drawing the papers with which they’ll later be prosecuted.

It’s being reported that the Maryland National Guard issued an alert to be on the lookout for numerous entities which “have formed recently to express displeasure/anger over recent federal/state government actions: more taxes, increased spending, higher deficits, a surge of borrowing to pay for it all, bailout of the financial institutions.”

“This movement can be identified by different variations of “TEA Party” or “Tea Party.” Past “TEA Party” events have been peaceful. There was a “Tea party” event at Solomons, Maryland, on March 22, 2009. “TEA” stands for “Taxed Enough Already,”the report continues.

Following the Missouri Information Analysis Center report and the one issued by the Department of Homeland Security, this is beginning to look like a most disturbing trend.

Alabama

The following blog comment (from a source I personally know) illustrates that the Birmingham/Shelby County Tea Party stuck to their activist guns:

The highlight of the event in Birmingham was Beth Chapman, our Secretary of State.

Unbeknowst to most people, she showed up unannounced at the back of the stage and demanded to speak. Apparently she wasn’t there when I announced that no elected officials would be speaking and that at this rally politicians would listen to we the people.

As a matter of fact, she wasn’t there when the Rainy Day Patriots (25 in number) stood on 280 in the middle of a tornado warning with their protest signs. She wasn’t there during our organizational meetings. She wasn’t there during setup of the event. And she certainly wasn’t there during cleanup.

Needless to say, she wasn’t a very happy camper when she was told “NO”. I guess politicians are not used to being told no because she lingered for another 30 minutes quibling for a speaking spot.

It was a great day in Alabama when a group of citizens can grow their numbers from 25 to 7000 in a couple of weeks and tell our politicians “NO!”

Chapman is Alabama’s Republican Secretary of State. Commenter Marcelo Munoz is a local Campaign for Liberty organizer.

Release Date: April 15, 2009

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
Contact: 202-282-8010

The primary mission of this department is to prevent terrorist attacks on our nation. The document on right-wing extremism sent last week by this department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis is one in an ongoing series of assessments to provide situational awareness to state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies on the phenomenon and trends of violent radicalization in the United States. I was briefed on the general topic, which is one that struck a nerve as someone personally involved in the Timothy McVeigh prosecution.

Let me be very clear: we monitor the risks of violent extremism taking root here in the United States. We don’t have the luxury of focusing our efforts on one group; we must protect the country from terrorism whether foreign or homegrown, and regardless of the ideology that motivates its violence.

We are on the lookout for criminal and terrorist activity but we do not – nor will we ever – monitor ideology or political beliefs. We take seriously our responsibility to protect the civil rights and liberties of the American people, including subjecting our activities to rigorous oversight from numerous internal and external sources.

I am aware of the letter from American Legion National Commander Rehbein, and my staff has already contacted him to set up a meeting next week once I return from travel. I will tell him face-to-face that we honor veterans at DHS and employ thousands across the department, up to and including the Deputy Secretary.

As the department responsible for protecting the homeland, DHS will continue to work with its state and local partners to prevent and protect against the potential threat to the United States associated with any rise in violent extremist activity.

I’ll leave it to others to comment more fully, but I will say that it’s worth remembering that Timothy McVeigh got his start with the so-called militia movement, and he ended up killing hundreds of people.

H/T: Little Green Footballs

According to this new Homeland Security report, all it takes to fit the terrorist profile is to have general anti-government feelings or prefer local/state government to federal control over everything.

The federal Homeland Security Department document entitled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Environment Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” contains the following definition:

Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely.  It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.

Also targeted in the report are veterans, folks anticipating additional restrictions to their Second Amendment rights, and those concerned about the loss of U.S. sovereignty.

This report implies that one harboring these sorts of views is a racist as well as a potential terrorism suspect.

Michelle Malkin has followed through and verified that the Department of Homeland Security takes credit for the report:

The “report” was one of the most embarrassingly shoddy pieces of propaganda I’d ever read out of DHS. I couldn’t believe it was real.

I spent the day chasing down DHS spokespeople, who have been tied up preparing for a very important homeland security event later today: The First Lady is coming to visit their Washington office. Priorities, you know.

Well, the press office got back to me and verified that the document is indeed for real.

They were very defensive — preemptively so — in asserting that it was not a politicized document and that DHS had done reports on “leftwing extremism” in the past.

As Malkin suggests in her posting, it’s time to make a few last minute signs for April 15th Tea Parties.

UPDATE: The White House responds:

The White House has distanced itself from the analysis. When asked for comment on its contents, White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said, “The President is focused not on politics but rather taking the steps necessary to protect all Americans from the threat of violence and terrorism regardless of its origins. He also believes those who serve represent the best of this country, and he will continue to ensure that our veterans receive the respect and benefits they have earned.”

Maybe I don’t quite understand how tenure is supposed to work, but this idea that someone is entitled to a job regardless of how his or her actions damage the reputation of his or her employer (CU in this case) is asinine. Ward Churchill’s firing is not a First Amendment issue but a freedom of association issue (in this case, CU decided to discontinue its association with the professor).

The First Amendment protects speech from government reprisals. I suppose one could argue that Churchill’s employer was the State of Colorado (a wonderful example for why all higher learning institutions should be privately owned, operated, and funded) and therefore, was a government reprisal.

Local Denver attorneys and talk show hosts Dan Caplis and Craig Silverman point out that Churchill took an oath pursuant to Colorado State law to uphold the U.S. Constitution. From their legal point-of-view, Churchill violated this oath when he encouraged students (on multiple occasions) to commit acts of violence against private and government institutions as well as private citizens. How can Churchill take an oath to a constitution he finds illegal and immoral, violate that oath, and still have legal grounds to remain employed by the State?

Beyond this, university speech codes, politically correct as they are, how is it possible to say that one professor could be legitimately fired for violating the prevailing P.C. orthodoxy while Churchill is entitled to a job despite praising the OKC bombing and the 9/11 terrorist attacks? Caplis, on his radio show, pointed out that if Churchill had said, for example, that female students on the CU campus deserved to be raped; his career would be over (and rightfully so). Few would be claiming his First Amendment rights were being violated by CU if these were his words.

Ward Churchill may not deserve to be prosecuted for his hateful speech but he doesn’t have the “right” to teach at CU either.

To Mr. Churchill I would just like to say the following:

Congratulations on your $1 civil rights victory (which you do not deserve); don’t spend it all in one place…asshole!

H/T: Crystal Clear Conservative

- You supported Ron Paul or 3rd party candidates such as Chuck Baldwin or Bob Barr in the 2008 election (Guilty!)

- You have “anti-government,” Campaign for Liberty, Gadsden Flag, and “libertarian” bumper stickers on his or her vehicle or possess other related literature (Guilty!)

-Anyone involved in The Campaign for Liberty (I’m sure that anyone associated with the Tea Parties or those in the “Going Galt” movement should also be considered a threat)

-People who frequently visit or participate in libertarian related blogs, discussion boards, or websites (Guilty!)

-Those who write about or talk about the coming economic collapse of the U.S. (Guilty!)

Basically, anyone who distrusts the state on any level could be profiled as a potential militia member, domestic terrorist, or enemy of the state.

I first learned of this report from the video clip below (Glenn Beck with Penn Jillete as his guest).

So what does Chuck Baldwin, Bob Barr, and Ron Paul think about being associated with domestic terrorism?

Chuck Baldwin’s response:

Can you imagine the fallout of this preposterous report had the names Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Maxine Waters been used instead of the names Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr?

Accordingly, Ron Paul, Bob Barr, and I wrote a formal letter to the above-named Missouri officials demanding “that the following-described document be immediately removed from any and all websites associated with or maintained by the state of Missouri or any agency thereof, including the MIAC; that the said document no longer be circulated by the state of Missouri or any agency thereof or associated therewith; and that the state of Missouri repudiate its references to the three of us contained therein.”

Bob Barr seems to be content with the response he co-wrote with Baldwin and Paul, at least for now (I haven’t found any response so far from Barr other than the aforementioned letter)

Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty, however; is not taking this laying down and is circulating a Citizen’s Petition for Redress of Grievance

Both Ron Paul and Campaign for Liberty champion principles of freedom, peace, and prosperity. We believe that the Founder’s vision for America can be reclaimed through education and peaceful activism.

Simply supporting the Constitution does not make you worthy of a watch list; it makes you a Patriot.

I find it interesting that some (mostly Democrats) who when Bush was president said that dissent was patriotic now get nervous when anyone dares to question the policies of “The Messiah” a.k.a. “The Chosen One” a.k.a. President Obama. To be against this enlightened being is to commit heresy and obviously should be considered a wild-eyed, dangerous enemy of the state.

Well, believe it or not, not everyone believes that the direction Obama and the Democrat controlled federal government are in the best interest of those who value the rights of life, liberty, and property. The State has become an enemy to these very basic human rights.

Does this make me an enemy of the state? Well, I certainly wouldn’t describe myself as a “friend of the state.”

To those of you who have my name on a watch list and reading this, you can take that statement however you like.

Don’t Tread on Me!