“I mean, say what you like about the tenets of the Republican party, Dude, at least it’s an ethos…”

Apologies to Joel and Ethan Coen…

There has been a recent meme circulated by the leftosphere, that the Republicans… in fact any opponent of the Obama agenda… are nihilists.

Now, I have to say, I don’t think most of the people promoting this idea even know what a nihilist is (and if they did, many of them would realize THEY are the ones that come close to fitting that bill), never mind that current republican ideology is nihilist. Current republican ideology is empty, obstructionist, and reactionary; but that’s not actually nihilism… or even close to it.

A few days ago, a person whose intellect I generally respect, John Scalzi, randomly tossed off a comment calling Republicans (and Obama oppositionists) Nihilists.

Well.. at least John knows what a nihilist is… which is why I was disappointed in his statement… because as far as I’m concerned that analysis is just lazy.

Then a few days later, as part of his commentary on the state of the union speech, he wrote this:

“As for the Republicans, a recent reader was distressed when I said they were “hopped-up ignorant nihilists,” but you know what, when your Senate operating strategy is “filibuster everything and let Fox News do the rest,” and the party as a whole gives it a thumbs up, guess what, you’re goddamned nihilists. There’s no actual political strategy in GOP anymore other than taking joy in defeating the Democrats. I don’t have a problem with them enjoying such a thing, but it’s not a real political philosophy, or at least shouldn’t be.”

Ok… not much of the core of the analysis there I can disagree with… but again, it isn’t nihilism.

Today however he posted a link to further explain the position he was trying to express in shorthand by calling the Republicans nihilist.

Again, there’s nothing I can really disagree with in this analysis:

[N]othing could be worse for the GOP than the illusion of success under present circumstances. Worse than learning nothing from the last two elections, the GOP has learned the wrong things… Not recognizing their past errors, the GOP will make them again and again in the future, and they will attempt to cover these mistakes with temporary, tactical solutions that simply put off the consequences of their terrible decisions until someone else is in office. They will then exploit the situation as much as they possibly can, pinning the blame for their errors on their hapless inheritors and hoping that the latter are so pitiful that they retreat into yet another defensive crouch.

Is the GOP in a worse position than a year ago? On the surface, no, it isn’t. Once we get past the surface, however, the same stagnant, intellectually bankrupt, unimaginative party that brought our country to its current predicament is still there and has not changed in any meaningful way in the last three years.

The best thing though, is the source of that quote: The American Conservative

Thus showing, once again, for those who don’t already know; that Republican does not necessarily mean conservative or libertarian, nor does conservative necessarily mean Republican.

Oh and continuing in that vein, conservative doesn’t necessarily mean religious either; nor does religious always mean conservative (especially if you’re Catholic).

I am neither a Republican, nor a conservative; but I DO register as a Republican because my state has closed primaries, and I like to vote against John McCain and Joe Arpaio.

I am a minarchist, which is a school of libertarianism that pretty much says “hey, leave me alone as much as is practical, and I’ll do the same for you, thanks”.

I’m well educated (perhaps overeducated), high earning, catholic, married with two kids, and a veteran. I was raised in the northeast but choose to live in the Rocky Mountain west, because I prefer the greater degree of freedom and lower levels of government (and other busybodies) interference.

I don’t care who you have sex with or what you shove up your nose, down your throat, or into your lungs so long as I don’t have to pay for it, or the eventual medical bills you rack up.

I KNOW from direct personal experience we need a strong national defense, but that freedom and liberty (which are two different things) are rather a LOT more important than internal security.

I have no faith in the government not to do with… really anything other than defense… exactly what they did with Social Security, or AFDC, or any number of other programs that they have horribly screwed up, wasting trillions of dollars in the process.

Yes, there is great benefit to some of those programs at some times (and I was on welfare and foodstamps as a child, I know directly this is true); but the government couldn’t make a profit running a whorehouse, how can they be expected to run healthcare, or education, or anything else for that matter.

Oh and for those of you who believe that government really can do good, without a corresponding and greater bad… I’m sorry, you’re wrong.

It’s a sweet ideal, but it just isn’t true. Good intentions don’t mean good results, unless combined with competence, efficiency, passion, compassion… HUMANITY in general; and the government is not a humanitarian organization.

Governments are good at exactly two thing: Stealing and Killing. Yes, they are capable of doing other things, but everything they do proceeds from theft, coercion, force… stealing and killing.

That doesn’t mean that good can’t come out of it; but everything the government does has an associated harm that goes with it. Sometimes that’s worth it, sometimes it isn’t and it’s DAMN hard to figure that out. Who gets to decide? You? Your friends?

Do you have the right to tell me what to do, how to live my life? Do I have the right to tell YOU how to live YOUR life?

So why is it ok if you get a few million of your friends, and I get a few million of my friends, and just because you have more friends than I do you get to tell all of us how to live and what to do?

Sorry but, HELL NO.

I want the same things you want. I want people to be happy, and healthy, and have great opportunities… But the government doesn’t have the right to steal from me to help you do it; anymore than you would have the right to hold a gun to my head and take the money from me personally.

Actually, the government doesn’t have any rights whatsoever. The PEOPLE have rights, the exercise of which we can delegate to the government.

It absolutely amazes me that both liberals and conservatives understand that the government isn’t to be trusted; they just believe it’s not to be trusted over different things:

Liberals trust the government with your money, education, and healthcare; but don’t want them to interfere with your sex life, or chemical recreation.

Conservatives on the other hand are just fine with the government making moral, sexual, ethical, and pharmaceutical choices for you; but don’t trust it with your education, healthcare etc…

Well, I don’t trust them with ANYTHING except defense (which they also screw up mightily, but which is at least appropriate to the coercive and destructive nature of government).

It’s axiomatic that the intelligence of any committee is equal to that of the least intelligent member, divided by the total number of members.

There are 435 members of the house of representatives, 100 senators, 21 members of the cabinet, 9 supreme court justices, a vice president, and a president; for a total committee size of 567.

Now, if we’re charitable and say they’re all geniuses with IQs above 140 (don’t hurt yourself laughing), that’s an overall government IQ of .25

Why on earth would you want THAT spending your money, or making any decisions for you whatsoever?

Now… Given that thumbnail philosophy, who am I supposed to vote for?

I certainly can’t vote Democratic; they want to take all my money and either give it to other people, or use it to force me (and everyone else) to behave as THEY decide.

On the other hand, I can’t much vote for Republicans, because they still want to give my money to other people (just mostly different other people than democrats), and use my money to force me (and everyone else) to behave as they decide…. They just want to take a little less of it.

And I really can’t vote for Libertarians, because they are profoundly unserious and incapable of effecting any real political change. I want to vote for someone who will PREVENT the worst abuses of government, and sadly, voting libertarian has no hope of accomplishing that goal.

I end up voting for whoever, or whatever, I hope or believe will reduce those undesirable characteristics of theft and coercion inherent to government.

Often that means voting Republican, but that shouldn’t be taken as an indication of my support for Republicans.

So tell me, is that nihilism? I don’t think so. I think it’s playing defense, which isn’t a winning strategy; but it’s not nihilism.

Nihilism would be standing by the sidelines say “there’s no point in playing, you’re all going to lose anyway”… which coincidentally is the position of a lot of Libertarians.

It’s the latest meme. The U.S. is ungovernable, because of
a) Senate procedures
b) Republican obstructionism
c) polarization
d) special interests
etc.

I’ve seen it from Marc Ambinder, Steven Pearlstein, and others. I’m too lazy to copy links, but my guess is that you have seen it, too.

Well, there are two different questions here that liberals conflate inappropriately:

1) America is ungovernable.
2) Structural government issues prevent the government from getting anything done.

Yes, all the points above explain why #2 is true. But even if all that were “fixed”, #1 would be true, for the very reason Hayek states:

To act on the belief that we possess the knowledge and the power which enable us to shape the processes of society entirely to our liking, knowledge which in fact we do not possess, is likely to make us do much harm.
-Friedrich August von Hayek

To put it simply, it is impossible for a bunch of lawyers and bureaucrats in Washington DC to adequately govern — aka rule — the activities of 300 million Americans. The system — “system” meaning free actions of individuals, not meaning directed and ruled action — is so complex that the best any government can hope to do is to set very general rules making force or fraud illegal*, and set up a fair and just court system to arbitrate. Washington simply cannot integrate the information needed to make decisions at that level effectively.

To be fair, Arnold Kling reaches the same point, but he expands more fully on the idea of decentralization and the idea of federalism or competitive government as an answer. I suspect he does so because he believes competitive government will result in libertarian government — as those who earn refuse to “join” the governments of those who rely on handouts, and thus the non-libertarian governments cannot sustain their goals. This is partly true for territory-based governments (becoming more true as the territory shrinks), and undoubtedly true for non-territory-based governments.

But I find that argument** to have one major weakness. The idea of federalism and local control is largely predicated on the idea that the people in Washington aren’t very good at making decisions for me, and that by moving those decisions closer to me it’s a lot more likely that the decisions my government makes for me are effective ones. But should government make my decisions at all?

Personally, regardless of whether they make good or bad choices, I do not outsource my decision-making to the government. Even if they will make good choices, I do not want them choosing for me. This is a moral statement, and it is just as true of the government of Washington DC as of Sacramento as of Laguna Niguel, CA. It is true that I have more control over the government of Laguna Niguel than of DC, but fundamentally that doesn’t change the fact that my one vote is not determining my decision — it is weighed against the votes of others who do not have the right to decide for me.

If the US is ungovernable, so is the state of California, and so is the city of Laguna Niguel. No matter how small of a government you draw, it cannot have all the information it needs to make decisions for me. Fundamentally, decisions are the marriage of facts and values, and although any government may have access to the facts, it does not have access to my values. Therefore they do not have the information necessary to make decisions for me.

Liberals are upset that the government is structurally biased towards inaction. But action doesn’t equal governance. For something to be governable, the governing authority must have access to both the facts and the values of those it governs. Unfortunately since the latter is never possible, it substitutes its own values (dictatorship) or the average/majority values (democracy). Either is insufficient, and thus America is ungovernable.

* I will, for a moment, leave my anarchist philosophy and accept rules against force or fraud. While one would say that another’s right to swing their fist ends at my nose, one could also easily argue that if I used either force or fraud to entice another to make a decision, I am taking their ability to make a decision away. I say above that decisions are a marriage of facts and values, and if I try to deceive another about the facts of a situation, that is an immoral interference with their decision.

** I am open to the suggestion that the argument I rebut is a strawman. I tried to be fair about summarizing the federalist argument (since I used to make it myself), but there’s always the risk I’ve botched it.

This week’s column by Dr Steven Novella does not disappoint. The good doctor reviews the medical impact of modern sodium consumption and states:

As usual, the medical and regulatory communities are tasked with making sense out of chaos – with implementing bottom-line recommendations in the face of inconclusive evidence. While there remains legitimate dissent on the role of salt in vascular health, the current consensus is something like this:

• Most of the world, including Americans and those in industrialized nations, consume more salt than appears to be necessary.
• In the US most of that salt comes from processed or restaurant food (while in other countries, like Japan, most salt intake is added while cooking).
• There is a plausible connection between excess salt intake, hypertension, strokes and heart attacks.
• There is evidence to suggest that reducing overall salt intake will reduce the incidence of these health problems, but the evidence is not yet conclusive and longer term and sub-population data is needed.

Given all this it seems reasonable (from a scientific point of view – and ignoring the role of political ideology) to take steps to reduce the amount of salt in processed and restaurant food, while continuing to study the impact of such measures. But we also have to consider unintended consequences. Part of the reason salt is added to processed food is because it helps preserve it – give it a longer shelf life. People also develop a taste for salty food, and a sudden decrease in salt content may be unsatisfying, leading people to seek out higher salt foods. But these are technical problems that can be addressed.
It should also be noted that salt requirements and tolerance may vary considerably from individual to individual – based upon genetics, and certainly underlying diseases. Therefore recommendations from one’s doctor should supercede any general recommendations for the population.
In any case it seems that the War on Salt has begun. I only hope this is a war we choose to fight with science.

The last sentence left me gobsmacked. A war fought with science? Does he understand what exactly it means when a government wages war?

The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning. Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.

Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Let’s take, for example, the war on (some) drugs. 150 years ago, if I had described the government proscribing the growth of hemp, sowing poison on illicit fields in an attempt to kill marijuana smokers, sending paramilitary forces into homes with orders to shoot first and ask questions later, and setting up checkpoints where people with large amounts of cash would have it confiscated on the grounds it must be involved in this illicit trade, it would have beggared belief. Those who lobbied for its outlawing would have denied wanting to do those things, they merely wanted to protect white women from being seduced by black jazz musicians and to preserve the social order against uppity darkies.

And once the stuff was outlawed, once the law enforcement apparatus started to wage its low level guerrilla campaign, and faced resistance the government naturally escalated, flooding the media with propaganda to buttress its position, until the war became an end to itself, with otherwise sensible people saying things like “I am a fan of freedom but we must protect the citizenry against the scourge of drugs”

I am curious why the good Dr Novella thinks that a war on salt will turn out any better than the War on Gold, the War on Sucrose, the War on Opiates, the War on Miscegenation or any of the other social crusades little petit tyrants enlist the government to engage in?

Moreover, is he blind to the fact that these wars on inanimate substances and ideas are actually wars on people? It’s not the marijuana that’s getting its child’s hand shot off in a police raid, it’s a person. It’s not the marijuana who is having their life savings confiscated, it’s the retired couple who don’t trust banks. It’s not the marijuana who has his dogs shot in his home, its the hardworking mayor of a small town.

If I were to propose a War on the North Korean Government, I would imagine that Dr Novella might be a little reluctant to support it, given the large number of innocent people who would inevitably die having been propagandized into fanatically defending the state that looted and brutalized them so thoroughly.

But here, we get nary a peep of condemnation, only a pious desire to have “science” inform the strategy of the war on a common cooking ingredient, which will really be a war on people who use to much salt (according to the government) in their food preparation.

And, I should note, this war would have savage monsters like Mary Beth Buchanan deciding what was an appropriate amount of salt, just as she decided her judgment on how much pain medicine was appropriate for patients in chronic agony was better than that of the MD’s treating them, and used that rationale as justification on her war on doctors.

Dr Novella’s blindness it encoded in an assumption in the first sentence I quoted:

As usual, the medical and regulatory communities are tasked with making sense out of chaos – with implementing bottom-line recommendations in the face of inconclusive evidence.

Why are they tasked with this? Sure, doctors are asked to give advice on questions where there is no clear answer, much like any other profession. They have the power to say “I don’t know”, however. Moreover, there is nothing wrong with doctor’s giving advice. The act of making a suggestion does not actually harm anybody.

The regulatory apparatus, on the other hand, is dangerous. When it acts, people get hurt, they go to jail, they have their finances ruined. If we assume such an apparatus should exist, then we should use it only when the harm it does is worth the benefit. Otherwise, the regulatory apparatus need do nothing! Especially where there is no overwhelming evidence to justify regulation. It’s not as if salt causes an epidemic like cholera! The notion that people with vascular disease drives up health care costs requiring such regulation is laughable. Dr Novella has never, in all the essays he has authored that I am familiar with, shown much concern with the major reasons why health care costs are so high. If anything he supports the measures that are the primary drives of the high costs.

It is a shame that otherwise rational people fail to learn the lessons of history. Their blindness would not be so bothersome, if it weren’t for the fact that their hands are helping aim the guns pointed at us.

And when it comes to choosing our leaders in this country… whoooo boy have we failed big time, for a long time.

So fellow gunblogger Tam, being an Ovarian American, got a bit tweaked at a comment over at Travis Corcorans site (for those who don’t know, Travis is a somewhat radical libertarian… and for that matter so is Tam) t’other day:

“I think that female suffrage has been an unremitted disaster – all of the socialism that we’ve experienced in the US has happened since, and because women have been allowed to vote.”

Excluding snark, Tams comment boiled down to “correlation does not equal causation”; which normally I am one of the first to trumpet… but in this case there is a causative link… Or at least most major studies of voting demographics seem to show one.

The other part of her comment was that she (nor anyone) shouldn’t be denied the right to vote (which is not, in fact, a right; but a privilege as a member of society. It can be granted by society, taken away by society, and does not exist in any context without society, therefore is not a right.) because of the choices some might make.

And in that, I’m entirely with her.

But we really do need to look at why women, in the significant majority, vote for the nanny state; and on the larger scale in general, why people who vote for nannyism do so.

The three major events or major societal changes in 20th century that did more to advance the nanny government than all other events combined were:

1. World War 1
2. Womens suffrage
3. Massive expansion of university education

I note “directly” above, because indirectly the 16th and 17th amendments (income tax, and direct election of senators) may have had an even greater effect; and enabled and encouraged such nannyism… in fact the current nannystate would be impossible without them… but were not direct contributors to voting for nannyism.. In fact income taxes tend to push voting away from nannyism… at least for those who actually pay those taxes.

I’ve talked about point 1 before (along with about a hundred scholarly books, phd. dissertations etc…). By depriving most of Europe of a full generation of its healthiest, most aggressive, and most ambitious men; an environment was created that was dominated by the risk averse, and those who were hurting and suffering… and the entirety of Europe has never really recovered. Basically, the ‘14-’18 war took the guts out of the continent, and they haven’t come back, (bar a minor resurgence for the second great war… and it sadly was a minor resurgence. Just look at England).

Everyone and their uncle has looked at point 3.

Point two though… it’s one of those third rail topics. You can’t talk about it publicly or you risk being eviscerated by… well by Tam for example, never mind the lefties.

So first things first. Point two is true, by all available statistics. Historically speaking, women vote for more nannyism at about 2/3 to 1/3.

HOWEVER, just because item two is true (and some rather exhaustive demographic studies have been done showing that it is) doesn’t mean women shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

American blacks and hispanics are more likely to vote for leftists idiocy too (over 80% to 20% for blacks, hispanics are highly variable), that doesn’t mean they should be barred from voting either.

The first freedom is the freedom to fail. That includes the freedom to make bad choices; even if those bad choices effect other members of society (this is where the anarchists, Spoonerists, and Rothbardites usually jump up and down and start yelling).

The thing is this: It’s not that women, blacks, or hispanics are inherently more socialist than white males; or are less capable of making good political judgments. It’s that they perceive (I think, in general, wrongly) that their interest is better served with leftist policies.

In general, over the long term, and free of interference or distortion; people will vote their perceived interests.

The “more vulnerable” of society (which up until recently included the majority of women, blacks, and hispanics) will almost always vote for more “safety” than more freedom; because as I said above, the first freedom is freedom to fail, and they have historically been more likely to suffer under the negative consequences of failure, and therefore perceive the risk/reward metric differently than white males have historically.

Also, both the most wealthy, and most educated members of society (who believe either that the negatives impacts of leftism wont effect them greatly; or that they can benefit more from the “system” if more government control is in place, at the expense of the slightly less educated risk taking capitalists that would otherwise dominate), and the poorest and least educated members of society (who generally believe that they will not be able to succeed to a greater degree than the government would provide largess), generally, vote for more protectionism, socialism, leftism etc…

This is true even in rural “white” “bible belt” America, where protectionism, unions, government works projects and the like are seen as good business economically; even while voting for socially conservative policies and politicians.

Also, this split is by no means stable. As I said, people will tend to vote their perceived interests. Men will vote left and women will vote right, if the positions floated match their perceived interest. Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected by landslide four times. Reagan was elected by landslide twice.

The problem then is not that women, minorities, and the poor vote left, or vote for socialism necessarily.

The problem is that they perceive (generally incorrectly) that their interests, and at least to some extent the interests of society, are better served by leftism.

So the task for us, is making the large majority of the people understand that leftism, even in the soft and limited forms of it like public works projects, job protection policies, tarrifs etc… is not in their interest, or the interest of society as a whole.

That’s a rather difficult task; because for someone who is naturally risk averse, capitalism (and specifically libertarian free market based capitalism) seems very risky… Heck, it IS very risky, that’s the point. You take risks, you fail, and you have the freedom to get back up and take more risks and succeed (or fail again).

Many people out there would happily vote for a “guaranteed” living, even if it was less than half what they could be making without a “guarantee”, and even if you could prove to them the “guarantee” was really false. It’s just the way they’re wired, and no amount of facts or logical arguments are going to convince them.

Many others are willing to accept a bit of risk, but they want a great big “safety net” underneath them for when they fall.

These people, even if they are shown it isn’t really true… they WANT it to be true bad enough, that they are willing to try and force that vision on the rest of us.

Those people (and by conventional estimate they make up about 40% of the population) are ALWAYS going to vote for the “safety and security” lie. They are going to vote for the nanny no matter what.

On the other hand, there are about 40% of the population who are always going to vote for the riskier path, that they can reap more reward from.

Even in Reagans 49 state landslide vs. Mondale, he only got 58.8% of the popular vote.

Nixon crushed Mcgovern 49 to 1 as well, and it was still a 60%/40% split.

Even in Roosevelts “New Deal” landslide against Hoover, he only got 57.4% of the popular vote (in ‘36 against Alf Landon, 60.8%, the biggest landslide since the civil war. In ‘40 against Wendell Wilkie, 54.7%. In ‘44 against Thomas Dewey, 53.4%).

The 40% on either side is a pretty stable number; barring major events in society that temporarily distort it, like wars and disasters…. And even then, in the last 110 years, in every national election, the left has never had less than 35%, and neither has the right… And neither have had more than 60.8% either.

The fact is, some people will believe what they want to believe, or what they’re afraid to believe, over the truth; no matter how clear the truth is made to them.

It’s the remaining 20% that we need to get to, and teach them that it is ALWAYS a lie.

In a society where the government does not artificially force the private economy into failure, the government cannot possibly do better for you than you can do for yourself. Giving the government more power, and more control, is NEVER in your best interest, or in the interest of society.

Saying that “womens suffrage caused socialism” (which isn’t what Travis said exactly, but it’s certainly what a lot of people would hear from what he said) isn’t exactly helpful in that.

“I cannot, and will not, consent that the majority of any republican State may, in any way, rightfully restrict the humblest citizen of the United States in the free exercise of any one of his natural rights,” which are “those rights common to all men, and to protect which, not to confer, all good governments are instituted.”

John A. Bingham (Judge, Congressman, and the principal author of the 14th amendment)

As quoted in the Appellants brief in McDonald v. City of Chicago(my emphasis added).

All too often one hears men say ‘the constitution gives us the right” or even “the government gives us the right”.

This is simply false. Governments cannot confer rights on someone. Rights are those things that are common to all men. Those things that we have, and which cannot be taken away from us but by force, fraud, or willing consent.

Governments exist, for the sole purpose of protecting and furthering those rights; and no other.

The reality is that even before spending exploded to deal with the economic crisis, the government was set to grow by about 50 percent of GDP over the next generation just to pay for Social Security and Medicare benefits under current law. When the crunch comes and the need for a major increase in revenue becomes overwhelming, I expect that Republicans will refuse to participate in the process. If Democrats have to raise taxes with no bipartisan support, then they will have no choice but to cater to the demand of their party’s most liberal wing. This will mean higher rates on businesses and entrepreneurs, and soak-the-rich policies that would make Franklin D. Roosevelt blush.

Shorter: “Hey conservatives, you’ve completely and hopelessly lost the spending war. If you don’t play nice, you’re going to get even more screwed by the tax man than if you sit at the table.”

To which Samuel Adams might have responded: “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom — go home 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 you were our countrymen!”

In short, Bruce Bartlett has surrendered. He has taken the view “posit a giant welfare state — now what’s the best way to pay for it?” He suggests that if conservatives try to set the menu at — as Billy Beck would call it — the cannibal pot, that MAYBE they’ll just lose an arm and not the leg to go along with it.

All in all, Bartlett’s view is probably the calmest and most peaceful answer. But it gives us a nation that is so unlike America that I’m not sure I want a part of it. The peaceful way out is to accept that Democracy has given us a giant welfare state, that Democracy is never going to rescind it, and that therefore we might as well pay for it. He’s taking Mencken’s quote at face value:

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

Bartlett is arguing that if we’re all to be slaves, it’s best to suck up and hope for the job of overseer, holding the whip rather than tasting its lash.

But I’m not ready to surrender.

Bruce Bartlett says that if we don’t find a way to pay for the monstrosity growing out of Washington, the whole system will come crashing down. I say I’d prefer that to the “success” of the system as the social democrats want it to exist.

Bruce Bartlett says that the “starve the beast” tactic doesn’t work, as the beast keeps on growing. Well consider me a cancerous tumor hoping to infect the populace into becoming an ever-growing resistance that eats away at the beast’s insides until it dies of rot.

Bruce Bartlett wants conservatives to make sure they have a seat at the table to divvy up the “spoils”. Well, if he wants to be a good little Tory, that’s his choice. He’s taken sides, and despite his pleas, the fight will rage on.

Somewhere deep inside, despite a century of statism trying to weaken it with bread and circuses, the spirit of America still exists. Until that’s no longer the case, I’ll take the side of Freedom.

The song raises questions in my mind such as:

Who is ultimately responsible for this land (world) of confusion?

Is this confusion intentionally orchestrated by people in high positions of power or is this confusion the result of unintended consequences of government policies which passed with the best of intentions? (I tend to think it is a little of both).

Is this confusion inevitable due to our very humanity? (As long as there are individuals who wish to control the lives of others and wish to take from others by force and fraud, I can only conclude that the answer is “yes.”)

How can we, as in the words of the song, make this world “a place worth fighting for” ? (Do we really have any other choice?)

Below the fold, I also included both the Genesis music video and Disturbed’s cover version.

Genesis
“Land of Confusion”
Invisible Touch (1986)

Written by: Phil Collins, Tony Banks, and Michael Rutherford

I mustve dreamed a thousand dreams
Been haunted by a million screams
But I can hear the marching feet
They’re moving into the street.

Now did you read the news today
They say the dangers gone away
But I can see the fires still alight
There burning into the night.

There’s too many men
Too many people
Making too many problems
And not much love to go round
Cant you see
This is a land of confusion.

This is the world we live in
And these are the hands were given
Use them and lets start trying
To make it a place worth living in.

Ooh superman where are you now
When everythings gone wrong somehow
The men of steel, the men of power
Are losing control by the hour.

This is the time
This is the place
So we look for the future
But there’s not much love to go round
Tell me why, this is a land of confusion.

This is the world we live in
And these are the hands were given
Use them and lets start trying
To make it a place worth living in.

I remember long ago -
Ooh when the sun was shining
Yes and the stars were bright
All through the night
And the sound of your laughter
As I held you tight
So long ago -

I wont be coming home tonight
My generation will put it right
Were not just making promises
That we know, well never keep.

Too many men
There’s too many people
Making too many problems
And not much love to go round
Cant you see
This is a land of confusion.

Now this is the world we live in
And these are the hands were given
Use them and lets start trying
To make it a place worth fighting for.

This is the world we live in
And these are the names were given
Stand up and lets start showing
Just where our lives are going to.

The original Genesis video

Disturbed’s version from their 2005 album “Ten Thousand Fists”

As if this wasn’t bad enough, bone marrow is included as part of the ban. The act of paying an individual for his or her bone marrow is a felony which is punishable for up to five years in prison for everyone involved in the illegal transaction.

The Institute for Justice has decided to challenge this most absurd provision of this absurd bill. Below is a video from the organization explaining their lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General’s Office:

For the sake of the Flynn family, here’s hoping that the Institute for Justice wins the day.

Hat Tip: The Agitator

Here’s a thought Mr. Suthers: rather than trying to interpret the law yourself, why not allow the state legislature and/or Colorado voters clarify the law. In the meantime, while the law in your opinion is vague, err on the side of freedom by no longer prosecuting medical marijuana users or dispensary operators.

Greeley (Colorado) City Council member Carrol Martin also expressed concerns with the Obama Administration’s change in federal policy: “The federal government says they’re not going to control it [medical marijuana], so the only other option we have is to control it ourselves” and “If we have no regulations at all, then we can’t control it, and our police officers have their hands tied.”

Councilman, I would argue that this is a very good thing. You are no longer responsible for enforcing federal laws but state and local laws regarding medical marijuana. Your police officers “have their hands tied”? I think it’s quite the opposite councilman. Your police department can now concentrate on violent crime rather than spend valuable resources on going after non-violent, medicinal, marijuana users and their suppliers. If anything, the Greeley police has their hands freed!

In a time when we have an administration which wants to control banking, housing, the auto industry, the healthcare industry, and everything in-between we have one instance of the same administration relinquishing control and giving it back to the states. This is the perfect opportunity for states to act as independent laboratories of government. Some will pass stricter controls on medical marijuana (or outright ban it) while others may go the other direction and outright decriminalize or leagalize marijuana altogether.

Kirk Johnson writing for The New York Times:

Some legal scholars said the federal government, by deciding not to enforce its own laws (possession and the sale of marijuana remain federal crimes), has introduced an unpredictable variable into the drug regulation system.

“The next step would be a particular state deciding to legalize marijuana entirely,” said Peter J. Cohen, a doctor and a lawyer who teaches public health law at Georgetown University. If federal prosecutors kept their distance even then, Dr. Cohen said, legalized marijuana would become a de facto reality.

Senator Morrisette in Oregon said he thought that exact situation — a state moving toward legalization, perhaps California — could play out much sooner now than might have been imagined even a few weeks ago. And the continuing recession would only help, he said, with advocates for legalization able to promise relief to an overburdened prison system and injection of tax revenues to the state budget.

This seems like a very reasonable step to take for California from a purely economic standpoint. As I reported in my post Reforming America’s Prison System: The Time Has Come, last year California spent almost $10 million on corrections, more than half of the U.S. prison population accounts for drug offenses, 75% of state drug offenders are non-violent offenders, and that nearly half of all drug arrests in the U.S. were for marijuana offenses.

By my math, that would mean that if California* released all non-violent marijuana users and stopped prosecuting new cases involving non-violent marijuana use, the state could cut its prison population by 19% and save California taxpayers about $2 million** per year just on corrections (to say nothing of other costs associated with policing marijuana use).

If California or any other state tried such a bold approach, the American public would most likely learn that legalization does not lead to the sort of mayhem drug warriors have warned us of over the decades***. We would most certainly not see the sort of mayhem that has occurred via the drug war.

Not only does this perfect storm which the Obama Administration created have possible implications for the War on (Some) Drugs, but the very concept of Federalism itself. What might state governments learn about self governing once they have been encouraged to do so? Might the states resist the next attempted power grab from Washington?

There are many exciting possibilities. Those of us who advocate for smaller government should make the most of this opportunity.

*Assuming that California’s prison statistics are in line with the overall national statistics.

** I know $2 million doesn’t seem like a whole lot but in states which are in financial trouble as much as California, every little bit helps.

***Portugal is a real world case study of drug decriminalization; I don’t believe the results would be much different here.

The woman, horrified that her and her son saw Williamson naked, called the police.

How does the police/District Attorney choose to deal with this situation? (Hint we are dealing with government officials here, throw common sense out the window)

A. Nothing. Police advise Williamson to make sure the windows are properly covered next time.
B. Nothing. The woman is advised not to take this shortcut again.
C. Both A and B.
D. The woman is charged with criminal trespass and violation of Williamson’s privacy. She could face up to 6 months in jail and a $1,000 fine if convicted.
E. Williamson is charged with indecent exposure and could face up to 1 year in jail and a $2,000 fine if convicted.
F. Both D and E. Both parties broke the law as both parties violated the rights of the other.
G. Neither D nor E. Both parties broke the law, therefore the penalties offset and no charges will be filed. (Replay 3rd down?)

(See the correct answer below the fold.)

If you guessed E then you are correct.

Apparently no consideration was given the fact that the woman and her son were trespassing in Williamson’s yard or that she was looking into his home. Imagine if Williamson was a woman and it was a man cutting through the yard with his son. Would the woman be charged with indecent* exposure or would the man be charged for being a peeping Tom?

That will have to be another quiz for another day.

*It may depend on how “indecent” the woman looks naked : )

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.

“This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent. Quite to the contrary, we have repeatedly left that question unresolved, while expressing considerable doubt that any claim based on alleged ‘actual innocence’ is constitutionally cognizable.” – From the dissenting opinion by Justices Scalia and Thomas on the question of whether death row inmate Troy Davis should receive a new trial after 7 eye witnesses against him recanted their testimonies against Davis.

So as long as the defendant has received a ‘fair trial’ and found guilty, actual innocence does not matter and the state can kill an innocent person according to Scalia and Thomas?

And these are who conservatives and some libertarians consider the ‘good guys’ on the Supreme Court? They certainly aren’t on this issue.

Hat Tip: The Daily Beast

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.

Dear Olivia Jane:

You and many readers of Daily Kos are furious that Whole Foods CEO John Mackey expressed – in the pages of the Wall Street Journal – his opposition to greater government involvement in health care.

Exercising your rights and abilities as consumers, you are therefore boycotting Whole Foods.  You’re using your freedom to avoid paying for products offered by someone whose attitude toward government you disapprove of.
Isn’t freedom wonderful?!

But I must ask: do you endorse my freedom to boycott paying for products offered by those whose attitude toward government I disapprove of?  Like you, I have very strong opinions about the proper role of government, and also as in your case, a famous chief executive is now endorsing government policies that I find reprehensible.

Will you champion my freedom to stop supporting, with my money, President Barack Obama’s services?  Will you come to my defense if I stop paying taxes to support those policies of Mr. Obama with which I disagree – policies such as the economic ’stimulus,’ more vigorous antitrust regulation, and cap and trade?  Indeed, will you defend me if I boycott – if I choose not to pay taxes to support – Obamacare?

If you will support me in my boycott, then I applaud your principle and, although I disagree with you about Mr. Mackey’s political views, fully support your freedom to boycott Whole Foods.  But if you will not support me in my boycott, then can you tell me on what principle you would stand to defend your right to boycott supermarkets if someone (say, Mr. Mackey) managed to secure legislation that obliges you to shop at Whole Foods?

I await your reply.

Donald J. Boudreaux

I couldn’t put it better myself. One quibble, even if Olivia Jane was not willing to extend us the same courtesy and support our desire to boycott Obamacare, we should applaud her principle. Just because she has reprehensible political views does not mean we should ignore the opportunity to teach her the value of a right to exit/disassociate.

Reuters Reports:

SEOUL — North Korea said on Wednesday it had pardoned two jailed American journalists after former U.S. President Bill Clinton met the reclusive state’s leader Kim Jong-il, a move some analysts said could pave the way to direct nuclear disarmament talks.

Clinton’s spokesman said the former president had left Pyongyang with the two reporters and they were flying to Los Angeles.

“President Clinton has safely left North Korea with Laura Ling and Euna Lee. They are enroute to Los Angeles where Laura and Euna will be reunited with their families,” spokesman Matt McKenna said in a statement.”

While I think the notion that the release of these two reporters could lead to productive disarmament talks is a bit premature, I think we should be happy that these two young women are now safe and no longer the slaves of Kim Jong-il.

Though the release of the reporters is undoubtedly a joyous occasion for many freedom loving people, at least one person is not so happy. Former Ambassador John Bolton was quoted in Breitbart.com as saying “It [Clinton’s visit with Kim Jong-il] comes perilously close to negotiating with terrorists” and “I think this is a very bad signal because it does exactly what we always try and avoid doing with terrorists or with rogue states in general, and that’s encouraging their bad behavior.”

Wake up Ambassador, the U.S. government has “negotiated with terrorists” for many decades, even on your watch. Hell, sometimes the U.S. government props up these regimes while turning a blind eye to human rights abuses and national/global security threats when the regime in question helps support the goals of the U.S. government. How is Clinton’s visit to Pyongyang any worse?

A 12 year sentence in N. Korea’s work camps might as well be a death sentence; Clinton may well have saved their lives. We shouldn’t lose sight of that.