Following up on an earlier post about democracy, here is a great find from The Daily Paul. I constantly hear about us being a democracy, even by conservatives. It’s considered taboo to say anything bad about democracies, but we were not founded as a democracy, which is why our government was supposed to be extremely limited in what it could do. Our founders knew that democracy was a horrible system.

Democracy is …

…the majority turning their guns on the minority.

…the majority enslaving the minority.

…the creation of human sacrifices for the majority.

…the destruction of the individual.

…constant growth in government as the majority votes more to themselves.

…the road to absolute tyranny.

YouTube – Democracy is not Freedom!.

Here’s a great post I found by way of The Daily Paul.

For the past few days, I’ve received loads of emails urging me to get active regarding the healthcare vote – most of which had a subject line similar to: “Last Chance to Stop National Healthcare!”

Well, if you believe the only way to protect your rights is by begging federal politicians to do what you want, then these emails are certainly right. The vote went as expected, and so will the next.

So if you think marching on D.C. or calling your Representatives, or threating to “throw the bums out” in 2010 or 2012 or 20-whatever, is going to further the cause of the Constitution and your liberty – you might as well get your shackles on now. Your last chance has come and gone.

But, those of you who visit this site regularly already know that the Senate’s health care vote is far from the end of things – and you also know that even when it goes into effect (which I assume some version will), it’s still not the end of the road for your freedom.

The real way to resist DC is not by begging politicians and judges in Washington to allow us to exercise our rights…it’s to exercise our rights whether they want to give us “permission” to or not.

Nullification – state-level resistance to unconstitutional federal laws – is the way forward.

When a state ‘nullifies’ a federal law, it is proclaiming that the law in question is void and inoperative, or ‘non-effective,’ within the boundaries of that state; or, in other words, not a law as far as that state is concerned.

It’s peaceful, effective, and has a long history in the American tradition. It’s been invoked in support of free speech, in opposition to war and fugitive slave laws, and more. Read more on this history here.

Regarding nullification and health care, there’s already a growing movement right now. Led by Arizona, voters in a number of states may get a chance to approve State Constitutional Amendments in 2010 that would effectively ban national health care in their states. Our sources here at the Tenth Amendment Center indicate to us that we should expect to see 20-25 states consider such legislation in 2010.

20 States resisting DC can do what calling, marching, yelling, faxing, and emailing has almost never done. Stop the feds dead in their tracks.

For example, 13 states are already defying federal marijuana prohibition, and the federal government is having such a hard time dealing with it that the Obama administration recently announced that they would no longer prioritize enforcement in states that have medical marijuana laws.

Better yet, in the last 2+ years more than 20 states have been able to effectively prevent the Real ID Act of 2005 from being implemented. How did they do that? They passed laws and resolutions refusing to comply with it. And today, it’s effectively null and void without ever being repealed by Congress or challenged in court.

While the Obama administration would like to revive it under a different name, the reality is still there – with massive state-level resistance, the federal government can be pushed back inside its constitutional box. Issue by issue, law by law, the best way to change the federal government is by resisting it on a state level.

That’s nullification at work.

Over the years, wise men and women warned us that the Constitution would never enforce itself. The time is long overdue for people to start recognizing this fact, and bring that enforcement closer to home.

The bottom line? If you want to make real change; if you want to really do something for liberty and for the Constitution…focus on local activism and your state governments.

Thomas Jefferson would be proud!

via Health Care Nullification: Things have just gotten underway | Tenth Amendment Center.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, there is an op-ed by David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey about giving the states the ability to propose constitutional amendments.

For nearly a hundred years, federal power has expanded at the expense of the states—to a point where the even the wages and hours of state employees are subject to federal control. Basic health and safety regulations that were long exercised by states under their “police power” are now dominated by Washington.

The courts have similarly distorted the Constitution by inventing new constitutional rights and failing to limit governmental power as provided for in the document. The aggrandizement of judicial power has been a particularly vexing challenge, since it is inherently incapable of correction through the normal political channels.

There is a way to deter further constitutional mischief from Congress and the federal courts, and restore some semblance of the proper federal-state balance. That is to give to states—and through them the people—a greater role in the constitutional amendment process.

The idea is simple, and is already being mooted in conservative legal circles. Today, only Congress can propose constitutional amendments—and Congress of course has little interest in proposing limits on its own power. Since the mid-19th century, no amendment has actually limited federal authority.

But what if a number of states, acting together, also could propose amendments? That has the potential to reinvigorate the states as a check on federal power. It could also return states to a more central policy-making role.

via David Rivkin and Lee Casey: The States Can Check Washington’s Power – WSJ.com.

While the authors have a good idea and a great point, they completely leave out what happened “nearly a hundred years” ago that allowed federal power to expand. Several things happened, but one thing in particular happened that if it had not happened would given the authors what they are asking for and would have prevented the massive expansion of the federal government. In 1913, the 17th amendment was ratified. That amendment changed Senators from being elected by state legislatures to being elected by the people via the popular vote.

The original point of the Senate was to represent state interests and to keep the Federal government from infringing on states rights. Once that barrier was removed, there was no longer a check on the federal powers. You get what we have now.

Prior to the 17th amendment, states could do exactly what the article is proposing. States could propose amendments via their state’s senators, who were accountable to the state legislators. Now, senators aren’t accountable to state legislators, so all they care about is the popular vote of the people, which is easily manipulated.

Come to think about it, do you think Senators could be as corrupt as they are if they were accountable to state legislators? Could corporations buy off US Senators at the expense of their citizens if they new that the state legislators could kick them out of office? While I’m sure there would still be corruption, I don’t think you would have it on the scale that we do now. I also don’t think you would necessarily have these career politicians and the rotating door between government and lobbying.

As time goes on, the great intellect of our founders avails itself more an more. They put controls in place knowing what would happen without those controls. Unfortunately, we allowed Woodrow Wilson, who was a “progressive” to undermine so much of what the founders put in place. Under Wilson, we got the 17th amendment, ending state rights. We got the federal reserve act, which allows the federal government to spend by printing money, robs the middle class and poor through inflation, and creates boom bust cycles. We got the progressive income tax, which punishes productivity and instigates class warfare. The list of Wilson’s destructive acts could go on with drug laws, antiwar suppression, etc.

If we ever want to take the country back towards more liberty, states without a doubt need to start reasserting themselves. It does seem to be happening underneath the surface. There is a growing 10th amendment movement. There are even discussions on some websites and TVs shows about secession. While I don’t see secession ever happening with everyone being programmed that the south was evil for seceded, I can see states voiding federal laws if the people get loud enough. Ultimately, it comes down to people rising up against these federal laws. The first chance at this will be this enslaving health care bill. The people need to get extremely loud about it and tell their state legislators to ignore the federal law. If states ignored the law, as some have ignored the drug laws, they can in effect void the laws.

Maybe it will happen. More likely it won’t. One can only hope that states reassert themselves. If they do, we have a fighting chance at re-establishing our country. If not, Rome will continue to burn until it is no longer.

In the Federalist Paper No. 12, Hamilton is arguing for the Constitution and the Union by discussing the benefits of the Union to raising revenue for the government. Quickly, Hamilton highlights something modern day socialists somehow forget, that through self interest, what they call greed, all members of society benefit.

Hamilton writes, “The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen,” except for modern day socialists, “to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth, and has accordingly become a primary object of their political cares.” What Hamilton is saying is all enlightened (educated) men of this time period recognize that commerce (free trade) is the best way to build national wealth. Because this is known to be true, enabling free trade has become the object of their policy.

He continues, “By multiplying the means of gratification, by promoting the introduction and circulation of the precious metals, those darling objects of human avarice and enterprise, it serves to vivify and invigorate all channels of industry and to make them flow with greater activity and copiousness.” Here Hamilton is stating the government should encourage trade by “multiplying the means of gratification”. He talks about precious metals as “those darlings objects of human avarice and enterprise”. Basically, he is saying money and the want of more money (avarice or as socialist like to say, greed) drives people to work more and to produce more for society (enterprise).

“The assiduous merchant, the laborious husbandman, the active mechanic, and the industrious manufacturer – all orders of men look forward with eager expectation and growing alacrity to this pleasing reward of their toils.” What? You mean all these men look forward to earning profits? Those bastards! Hamilton recognizes that it is the reward of profits that causes the merchant, the farmer (husbandman), the mechanic, and the manufacturer to be productive, and the more reward the more productive they will be. He uses words such as assiduous (unrelenting) merchant, laborious (extreme effort) husbandman, active (involving physical effort)  mechanic, and industrious (working energetically) manufacturer.  He uses these words to emphasize it’s the profit motive that creates these behaviors. With no profit motive, you do not have the productiveness of these men.

Next Hamilton discusses how everyone benefits from the free market, even those who think they don’t. “The often-agitated question between agriculture and commerce (basically labor and businessmen) has from indubitable experience received a decision which has silenced the rivalship that once subsisted between them, and has proved, to the entire satisfaction of their friends, that their interests are intimately blended and interwoven.” Notice that Hamilton basically says that the interest of both labor and businessmen are interwoven. Government cannot benefit the laborers by punishing the businessman. In doing so, he also punishes labor.  He continues, “It has been found in various countries that in proportion as commerce has flourished land has risen in value. And how could it have happened otherwise? Could that which procures a freer vent of products of the earth, which furnishes new incitements to the cultivators of land, which is most powerful instruments in increasing the quantity of money in a state – could that, in fine, which is faithful handmaid of labor and industry in every shape fail to augment the value of that article, which is the prolific parent of far the greatest part of the objects upon which they are exerted? It is astonishing that so simple a truth should ever have had an adversary;” Apparently, it still has it’s adversary in modern day politicians, socialists, and labor unions, who believe that free markets don’t help everyone. But Hamilton explains, how could you increase the value of one without increasing the value of the other? You can’t increase the value of what labor produces without increasing the value of labor. Both parties benefit.

Lastly, “and it is one among a multitude of proofs how apt a spirit of ill-informed jealousy, or of too great abstractions and refinement, is to lead men astray from the plainest paths of reason and conviction.” Wow, Hamilton points out that jealousy leads men astray from reason and conviction. How true is this in modern society? While everyone truly knows that government produces nothing, many today still want the government to intervene in the free market because of jealousy. They are jealous of the rich. Because of their jealousy, they are blinded to reason which would highlight the errors of their ways. Does this remind you of the tax the rich argument? They need to pay their fair share! Who cares if they have benefited society more by creating jobs, services, products, etc. They don’t deserve that much more than the poor. Low and behold though, when government takes more of their money, they don’t create as many jobs, services, products, etc, and we are all worse off because of it. These are simple truths, but jealousy, as Hamilton points out, leads us astray from reason.

In an op-ed in the Washington Times, Senator Susan Collins calls into question the constitutionality of the czars. While I completely agree, I’d ask the senator where she has been all this time?

When it comes to accountability and transparency, who is actually in charge and making the policy decisions? Is it the secretary, whom the Senate confirmed, or is it the czar, whom the president unilaterally appointed? These czars operate outside the established structure of checks and balances.

As ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, I also am concerned about the management dysfunction that so many czars create. They duplicate or dilute the statutory authority and responsibilities Congress has conferred on Cabinet officers and other senior officials.

Unfortunately, because czars can circumvent the constitutionally mandated process of “advice and consent” and because the president’s advisers have informed me that no White House czars will be allowed to testify before Congress, we cannot ask them for the answers.

Czars bypass the constitutional oversight authority of Congress, tipping the balance of power in favor of the executive branch.

via Reining in the czars – Washington Times.

The czars without a doubt undermine the constitution. If I was President and wanted to become a tyrant, one of the things I would do is put my select people in places and positions where they could seize control at the right time. While I am not saying this is Obama’s intent, although everyday I wonder, once the precedent is set,  it allows future Presidents to do the same thing. If one of those Presidents has the intention of becoming a tyrant, he’ll have precedent on his side.

While I agree with Collins on this issue, I would hope she’d be consistent in her concern for the constitution. The congress violates the constitution with almost every bill they write. Will we see an op-ed about the constitutionality of health care reform, cash for clunkers, bailouts, etc?

While chatting on twitter, one of my tweeps posted this blog. Because his name has Federalist in it, @Federalist84, I decided I should check it out. To my surprise, the blog is from @SoccerSeal, a 17yr old girl, and she has one of the most straight forward criticisms of President Obama that I’ve heard. Here’s the argument.

The role of a President is not to “Transform” the nation. The role of the president is clearly stated in the Presidential Oath, “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me God.” Nowhere in that oath do I see change or transform. Your job is to protect, preserve and defend. Not change, dismantle, and control. And right now I get the feeling that you are doing the latter.

via Red, White & Conservative.

The Constitution was setup for a reason. It was setup to ensure human freedom. It was not setup for continual transformation. Nowhere does it say the government should give you any rewards. It is only there to protect your earned rewards and your liberties from force. Until we all realize what this 17yr old has already realized, we will continue our steady decline, and we will always have the least of us governing.

While reading the Federalist Paper No. 6, I came across another great Hamilton quote that we should keep in mind.

In No. 6, Hamilton was arguing that in order to prevent unnecessary wars both internally between the colonies and externally between the colonies and foreign nations, they should ratify the Constitution to form the Union. With the Union, there would be rationality in calming the fervor for war with other nations, because one area of the country may be hurt by the war that another part of the country was calling for. With seperate colonies or three or four confederacies, one confederacy or colony could start a war without regard to the others. This would lead to more wars.

Internally, he was arguing with separate colonies or confederacies, there would more than likely be wars between them. He used examples of Britian’s wars with Scotland.

After laying out the historical proof, Hamilton was calling for the dismissal of the arguments to remain separated. He started by asking what would make us think that despite the history of similar nations’ experiences with inter-quarreling we would be able to have peace with separate confederations or colonies.

To shut down the claims from the anti-federalist, Hamilton wrote the following quote to ask why we think that we are different.

“Have we not already seen enough of the fallacy and extravagance of those idle theories which have amused us with promises of an exemption from the imperfections, the weaknesses, and the evils incident to society of every shape? Is it not time to awake from the deceitful dream of a golden age and to adopt as a practical maxim for the direction of our political conduct that we, as well as the other inhabitants of the globe, are yet remote from the happy empire of perfect wisdom and perfect virture?”

Hamilton is basically saying. We aren’t  different. These human traits that have led to war for other nations will not forgo us simply because those who want to maintain the separate colonies say so.

While, Hamilton was talking about war, I think the quote fits perfectly into our modern context. It fits in respect to the our further slide towards socializing as much as possible in our country. Surely, history has laid out the disaster of socialism whether it be the famine in China that killed countless millions, the never ending impoverishment of Cuba, or the horror stories of health care in Britain and Canada. If Hamilton was writing about our governments taking over banks, car companies, possibly newspapers and health care, I am guessing he would say what makes us think we are different? Why do we think we can ignore history?

Today, the columnist Thomas Frank of the Wall Street Journal wrote a column in which he basically says modern day conservatives are bizarrely paranoid. From reading his article, he’s talking about those conservatives who believe in capitalism, are against government propaganda, and are against government social engineering. Here’s a snippet of his piece.

Back in Hofstadter’s day this sort of thinking at least had something supremely rational going for it: The existence of the Soviet Union and its desire to bring the West to its knees.

But take that away and the theories become something far more remarkable. Consider, by contrast, the widespread belief that President Barack Obama’s birth certificate was forged. What could have been his parents’ motives for committing such a bizarre deed, or his home state’s motive for colluding in it, or the courts’ motives for overlooking it?

Or consider the widespread conservative conviction that we are being marched secretly into communism or fascism. Why would someone bother? It seems equally likely, given today’s circumstances, that conspirators would trick us into becoming a colony of Belgium or the imperial seat of the Bonaparte family.

The paranoid pattern persists regardless. It is impervious to world events; a blurting of the American subconscious that has not changed since Hofstadter analyzed it 45 years ago. Consider the recent wave of fear that the hypnotic Mr. Obama was planning to indoctrinate schoolchildren. In “The Paranoid Style,” Hofstadter wrote, “Very often the enemy is held to possess some especially effective source of power: he controls the press; . . . he has a new secret for influencing the mind; . . . he is gaining a stranglehold on the educational system.”

via Thomas Frank: From John Birchers to Birthers – WSJ.com.

Let me start off by saying, I agree to some extent on the birth certificate issue. I don’t know whether the issue is valid or not, so I don’t claim that it is. It’s a distraction, and it let’s people like Mr. Frank lump all conservatives together and say they are nuts.

With that said, I do have a problem with the remaining arguments in Mr. Frank’s article. To say that conservatives are claiming we are marching secretly to communism or fascism, and that somehow that is nuts, should highlight how the intellectuals among us are so blinded by their supposed brilliance. Apparently, the government take over of our largest financial, automotive, and soon to be newspaper institutions is of no concern to Mr. Frank. That is just silly talk. So what if the government controls them, and they say what is going to happen in the market place. How is that communism or fascism?

In addition, I think Mr. Frank doesn’t realize that this isn’t a new march. Surely the government permanently impoverishing a large population with welfare and using Medicare and Social Security to induce fear when needed on another large segment of our population could be considered something other than just crazy, paranoia.

I guess, Alexander Hamilton was paranoid when he wrote in the Federalist Papers, “.. that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of goverment. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants” What kind of crazy is Alexander Hamilton warning us about those tenderhearted politicians?

We all know Jefferson was a loony, paranoid, nut case when he said, “A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.” What a weirdo.

Don’t worry about the government trying to take over the 1/6th of our economy via health care. They would never use your health care to make you behave in a certain way. They would never hold it up at election time to scare people into voting for them. Why would you think that?

Surely, this “paranoia” that Mr. Frank so arrogantly puts down is nothing new. What most people would call skepticism has been with us since our founding. It is what led our country to revolution and then to form our union under a constitution.

As far as the school children, the media may have blew it out of proportion, but that was before the post speech exercise assignment was revised to not make it sound like the student had to do something that the President asked. I think it also went hand and hand with the video from Hollywood asking students to pledge allegiance to the President.  Surely, that’s just a little disturbing is it not? Surely, if this video and this homework assignment was from Bush, Democrats and the left would have rightfully went nuts. Oh wait, but that’s not paranoia. When Bush was in, he only purposefully let a couple thousand  New Orleanians die. Maybe I should go back and read Mr. Frank’s article on those crazy lefties.

Lastly, in part of the article that I don’t have sited here, you can read it at the Journal, Mr. Franks poo-poohs Glenn Beck as the master conspirator. Glenn Beck must be a lunatic questioning the Federal Reserve, oh along with all Austrian economists. Surely, the Federal Reserve had nothing to do with the tech bubble, followed by the housing bubble and who knows what bubble they are creating now.

Mr. Frank’s complete lack of historic and conceptional perspective is an embarrassment for my paper of choice. While, he’s entitled to his opinion, maybe he can keep his head in ground. We’ll pull him back out once we take our country back.

Today I finally picked up my own copy of The Federalist Papers at Half Priced Books for $3.48. Thank God For The Free Market #TGFTFM as I like to say on Twitter. Anyways, I only made it to the third page before I found my first gem.

Alexander Hamilton wrote, “.. that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of goverment. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants”

What he was saying here is there are people who will benefit from weak or inefficient government, and those people will use their fake concern for the people to hide their bad intentions. While I don’t believe our government is weak. It would have been weak if the Constitution was not ratified. In that circumstance there would have been people who benefited from the chaos. There were those who argued against the Constitution to maintain the weak Articles of Confederation. Many of them claimed to be looking out for the people, but they were really trying to maintain their status and power.

What we can take from this is the warning about inefficient government and the warning about those who are excessively for “the people”.  Surely, in our current day and age we can see how inefficient our government is compared to the government that our founders envisioned. How many times have you heard of unaccounted for billions in HUD, the department of education, or medicare?

Surely, you can recall how those who pushed these inefficient programs screamed their great attentions, “zeal”, from the rooftops. They are looking out for the people, the down trodden, or the most often group of concern, “the children”. How about this one? “We have to bail out Wall Street in order to bail out Main Street.” Really? It’s not because you want to bailout your buddies at your former companies? That’s right. Of course, not. It’s for the people.

The waste is horrible, but the second part of Hamilton’s warning is more disturbing. He warns that listening to the people who proclaim to be the champions of the people are the ones who more often than not are the ones who overturn liberties and become tyrants.

Keep this in mind next time you hear politicians claiming to be looking out for the people with health care, student loans, jobs, or the myriad of other government programs. The next three years are sure to be a case study on the warning above from Alexander Hamilton.

Earlier this week, I posted a two part series on how to fix the health care crisis. The solution was to get rid of third party payer in respect to the purchase of health care and insurance. Immediately, I got and was glad to have received the red herring question of the pre-existing condition.

Let me start off by saying, that I have a child with special needs. My 9 year old son has cerebral palsy and has gone through years of physical therapy and occupational therapy to be able to walk on his own. He still wears braces on his legs. In additions, my niece has a severe case of autism, so bad that she is fed through a feeding tube. I say this because I know personally what parents have to deal with when it comes to pre-existing conditions.

With that said, free markets and freedom in general are principles on which this country was founded. Principles are meant to be applied in all circumstances, because they prevent us for choosing the wrong path. Our founders knew this. It is by veering off these principles that we are in the mess we are in now. Just because there is a hard issue to be addressed, doesn’t mean we throw away our principles. We don’t teach our children principles to guide them through life, just to have them toss them aside at the first circumstance that challenges their principles. Principles are meant for the hard issues. The are not meant for the easy issues.

“OK buddy. Enough preaching already.”

Agreed! We must start off this topic discussing the morality of government health insurance. Then we will move on to the economics of the issue.

In Thomas Paine’s great work “Common Sense”, he lays out how and why governments come into existence. He describes a civilization with two people, and how with two people you do not need government. Those two people can discuss their problems and come to a solution directly. As more and more people come into this society, they can no longer work out their disagreements directly. There are just too many of them, and they have other duties that require their attention and time. This is when government comes into existence. They decide to appoint select members of the society that they believe will represent their best interests. Those representatives will then setup laws and rules that protect all members of the society. What are they protecting each member of society from? They are protecting them from each other. They are making sure that one member doesn’t use coercion on another member. This coercion can be in the form of theft, fraud or even murder. This is how government is supposed to function in a free society. I think we would all agree that the government that functions in this manner is a just and moral government.

If we all agree to that, then we must acknowledge that coercing someone against their will directly or through the government is an immoral act. This is why the free market is always moral, and all other systems are immoral. The free market allows people, in pursuit of their own interest, to peacefully without coercion come to an agreement on trading a product or service between themselves. Both parties in the transaction walk away from the transaction better than before.

As soon as the government becomes involved, with the exception of preventing coercion (contract law, prosecuting fraud and extortion, etc), they then become the coercive power. Just because they may be acting on something that the majority agrees with doesn’t mean that coercion is now moral. I’m sure the best case of this was slavery. The majority approval for the government coercion did not make slavery moral. Immoral acts are always immoral.

What I am leading up to here is having the government force any individual to pay for another individual’s health insurance is immoral. Also, forcing an individual to buy his own insurance is immoral. In a free society, people are free to pursue their self interest. They are free to be miserly, charitable or neither. They are free to be successful, and they are free to fail. This is a just and moral society. As discussed earlier, this is a principled society. As soon as you veer away from this principle, no matter what your intentions, you then cannot say that another act of coercion, say Wall Street millionaires taking our tax dollars, is immoral.

I know this may sound like great theory, but the truth is life would be much better if we stuck to the principles of our founding fathers. I think we all know and agree to that, but then for some reason we immediately find that this special circumstance is different. It isn’t different. Our founding fathers had many reasons and opportunities to take the path we are now taking. They decided to take the principled stand. They decided to take it for us. George Washington could have easily been a king. He could have setup a monarchy that would have passed from generation to generation. Read history, and you will find how easily he could have done this. People were begging him to be king. Instead, he stood on the principles they professed during the revolution, and he stepped down after two terms.

Now, enough of my moral argument. Morals are great, and we’d all be better off if we lived by them, but how will the free market address the question that prompted this blog?

The free market operates in this manner. Individuals need many things for survival and pleasure. Because they cannot meet all their needs by their own action and invention, they offer what they are best and most efficient at creating and delivering for something they need that someone else is best and most efficient at creating and delivering. This is what is known as the division of labor. For society to benefit the most from everyone’s production, this must be voluntary and with out compulsion. When voluntary, people will seek to offer what they can create better and in more supply than everyone else. They do this based on their self interest. The more value they can create the more they will be able to get from others through trade. When government bureaucrats decide who should do what, you end up with people producing things that they are less efficient at producing. This results in a lower quality of life for us all.

This is apparent even in the most obscure products and services that are offered today. Do you think in government controlled economies, people with a fetish for purple, prince garbed, frog figurines could ever find the product they seek? In the free market, even products and services that seem so obscure that they wouldn’t be worth producing are produced. They are produced because there is a need, there is someone who can produce it, and there is a price at which both agree the product is worth producing and purchasing.

In the market of pre-existing medical conditions, this type of innovation would undoubtedly take place as well. There would be entrepreneurs that see a need that needs met. Typically, these entrepreneurs have experience themselves with being on the needing side of the tracks. They found that they couldn’t meet their own need through the market, so they say “Hey, I see an opportunty here. Why don’t I offer this to society. There has got to be many more people out there with the same need.” As we know, this happens every day, and this is why we as Americans progress so quickly. This is why the internet in a very short time went from bulletin boards to what we have today, where you can make video conference calls across the globe for FREE!

That is not to say you would not have some progress under a government controlled economy. The problem is you would only have progress in the areas that some bureaucrat, special interest or the majority believe should be pursued. If your child suffers from a less common ailment, you are out of luck.

With the free market, you will see innovation so much faster, and you will see prices of those innovations quickly drop. How much did a little 20″ LCD screen cost just 10 years ago? Politicians love to blast the rich, but guess who will fund that new medical treatment your child or you need? When it is first developed in the free market, it will be expensive. That is because of all the research and development costs that went into innovating the product or service. The rich will be the only ones who can afford it. There are only so many rich people, and eventually the manufacturer will have to figure out how to make it cheaper to gain access to a larger market. In this process, all the other companies that participate in the creation of the product will also be pursuing reductions in production costs. This will create a butterfly effect, which will result in rapidly declining prices. I know people think it isn’t fair for the rich to be the only ones who can afford it at first, but under the government controlled market or a market with out the rich, the innovation wouldn’t have taken place.

As I said previously, when you remove the third party payer from the insurance purchase, you will quickly see incentives to live healthier. According to the CDC, chronic illnesses that are caused by life style choices account for 75% of all health care expenditures. It would be a far stretch of the imagination to believe that this number would not be drastically effected if those life style choices were punished via higher premiums. A large decrease in chronic diseases would undoubtedly reduce insurance rates, and it would reduce the cost of health care in general.

Also removing the third party payer from the day to day health care purchases would drastically increase competition and lower prices for normal health issues. This would help those who have pre-existing conditions by allowing them to get the regular medical care at a fair price. Personally, this was my major issue when searching for insurance. My son’s pre-existing condition prevented him from getting even catastrophic care. The reason being is they assumed there would be a large amount of day to day care. I wasn’t concerned with day to day care. My concern was catastrophe. I needed coverage for the care that you can’t plan for. With the decrease in the cost of day to day care that would result from paying out of pocket and increased competition, you would see insurers more inclined to cover those who have pre-existing conditions. One can easily imagine an insurance company running a new marketing campaign stating that is is the “Only insurance company to offer coverage for children with autism”. That is a market that needs served, and they would be the first to tap into that market. Quickly competitors would step up to the plate, and prices would be driven down. Doctors who specialize in a particular affliction would compete for the dollars of potential clients by offering the newest and best treatments. These are the circumstances in which the market shines best.

The last wonder of the free market that would help those who really struggle financially is charity. Historically, charity has always been the way the poor was able to receive the services that they need but could not afford. Americans are the most generous people on the planet, and it would be almost a guarantee that with the government out of the market you would see increased prosperity. With that increased prosperity, you would see more charitable donations. Insurance companies and doctors would donate time and dollars to take care of the less fortunate. One must ask what would happen with charity under a government run health care plan. If the government turns you down, it would almost certainly be illegal or at minimum be detrimental to the doctors relationship with the government if he performed a procedure out of charity.

As I write this, I get super excited as a parent of a special needs child thinking of the innovation that would be unleashed in a completely free market. Unfortunately, we have already let the barbarians in the gates, and they are not going to leave of their own accord. The likely hood that we will drive them out and take back our economy and country is slim. It involves the unknown. It’s easier to accept the mediocrity of the known than it is to trust in what we know is truth but seems so far from where we currently are. I beg you not to fear. Can you imagine what fear our founding fathers, who never knew what life was like without the protection of the Royal Crown, must have felt? The amount of courage that it must have taken just amazes me, even as I write this. I’m sure we can all agree, thank God that they did. Let’s remember life isn’t only about the here and now. It isn’t just about take care of me, and the future be damned. Now is our turn to take the principled stand. It’s our turn to make the tough decisions for posterity. If we do the right thing, one day, our children and grandchildren will say, “Thank God that they did.”