“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” – H. L. Mencken

I’m tired of the health care debate. It’s not much of a debate anymore when the Republican lawmakers are arguing for socialism-lite and the Democrats are arguing for maximum strength socialism. It’s like asking the patient, “Do you want a government doctor or do you want a government physician?”

I’m tired of everyone calling it health “insurance”. It should be called health welfare. Medicare and medicaid are welfare programs. The proposed health care reform is nothing more than medicare on steroids. It’s certainly not insurance. Does auto insurance cover oil changes and tune-ups?

I’m tired of the argument that we should force insurers to cover preexisting conditions. We don’t force home owner’s insurance companies to cover a house already engulfed in flames. Forcing this upon insurers marks the beginning of the slow regulatory death of private insurance. This reeks of progressive incrementalism–a phasing out of private insurance to create a monopoly for government insurance. In other words, the public option becomes the only option. Obama highlighted his plan for this back in 2003 (see the video).

I’m tired of many arguing that health care is a “right”. Calling health care a right is a patently absurd and immoral logical fallacy. One cannot have a right to property or labor owned by someone else. Rights can only be based upon an individual’s own action. Leonard Peikoff put it best during the Hillary-care debate back in 1993.

Observe that all legitimate rights have one thing in common: they are rights to action, not to rewards from other people. The American rights impose no obligations on other people, merely the negative obligation to leave you alone. The system guarantees you the chance to work for what you want — not to be given it without effort by somebody else.

I’m tired of hearing Obama and his minions claim that the health care reform proposals will lower health care premiums and costs. My fatigue forces me to be blunt. If you buy in to this argument, find a mirror, look into it, and you will see an “It takes a village” idiot. After you wipe the drool from your chin and lumber away from the mirror, ponder the following 5 items:

1. We already have partial socialized medicine in the form of Medicare (elderly) and Medicaid (poor).
2. As of 2008 the number of people on these government-provided plans totaled 87.4 million.
3. Medicare will run out of money in 2017 according to last year’s government statistics. The previous year the government said it would be insolvent in 2019. I wonder what next year’s numbers will reveal, considering the rising unemployment and the struggling economy (less payroll taxes).
4. As of 2008 there were 46.3 million people without health insurance. About 36 million of these people are promised coverage with the House health welfare bill passed on Saturday evening.
5. How can anyone claim with a straight face that increasing demand for a product by nearly 50% in a newly taxed and regulated market will lower prices? (Better go find that mirror again)
   

I’m tired of writing about national health care. Part of me thinks that those of us fighting against it should just cave in and give the thieving looters what they want. They would certainly get it “good and hard”.

I then look into the faces of my children and see their complete innocence on display. They deserve better. In fact, we all do.

We may be beaten down and tired, but we must never stop fighting.

For the best health care “reform” information all in one place, check out CATO’s health care page.

The latest administration push is to promote merit pay for public school teachers rather than the guaranteed pay scales achieved by teachers unions. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is using the $4.35 billion “Race to the Top” funds as incentive for “progress towards” merit pay.

It is at this point that the reader will be wondering whether I’m a pro-union stooge defending the status quo or a “change agent” who sees how merit pay works in the private sector to enhance performance, and wants to extend that benefit to teaching.

Sorry to disappoint: I’m not really in either camp. I write here to suggest only that the Obama administration, and the states reacting to its efforts, are not promoting a policy on teacher merit pay, but merely broaching the subject, or, if you will, making noise. In pursuance of the Race to the Top funds, the California state legislature and Governor Schwarzenneger have eliminated a law that forbade use of student test scores in evaluating teachers. That’s the easy part.

Merit pay for teachers is an idea worth considering, but it will be complicated, both in political venues and in the field, to carry out. If any level of government were really interested in implementing merit pay, here’s what we’d be reading in the newspapers coverage of the policy development:

1. Discussion of how to determine “merit” for teachers. In California the only objective measure available is the California Standards Test (CST), given each year in the spring to grades 2 through 11. There is no test in September to establish a baseline. The “value added” approach is a rational first step in achieving a baseline. It is used in Texas, Chicago, and some southern states. Value added uses the scores of the three previous years as the baseline. This approach may be the way to go in California, but it would not work as we are currently structured. Kindergarten, first grade and high school seniors do not take the CST. How will teachers of these grades be evaluated? Even if primary were evaluated, what would the baseline be? Where is the discussion?

2.Even if all grade levels were tested, how do we factor student transiency into the baseline? Transiency is a major statistical factor. In LA Unified, thousands of students transfer every year in and out of schools. There are migrant children who follow their parents’ seasonal work, children going in and out of home schooling, children moving to California from states whose standardized testing is structured differently from ours. How do we derive their baseline? Where is the discussion?

3. How do we factor in the impact various types of students have on measures of teacher performance, and how can we keep a collegial environment among faculties? Teachers already tend to compete for the highest scoring students, but evaluating teachers with student scores poses a counter-intuitive problem: the highest scoring students have less room to go up. It’s easier to show improvement from lower scoring students. How do we factor in those differences? How do we keep teachers from fighting over which students will be most likely to improve? Might we want to consider awarding merit pay to an entire school that has used peer assistance for struggling teachers and smart management to achieve academic growth? This might work better than trusting a bureaucrat in Sacramento to figure things out. But where is the discussion?

Bertrand Russell noted that society is motivated by strife, not discussion. It’s more fun for the villagers to march with flaming torches demanding that the teachers be held accountable, than to have rational discussions of how to hold them accountable. My own problem with the flaming torches approach is that it gets government off the hook for actually figuring out policy. I say, let’s settle down and get some real policy.

Doug Lasken is a retired LAUSD teacher and freelancer. Write him at doug.lasken@gmail.com
This article first appeared in the L.A. Daily News, 10/25/09

We’re lost — that’s how I feel. I’m not exactly sure why we’re here,” said Specialist Raquime Mercer

The soldiers’ biggest question is: what can we do to make this war stop. Catch one person? Assault one objective? Soldiers want definite answers, other than to stop the Taleban, because that almost seems impossible. It’s hard to catch someone you can’t see

The chaplains said that many soldiers had lost their desire to help Afghanistan. “All they want to do is make it home alive and go back to their wives and children and visit the families who have lost husbands and fathers over here. It comes down to just surviving,” said Captain Masengale.

Full Article

This culture is being thrust upon our nation’s young people at an early age. Young children are constantly being reassured that they are doing a “good job” for the most mundane accomplishments. Those who play sports are presented participation trophies. No, we wouldn’t want any of them to actually excel beyond just “showing up”, do we? While playing games it’s always important to make sure each child gets a turn at winning or at least the game ends in a tie where “everyone wins!” We are beginning to see the effects of this mentality.

At some point these children grow up and the realities of life smack them square in their glass jaws. Everyone can never be equal. Life is not fair. Hate will always exist. Yet they were always taught the opposite so they get “active” and try to fulfill the promise of their youth. Their activity naturally progresses toward the one entity they believe has de facto power to fulfill this promise: government.

Yes, everyone wants to take the government drug to be pain free, but everyone remains ignorant of that particular drug’s evil side effects and addictive nature.

Everyone has become “too big to fail”.

I was once asked in a job interview, “Do you think you learn more from your successes or your failures?” I answered “failures, of course.” Failure forces you to reexamine your premises, think outside the box, and try again. In order for failure to “work” it must not be rewarded. Yet this is precisely what our government is doing and has done for quite some time.

In our increasingly more overt politically-correct society, is it perhaps time to reexamine our premises? If someone is born without limbs it doesn’t mean we should go out and round up all of the “limb-full” and amputate their arms and legs in the interests of equality. Sure it’s an extreme metaphor but this is precisely what we are trying to do when we support plans that attempt to make life “more fair” for the underprivileged at the expense of those who worked to make their own lives better. It is class warfare and all classes lose in the end.

The opposite is true too. We should not be funneling taxpayer money to private banks and auto companies. A bad business is a bad business and we’d know it was bad if it were left alone to fail or thrive. Executives and employees will learn from the failure and move on to try again. Once the crying stops, innovation is a by-product of failure.

Rewarding failure makes it a goal rather than a consequence of poor decisions. Failure should not be shunned. It should not be embraced. It should be accepted as a lesson learned. Trying and failing is what makes trying again and succeeding so satisfying.

We need to channel the Founder’s cavalier spirit, end government mollycoddling, and realize if we fall down we can pick ourselves back up again. Sure we may make a mess of things at times but the most important thing is persistence.

FDR famously said, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself!” If he had instead said, “the only thing we have to fear is fear of failure”, we might be in a much better place today.

Because of caring people and a caring company, a terminally ill little Green Forest girl was flown home Friday by air ambulance from M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, so she can spend her last days surrounded by the people who love her most.

Jada Harper, who turned seven on Sept. 1, has an inoperable malignant tumor in her brain and is in a coma with a ventilator doing her breathing for her. She has been at the famous cancer center in Houston since July, but her situation is now at the point not much else can be done to help her.

I emphasized the first phrase above to emphasize what is absent: government. It doesn’t say because of some government program. No company was forced to help this poor child and her family. A company made up of individuals with the ability to make a decision to do what is right was responsible for this “random act of kindness”. Perhaps what makes this story more interesting is the company that helped is a direct competitor to a government entity.

Friday afternoon, Jada was flown home to the Ozarks — on a gurney, attached to the machine that breathes for her. FedEx Freight paid the $11,000 bill for the special medical flight her family was unable to afford.

FedEx who competes with the government sponsored United States Postal Service (USPS) acted when others failed. Sure, they may have been acting in their own self-interest to garner “free” advertising and customer goodwill, but how can they be criticized for performing this mutually beneficial act?

$11,000 is chump change for a company like FedEx, but apparently this isn’t an isolated occurrence.

“One thing that impresses me about this company is that the company has a heart,” Reeves said. “Our company does a lot of things like this. It’s been recognized as one of the most admired companies in the world, and this is why.”

It is this phenomenon that represents the best argument for a true free market. If companies weren’t over-regulated and over-taxed perhaps these random acts of kindness would multiply until they become the general rule rather than the exception. Imagine a world where companies all realize that helping people also helps the bottom line. Anyone can make a buck, but not everyone can make a devoted customer.

In a free market the customer acts as regulator. Companies would be trampling over themselves and each other to find the next person (potential customer) to help. When a third party, in this case the government, forces companies (and individuals) to fork over 40-50% of their profit (or income) and then uses it on projects that rarely achieve their intended purpose the result is widespread resentment. In this case companies and individuals become less charitable. The tax and regulatory burden hinders their ability to participate in benevolent actions like FedEx.

Imagine companies that have 50% more profit competing to be number one on the list of most charitable companies. There is no doubt that the result would be a monumental increase in assistance for people and organizations who need it.

We don’t need government to lead, nor follow. We just need government to get out of the way. It’s time to break the government chains of taxes and regulation. This would not only foster economic prosperity but it would also spawn a renaissance of benevolence. This benevolence would come voluntarily and resentment-free from private companies and individuals. It’s good for business, good for the poor, and good for America.

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to decide whether strict local and state gun control laws violate the Second Amendment, ensuring another high-profile battle over the rights of gun owners.

The court said it will review a lower court ruling that upheld a handgun ban in Chicago. Gun rights supporters challenged gun laws in Chicago and some suburbs immediately following the high court’s decision in June 2008 that struck down a handgun ban in the District of Columbia, a federal enclave.

The new case tests whether last year’s ruling applies as well to local and state laws.

While this is good news for hopeful gun rights activists it raises questions for die hard Constitutionalists. The dirty details of “incorporation” reveals some divisions among us. I’ve previously discussed my own thoughts on “incorporation”, but I can certainly understand the opposing viewpoint. The question came up earlier this year when the states rights argument was utilized by the anti-gun rights Senators in reference to the Thune amendment that would have permitted concealed carry reciprocity between the states.

The conventional wisdom is that the Supreme Court has a very good chance of voting in favor of 2nd Amendment incorporation. Perhaps, the more interesting thing, similar to Heller, will be what the majority opinion says at the conclusion of the case.

CLINTON, Indiana – When Sally Harpold bought cold medicine for her family back in March, she never dreamed that four months later she would end up in handcuffs.

Harpold bought one box of Zyrtec-D cold medicine for her husband at a Rockville pharmacy. Less than seven days later, she bought a box of Mucinex-D cold medicine for her adult daughter at a Clinton pharmacy, thereby purchasing 3.6 grams total of pseudoephedrine in a weeks time. Those two purchases put her in violation of Indiana law.

Read the whole story.

Let’s head to Merriam-Webster to clear this up. Which one of the following best describes America today?

capitalism: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.

corporatism: the organization of a society into industrial and professional corporations serving as organs of political representation and exercising control over persons and activities within their jurisdiction.

The correct answer is, of course, corporatism. A  key phrase in the definition of capitalism is “by investments that are determined by private decision“. How do government bailouts of private industry reconcile with this definition? They don’t. And if you think this is a recent phenomenon then I urge you to consider the Savings and Loan bailouts back in the 80’s and 90’s.

Another assertion in the definition of capitalism that does not compute in America today is that the prices, production, and distribution of goods are supposed to be determined by a free market.

A free market does not exist when we have the Federal Reserve artificially holding interest rates low, heavy government regulation of industries, and government subsidies that bastardize the natural rules of supply and demand. We haven’t had a free market in the United States for a very long time. Capitalism can not exist without a free market.

What we have in America is corporatism. And this is the essence of what Michael Moore is railing against in his new film. Unfortunately, he doesn’t offer useful solutions because he doesn’t even understand the problem.

The big corporations hire lobbyists to protect their own interests in their respective industries. The lobbyists go to Washington, D.C. and influence lawmakers to pass laws that give special advantage to the corporations. So, in essence what we have is corporations cozy  in bed with the government while Joe Citizen sleeps naked on the floor.

The only sensible solution to this problem is to set the market free. In a free market Joe Citizen consumer has the power. He votes with his dollars. Badly run businesses fail because there just aren’t enough people voting with their dollars to keep them afloat. Well run businesses flourish and create opportunity for Joe Citizen and higher growth in production for the country as a whole. As a result less people are unemployed and innovation is encouraged.

Certainly some will fall through the cracks and will need help. This is why churches and charitable organizations exist. It is what they do best. They have a more natural incentive to help and will always do a better job than some government program.

It’s strange that Michael Moore believes that more government is the solution to a problem that is being made worse by that very same government. Moore got one out of three right. He is good at telling everyone about the problem. He confuses people by calling the problem something it’s not. His solution to the problem actually is part of the problem in the first place.

Granted, there’s never a “perfect” solution, but there is a “best” solution. It’s the free market silly man, not more government.

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For more on Capitalism vs. Corporatism see this excellent piece from a year ago from Radley Balko at Reason.com.

In an interview on Sunday, George Stephanopoulos grilled President Obama by asking the rather obvious question, “Under this mandate, the government is forcing people to spend money [to buy insurance], fining you if you don’t. How is that not a tax?”

Jeff Jacoby’s op-ed on Boston.com discusses the president’s response:

The type and formula of most schemes of philanthropy or humanitarianism is this: A and B put their heads together to decide what C shall be made to do for D. The radical vice of all these schemes, from a sociological point of view, is that C is not allowed a voice in the matter, and his position, character, and interests, as well as the ultimate effects on society through C’s interests, are entirely overlooked. I call C the Forgotten Man.

- William Graham Sumner, “The Forgotten Man“

Sumner effectively describes the agitated state of America’s overlooked citizens in 2009 even though his words were penned in 1883. These are the people you see walking and driving to work every day after dropping their children at school. These are the retirees taking up a hobby after working for themselves and the State for their entire lives. These are the stay-at-home mothers and fathers keeping the house clean and the children fed. They go about their daily routine with hardly a complaint nor a frown.

Well, they used to.

Apparently, there is something of significance to complain about now. They are tired of being overlooked and looted. They are tired of working about half the year to fill the government’s bank account and see little in return. They are tired of their political leaders promising the moon and delivering nothing. They are tired of the lies and subterfuge. They are worried that the standard of living their children will have to endure will be more akin to Cuba than to the America they once knew.

Sumner elaborates on these ignored members of society:

There always are two parties. The second one is always the Forgotten Man, and any one who wants to truly understand the matter in question must go and search for the Forgotten Man. He will be found to be worthy, industrious, independent, and self-supporting. He is not, technically, “poor” or “weak”; he minds his own business, and makes no complaint. Consequently the philanthropists never think of him, and trample on him.

For many, the trampling is no longer going unanswered. The Forgotten are demanding to be noticed and remembered. They are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore!

They are sounding off without pause:

“I’m a human being GOD DAMMIT! My life has value!”

Yet those in power and their acolytes scorn such demands as extreme. The Forgotten are merely asserting their natural rights much like our Founding Fathers did back in the late 18th century. If the principles of America’s founding have no place in today’s debate then America ceases to exist. America is not merely a a piece of land between two oceans. It is opportunity born from liberty.

Thinking of this as a struggle between Republicans and Democrats is like playing in a meaningless game. It snatches a branch, but misses the root. The struggle is over the nature of America’s soul. That soul was constructed around a simple idea, that we have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There is nothing crazy about it.

Taking something from one group of people against their will and giving it to another group of people is not noble. It is not liberty. It is theft, pure and simple. There is no gray area.

Sumner sums it up:

There is no pressure on A and B. They are having their own way, and they like it. There is rarely any pressure on D. He does not like it, and evades it. The pressure all comes on C.

The question then arises, Who is C? He is the man who wants alcoholic liquors for any honest purpose whatsoever, who would use his liberty without abusing it, who would occasion no public question, and trouble nobody at all. He is the Forgotten Man again, and as soon as he is drawn from his obscurity we see that he is just what each one of us ought to be.

The forgotten majority are beginning to crack open their eyes. They are a sleeping giant and the alarm is going off. Barack Obama’s honeymoon is officially over and the bill is now due. Who will pay for it?

For once, let us demand it not be us.

Let us be remembered.

From Wikipedia:

Salami slicing is a series of many minor actions, often performed by clandestine means, that together results in a larger action that would be difficult or illegal to perform at once.

Today Obama is taking it to new levels. He’s acting like the proverbial kid in a candy store or perhaps saying he’s like a fat man at a deli counter is more appropriate. Our government has been salami slicing it’s way toward a socialist and fascist hybrid I call socio-fascism for the last 100 years or so. Certain administrations were worse than others, but it’s not too hard to believe that the Obama Presidency will go down in history as the one that signaled the final slice in the socio-fascist incrementalism pie.

For America to turn the corner and get “better” things are going to have to get a lot worse. People are still dreaming of government-sponsored comfort and Obama is doing his best to deliver. Government words and statistics are attempting to mask the hard economic pain reverberating through America. We need to see beyond this feel-good facade and find the truth.

We are a spoiled-rotten coddled nation of eternal victims with a codependency on government. Government is an abusive spouse who promises unicorns but only ever delivers blunt trauma to the head.

Perhaps the turn-around will come when the “green shoots” become nothing more than “green shits”, when everyone realizes the government is the source of the problem rather than the solution.

It’s time to refuse the government’s salami.

Originally published August 24, 2009 at http://towneforcongress.com/economy/the-other-party

As I travel around and meet people as part of my run for U.S. Congress next year, one of the first questions I am most frequently asked is: “Are you a Democrat or a Republican?” Of course, I politely answer I am running as a private citizen, and explain why I am dissatisfied with both parties. Pretty much everyone I talk to understands my reasoning, even if they think running without a party is fruitless. All too often, I hear in reply defensive answers such as “Well, I am a registered ____ just because I want to vote in the primaries.”

Some people don’t stop there though. Multiple times I have been asked why I don’t spin off and start my own party. The first time I was asked this I was caught aback, as I had never even considered it. It is, of course, dreadfully apparent that the Republicrats ruthlessly control politics in the United States. Third parties, whom I wish all the luck in the world, have not been able to break their chokehold.

One of the more interesting facts about the Demolicans is that they zealously guard their enrollment numbers, which seems quite odd until one realizes they are a government-sponsored monopoly that controls the salaries of well over 20% of our “work force” per the BLS and strongly influence the actions of government. Try to find out, and if you make out better than I have, please leave the link below. One figure that is probably pretty accurate is that census.gov in Table 1 here reports 206 million voters for the November 2008 election, but keep in mind the following is just an estimate. In 2004, the founder of USA Today (who, for the record, is registered third party) estimates the number of Democrats as 72 million, Republicans as 55 million, and registered third party or independents as 42 million while the voter base was 202 million.

By subtraction, this leaves us with 33 million unregistered but eligible-to-vote citizens in 2004. So, in reality, this might be the stark truth the monopoly does not want all of America to know – those who are either apathetic or discontented with the two-party, one-headed system are larger than either of the Establishment parties. Please see the figure for this estimate in graph form. This 2008 article based on a NY Times piece, without listing any figures or specific evidence (have to love the secretive reporting style), states that Republican enrollment slumped since 2005 at the expense of more Democrats and independents which does seem to make sense in light of the recent Democratic victories in U.S. Congress and the White House.

So here is my great idea, feel free to steal it: somebody start the “Other” Party. Platform, principles? Nope. Support for party candidates? Nope. Just a party, a parking place if you will, for Americans disaffected with the current system. This group could be targeted and wooed by the third parties for recruitment (great for advertising income!), but anyone joining the “Other” Party would just be making a statement to vote with their feet and say, ‘No one represents me, and the choice between the Democrats and Republicans is a sham.’ This is similar to marking a ballot as “Abstain” or “None of the Above” – which, by the way, will never happen for as long as the Establishment is in power.

As best I know, this idea is new, as even independent parties like America’s Independent Party have their own unique platforms and are not truly for unaffiliated independents. Members of the “Other” Party could change affiliation whenever and therefore vote in a primary if they wish, but every citizen who joins would be sending a very clear message that there is something very, very wrong with our political system. Plus, if the Democrats and Republicans are starved of their numbers, the Establishment will wither away.

This may be wishful thinking, but if unemployment goes over 25% (it’s closer to 21% now, not 9%, watch out as the government fudges the numbers), economic unrest may have a chance at destroying duopoly. Today the Associated Press announced that, for the first time since 1975, there will be no COLA (cost-of-living-increase) for the elderly living on Social Security next year. While the government claims this is because there is no inflation, au contraire! I retort and reference the reader to my article “The Real Interest Rate” which claims that current Social Security paychecks should be roughly twice as high to make up for the purchasing power paid in.  A lack of COLA increases that alienates our citizens senior is just another reminder that control of retirement by the Establishment must end. The younger generation must be able to opt out, and the contracts made to those who contributed to social security should be upheld as best as possible.  More detail on this belongs in another article, however.

Again, I do acknowledge this article may be just wishful thinking on my part, but as T.E. Lawrence once said:

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”

Stay free and keep acting!

Jake Towne, the Champion of the Constitution

P.S. Two recent interviews with the author can be viewed here (with Clyde Cleveland, author of Common Sense Revisited) and here (with Ken Van Doren on The Voice of Liberty).

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Jake Towne is running for U.S. Congress in Pennsylvania’s 15th District in the 2010 election as a citizen unaffiliated with any political parties. Jake also writes at www.LibertyMaven.com and www.CampaignForLiberty.com. A master campaign presentation for internet viewing is available. A novel campaign website built by Raging Debate, TowneForCongress.comhas recently opened. [Reach the Author Here!]

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We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

As always, unlike the NFL, the author grants full permission to allow any accounts of, rebroadcasts, retransmissions, repostings of this article to your blog or anywhere else in order to promote the Restoration of our Republic.

Veritas numquam perit. Veritas odit moras. Veritas vincit. Truth never perishes. Truth hates delay. Truth conquers.

Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito. Do not give in to evil but proceed ever more boldly against it.

Summary of Articles and Bibliography for Jake Towne, the Champion of the Constitution (8/7/2009)