The Great American Experiment followed the sacrifice of, “lives . . . fortunes . . . and sacred honor” in defense of an idea. The idea that individuals, free from the tyranny of central command and control, protected their individual interests better than any unrelated protector, no matter how kind, caring or otherwise motivated. The Great American Experiment was funded, fought, and died for on the promise that freedom led to higher standards of living for everyone, greater innovation in business, agriculture, and every other aspect of life for everyone it touched, successful and failing alike. The government would be as limited as possible, the people as free as possible.

Carl Marx, believed the antithesis of these ideas. Marxism suggests that such freedom, and the fact that some people would be immensely more successful than others under such freedom, hurts the average person. Marx believed that for some people to succeed, others must fail, that the size of the pie is fixed, and who gets large pieces and who goes hungry is mostly random, except that dishonest people predisposed to fraud will skew things to their advantage. The typical honest person will suffer under the abuse of the dishonest. People are better served, in his theory, when each produce according to their abilities, and a central authority distributes according to one’s need. The average is better served when everyone follows the plan.

Every society in human existence has either answered to a central authority like a king, or had some system whereby the people chose their governors. In early history, a king who fought for the position was best able to fight to defend his people from invaders and pillagers, or to invade and pillage neighbors. Most were still farmers and hunters. Later, when technology progressed to the point where people could produce more than they consumed, trading came on the scene with the evolution of the middle man (middleous homosapien). This relied on fair play and people were hunted down and killed for foul play. Knowing who could be trusted and a person’s reputation became valued knowledge. Middleous man evolved to make a living off of what they knew instead of what they could grow or hunt. This only happened because there was enough excess produced to support people who did not directly hunt or gather food, make clothing, or build shelter, and there was efficiency in producing a couple of commodities where the climate was best suited to it and trading them for goods that could be more efficiently produced elsewhere. (This is why we raise beef and corn here, and they raise sugar cane in the tropics). It was almost unregulated. The middle men got together and formed colleges, or congresses, (groups of like minded people to serve a common end). Being a member of such could encourage producers and buyers to deal with you. The members of such groups would promise better and better prices to producers, and better and better quality to the buyers. Some would temporarily make a better living by such promises than from what they knew. They promised more than their competing middle men, until they could no longer produce and the group collapsed. They were replaced.

This system was ultimately replaced by the selection of fair play representatives (governors) by consensus. This made the selection based more on the perception of the candidate’s abilities than on actual performance. (Sound familiar?) Sometimes the selection was fair; sometimes it was coerced and intimidated. Indeed, control of all societies has been and is by governments chosen by a range of methods, with violent seizure of power after surrender on one end of the scale, and free and frequent elections on the other.

I am only concerned with the violent seizure method in that it is no more or less likely an end to any society, regardless of where their system currently lies along the scale, and is therefore mostly unpredictable. Such systems arise when the people are not able or willing to withstand its takeover. My concern is with the other end where America selects its government. Every society in human existence who chose their governors based on promises of representation have ultimately fallen to wasteful spending. The cliché is that they fell when the electorate voted themselves larger shares of the stores of grain than they were motivated to produce when fed with free grain. It is another of human’s natures. Until the mid 1900’s, these happenings were part of common education.

These are well known facts. In the pre-American world, kings tried to motivate their subjects with a system of taxes and entitlements. Prior to America’s founding, it was generally believed that anarchy would ensue without divinely inspired and chosen leaders. Many cultures still believe that today. Our founders believed that no one is more or less divinely created than the next, and that anarchy ensues without a divinely inspired population. They conceived a system whereby people could correct tyranny by choice. They conceived, debated, and persuaded the acceptance of a system that limited the power of the government to only that which the people authorize it to have. They demanded limits on government which could not be changed by the government serving those limits. They knew that human nature would compel elected officials to promise ever increasing rations from the public stores, and that once government control got sufficiently complicated, one size-fits-all policies would be the only way to manage the complexity thereby limiting innovation and individual motivation. They believed that nearly every government activity must be controlled locally, or fail.

So here we are. We stand at the cross roads where intellect faces human nature. On the one hand, intellect can rightly lead us to the conclusion that perfect management of a well motivated populace, provided for in accordance with the needs of each, eliminates suffering caused by bad decisions made by the individual. Human nature can lead us to accept Marx’s arguments without challenging the assumptions inherent in them. Marx’s utopic theory requires that human nature be resisted by the managers so that corruption does not foul the system, and that human nature be resisted by the managed so that defense of individual best interest no interfere with the common good even when contrary to individual good. Human nature explains why corruption is so common in countries with Marxist leaning systems. The self interest of the briber is provided for by the indulgence of the self interest of the bribed. Innovation is only relevant when conceived by or recognized by the managers and no incentive exists outside of ego for the innovator or the observant manager. Likewise, human nature leads us to vote ourselves larger shares of the public stores on the promises that “they” will be sufficiently taxed and sufficiently tolerant of the taxes to continue to produce grain undeterred. Human nature leads some to believe this despite the evidence to the contrary.

On the other hand, intellect can lead us to look for examples of both systems, socialist and free market, and determine which provides better conditions for the poor, or disadvantaged. Human nature would be to choose the best performing system.

Have we chosen the system whose theory stands up to rational debate when devoid of real world examples, or the system that has proven successful in practice despite being too complicated to fully explain every action rationally?

The choices, as I understand them are these: Recognize that we have the best medical system in the world BECAUSE the rich pay more than the poor, BECAUSE the rich have access to new treatment and technology before it is cheap enough for mass consumption; Recognize this it is this arrangement which makes medical care for the poor more available than it was a decade ago; Recognize that medical treatment of the poor is more available than it is in any other system in the world; Recognize that much of the medical treatment available to the world’s poor only exists as a result of the American medical system; Recognized that more treatments are available to the poor than would be if FDR had been successful in realizing socialized medicine; Recognize that a generation from now, the poor will have less access to as yet undiscovered treatments under socialized medicine than would be available if the rich continued to fund research and development; Recognize that socialism, Marxism, communism, statism, progressivism, liberalism, or however else you chose to label it, has led to the death of more people in the world than all other calamities combined; Recognize that because these systems rely on complete adherence to the common plan and surrender of the protection of individual defense of one’s best interest, violence and oppression are always used to control the population; Recognize that the wealth created by American entrepreneurs has funded the defense of most of the free world for two generations. Simply, choose to protect the rights of the individual to succeed or fail by one’s own decisions, unencumbered by agendas of social justice and wealth redistribution.

Or, choose the path chosen by every free society ever known. Choose the path dictated by emotion and human nature. Choose to bankrupt the country by trying to plan and provide an ever increasing array of goods and services, devised by a politically motivated committee that sets it own limits, provided to increasingly less motivated and demonized producers.

Will intellect win out over emotion? Am I wrong in my belief that I am on the side of intellect and not emotion? Is it arrogance that got us here in the first place, to believe that the human nature cycle of tyranny-escape-freedom-prosperity-guilt-entitlement-dependancy-tyranny can be short circuited without the pain of tyranny fresh in our minds? Are we destined to go down as the society arrogant enough to think that it manage all things for all people, just as the Romans did?

I hope not. I hope, that the success of the Great American Experiment thus far, can inspire us to not relinquish this prosperity and freedom in return for short term illusions of social justice. I hope that we recognize the success that took us from 13 colonies, too worthless to warrant the resources to control those colonies, to the most prosperous, powerful, free, and generous people in the world in less than 100 years. I hope that we collectively believe in our hearts, that the reason people immigrate here from every country in the world is freedom and opportunity and not a random coincidence. I hope that we as a country do not give in to the human nature that leads us to believe that our neighbors make poor choices at home, but perfect ones when electing officials, that these same neighbors make poor decisions at home, but perfect ones once in Washington DC.

I hope that we recognize that it is because of human nature, not despite it, that socialism and statism have always failed wherever they existed, and that free markets have succeeded everywhere they have existed. There is only so much motivation garnered from threats of fines and imprisonment, but the motivation of the hope for a better life is only limited by one’s imagination.

I assert that his logic is flawed, in that a right is self evident, and therefore cannot be provided, denied, or limited by government. It cannot be a universal right to get a medical procedure on the one hand, and morally acceptable to deny such a procedure on the basis of political will, or budgetary limitations and priorities, or on the basis of age. It cannot be a moral imperative to provide “free” healthcare to the young, but expect the elderly to resign themselves to the reality that they only have a decade or so anyway and should medicate themselves into a blissful end. It is either morally required that we treat everyone, or that everyone take the blue pill.

But the flaw that struck me the strongest was a flaw of faith. The President is a self described Christian and claims to be his brother’s keeper and his sister’s. But he is not suggesting that he personally provide for them and does not have a history of making such efforts. He is suggesting that the government collect the assets of the unwilling, with threat of imprisonment, and disseminate those assets for medical procedures for the able. Some of these procedures are immoral to some of the unwilling. He is not passing the plate, he is picking up the congregation and shaking money from them, and don’t make him come to your house!! And, he is suggesting that the government limit people’s ability to help their neighbor with their medical needs outside of the government process because it would not be “fair” that some people live with wealthier, kinder neighbors. He suggests that this be done so that he can be acting morally.

I assert, that you cannot hire someone to do a moral act for you. If ignoring people who do not get adequate healthcare is immoral, then hiring someone to “collect” money from the unwilling and use it to assure that no one is ignored, all the while blissfully ignoring the fact that the healthcare has declined for everyone is doubly immoral.

You cannot act morally by proxy. The idea that you could hire someone to pray so that you don’t have too is laughable. The idea that we could hire the government to take care of matters of individual morality is just as laughable. If it weren’t so serious, that is.

But it does not appear that this is a moral issue for the President. If I were the President, and I were fighting for morality, I would be selling the important points to the House and Senate who write the Bills, not trying to sell
it to the American people when Congress was preparing a Bill that contradicted me. It appears that the point is that the industry be moved from private hands to public hands and any argument/excuse/outcome will suffice. He is
concentrating on selling the idea to us, while leaving the details to Congress. This is not a man acting on a moral imperative.

Promising us that he intends to protect the hen house, but leaving security details to be negotiated between the roosters and the foxes (that would be the Congress and the special interest groups/lobbyists/industry representatives)
makes the hens nervous. If he were really morally motivated to protect the hens, he would not leave the details to anyone else.

My original point was that is must be horrible to be a liberal/progressive/collectivist with things going so badly. Occasionally I comment about how they tend to eat each other when in charge. Part of the reason is that they each think that their own issue is the only important one but the principles they insist further their interests actually hinder the agenda of other liberal/progressive/collectivists. How is related to President Obama not qualifying as the antichrist? They are both explained by the idea behind the phrase, “We hold these truths to be self evident.”

When a self evident truth is up for debate, only the nuts out in left field argue against it. (Sorry, not leftist field, right field is just as good.) For instance, if the bill up for debate was to outlaw the murder of children for their milk money, this self evident truth would receive little opposition. The Democrats hold a dominant majority in the House, a super majority in the Senate, and the Presidency. If the Republicans commit to vote against everything, or if they agree to stay home, makes no difference. Why then has a health care law not passed? Why has it been changed from health care reform to health insurance reform? Why, has cap and trade not passed? Why has Gitmo not closed? Why are our troops still in Iraq? Because Republicans voted against these? No, if that were the case, the big health bill buy offs like the “Louisiana Purchase” and the Nebraska bribe would have been to holdout Republicans, not Democrats. Why would Democrats need to be paid to vote for a self evident truth of their own creation?

Also, what would motivate a Republican to vote against a self evident truth proposed by Democrats, especially in an election year when they could be held to account for voting against a self evident truth? Why would an uncaring, self serving Republican not be tempted to vote for the winning side if it was in keeping with their personal views on a particular issue and helped ease their re-election?

Simply, because they all know these are not self evident truths. The other self serving, political hack, Republicans love the idea that the Democrats will be held responsible for the consequences, all bad in the short run, no benefits until after the next presidential election. Some Democrats actually believe that there are great truths that are not self evident, stealthy truths which require higher education and enlightened understanding to be seen. These believe that it is worth going against the blind common people for the common good. Some political hack Democrats believe that it is always about political party and that these issues are not important to anyone, except in the context of political battle. All Democrats, regardless of motivation, voted for one of the healthcare versions except a few in the House who were “allowed” to vote against their version in hopes of protecting their seat in the upcoming November elections. Such allowances would not be needed for a self evident truth.

Of course, you could argue that universal mandated health insurance is a self evident truth. But, then you would have to ask yourself this: How big a looser would Democrats have to be to control the House, Senate, and White House, and not be able to pass a law furthering a self evident truth? How incompetent would the President need to be, for Americans to elect him in with a self described commanding mandate to pass such, with an unhindered, compliant Congress, and not get a bill to his desk.? How incompetent would he have to be to botch the debate so badly that Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat would fall to a Republican running on the platform of voting against the current bills? Universal insurance was Kennedy’s life’s work and he helped enact universal health insurance in Massachusetts. The voters knew their vote could spell the end of the issue Kennedy martyred himself for. Yet, they voted against the truth they are personally experienced in. (Kennedy could have resigned when he found out he was dying. This would have allowed a replacement to be appointed by the Governor to serve out the remainder of Kennedy’s term. This would have likely been the Governor appointed Democrat who did immediately replaced Kennedy. Instead, it was decided that Kennedy dying in office would garner sympathy for his cause. This shortened the appointment to 3 months until a special election could be held. – Self evident falsehood, or incompetence. You decide.)

Or, could it be a combination of the two?

Consider that the problems the liberal/progressive/collectivists are having stems from the largest shortcoming of their philosophy: all big decisions should be made in one central location by a few all-powerful clairvoyants. Chicago politics enjoyed some separation between campaign rhetoric, the rhetoric of sitting officials, and the actual votes on the actual laws before them. The liberal legislature passed the liberal agenda, watched only by a liberal electorate, only on issues still the local prerogative. President Obama was ill prepared by the only job he had ever really held. He is/was incompetent to stand questioned about the liberal agenda by non-liberals on the national stage. If the state and local acts were the major controlling factors in attracting or discouraging international business in Illinois instead of federal acts, President Obama would be more practiced. Discussions of competing with the Chinese for jobs when the Chinese employers do not pay for universal health insurance would have been more commonplace and he presumably would have had less trouble selling it to fellow Democrats without paying them off. In short, if the authority still resided with the states and their citizens, a U.S. President would not need to defend such policies to people in every individual state.

Is our President incapable of selling a truth that sells itself, to people of his own party who hold the same beliefs and agenda? Even without understanding the details, wouldn’t the truth be obvious?

Would you expect one or more of the 5 to show up the next day with a stuffed animal, because they did not like doing without? Do you think that some of the kids would offer their extra stuffed animal to classmates with none? I would. I would expect one or two of the 5 who simply forgot, or didn’t take the request seriously or whatever would remember the next day. That leaves 3 who did not bring a stuffed animal because they could not, for whatever reason. I would expect some with stuffed animals to share with those who do not have a stuffed animal. I have a son who routinely shares his most prized treats with others around him. Some of those with one stuffed animal would bring in another the next day, and some would do so specifically to share with their classmates.

Imagine however if the teacher felt sorry for the 5 students without a stuffed animal and assumed they did not bring one in because they did not have the opportunity at home. Imagine that she wants to keep from embarrassing those without stuffed animals by allowing them to play without a stuffed animal or to be at the mercy of the charity of those students with multiple stuffed animals. Imagine that with good intention, she collects the “extra” stuffed animals and distributes them to the students without one. Everyone has a stuffed animal. Perfect, right?

What happens the next day? What happens if this is continued indefinitely into the future?

Will the 2 forgetful students bring in a stuffed animal the next day, or the next? Perhaps, but is there more or less incentive for them to do so than if they had been left alone?

Are the students who had 2 or 3 stuffed animals, and had the “extra” collected more or less likely to bring their 2 or 3 again the next day, to have them collected and redistributed to someone else?

When there are fewer than 30 stuffed animals brought in, is it fair for those who brought one or more in to be the one without any, so that someone who did not bring one in can have one?

Does the student’s reason for no longer bringing in a stuffed animal matter to you when answering this question? For example, does it matter that one student who brought in multiple stuffed animals just days before, only brings in one, and another student does not bring one because she cannot? Would you take the one stuffed animal from the “stingy” student and give it to the one without any choice in the matter?

Would you expect a child to bring their best or favorite stuffed animal in if they saw another student play carelessly with stuffed animals that did not belong to them? Would they attempt to protect their favored stuffed animal from confiscation and damage by leaving it at home in favor of a less appreciated toy?

If the teacher attempted to make the stingy students (who stopped bringing in stuffed animals) feel bad, would they bring in lesser appreciated stuffed animals in larger quantities to keep the count up without risking the better stuffed animals?

Would those who lack the ability (as apposed to those who were forgetful or lazy) be better off in the original situation where everyone felt free to bring their best stuffed animals and share as they felt comfortable?

How does this thinly veiled commentary on free choice relate to current events?

The Associated Press did some homework recently: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091029/D9BKMVMG0.html

http://www.cleveland.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/national-13/126320409066680.xml&storylist=washington et. al.

First, the jobs created were overstated. Imagine that, people competing for government grants painting a rosy picture about how well they had used the money. No surprise, I would expect any program with self reporting to have tremendous reported success.

Second, unemployment did not fair better in areas where a lot of stimulus money was spent relative to where none was spent. Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood disagreed and said there were tens of thousands of jobs created in construction with road and bridge money. After all, how could we spend $400,000 per stimulus job and not hire anyone? They can’t all be raises for current employees reported as jobs saved. Is someone lying or stretching the truth? Perhaps, but both could also be right. Consider this:

Start with the fact that government cannot create wealth; it cannot give anyone something without first confiscating it from someone else. So, where did the jobs come from? In terms of stimulus money, where did the $400,000 dollars come from? More importantly, how many people would your employer have to lay off, to pay up $400,000? After all, that is where the money comes from, the economy. So, we borrow (from the future economy) $400,000 per job, with interest, which will have to be paid back (likely in terms of jobs lost or not created) by that part of the economy left when the new notes come due. We recently borrowed $290 billion to pay the interest on the next few months of loans we already have. This was the raise in the borrowing limit to keep the notes from coming due, presumably until the health care bill can pass.

In addition, the economy has to pay the government to operate, pay people to print/collect/borrow the money, as the government does not create anything and cannot pay for itself. And, the economy must pay for those programs and non-operational expenses of the government, like national health care, should it pass.

So, imagine that you are a potential employer, especially one over seas. Are you more likely to hire people in America, or somewhere else? Keep in mine, an employer has to have the money to pay the employee before hiring and for a long enough time for them to pay for themselves. Are you more likely to bring your best-most-favoritest bear you built at Build-a-Bear to the American kindergarten to be confiscated, redistributed, and played with by careless Americans? Or are you more likely to take your bear to China/India/Ireland/Dubai or any of hundreds of more bear friendly countries?

The problem with socialism, shared prosperity, social justice, economic justice, or whatever statist-collectivist name you want to put on it, is that it demands that human nature be ignored. This type of system is only sustainable (let alone prosperous) if the teacher can go into each student’s house and force them to bring in their bears. In other words, if there is no private bear ownership, if there are no alternatives, if there are no liberties. Such systems are only sustainable at the point of the proverbial gun. Such systems are only enforced, not upheld by informed free people.

Consider how this fits in with the current discussion of the day, where you will be forced to buy a particular government specified health insurance from companies who are forced to provide it to you without considering pre-existing conditions, at a government determined “affordable” rate, payable to Doctors who have been forced to accept this amount. Plans better than the particular “minimum” plan determined by the government (ironically called Cadillac plans, a GM brand owned by the Fed) will be taxed for re-distribution, and Doctors who do not accept the minimum payment or charge cash or provide enough care to be in the top 10% by volume, will be penalized likewise.

Will the currently uninsured be better off with the eventual outcome, or at the mercy of the current system? Will those from other countries continue to bring their medical dollars here, or will they follow the foreign Doctors to the more bear friendly counties?

Taking resources out of the productive areas of the economy, via healthcare, energy, income, or any other taxes and mandates, to re-distribute to non-producing areas, wastes resources in the re-distribution effort, and scares producers from other countries from producing here. Job stimulation spending costs us jobs and re-distributive health care reform hinders the availability of health care. The “stingy” will always have theirs, here or in China. Those who cannot produce always suffer the worse equality-of-outcome from socialism than the outcome from equality-of-opportunity of the free market.

He said, “Democracy does not work. We have proven that we are not even capable of governing ourselves by proxy.”

On the surface he is right. Few will argue that our republic is not working as it was envisioned and certainly not as it did before the New Deal or the Fed, or the gold-standardless-dollar. But is it a failing of democracy? I think not, I exert that the failing is ours. The failing is one of human nature.

If we took a panel of 12 lawyers and placed them in a room with an ailing man, and asked them to vote on what ailed him or what his treatment should be, how likely are we to get a reasonable answer, much less the best one? If we replaced the lawyers with a single Doctor, how different would the outcome be? In fact, ask the attorneys to vote on most any topic, other than that area of law which they are well versed, and how good would you expect the answer to be. Democracy is just this way. An uninformed electorate cannot decide anything of value, except by accident. We should each consult a doctor when ailing, perhaps more than one, instead of turning to democracy. We can only rely on democracy, and our republic built on those ideals, to settle matters of general policy, not which light bulb to use, for instance. We cannot expect to be acceptably governed by proxy with no limits on where such authority ends. The areas which the most central democratic governance should be engaged in should be extremely limited, with each more local subdivision thereof given more and more specific authority as the decisions are made closer and closer to those who will be burdened by the unintended consequences of decisions made in ignorance. The overwhelming majority of authority would remain with the individual where the least ignorance of his condition lies. This is the idea of limited government, individual rights, and personal responsibility which the founders tried to protect in the constitution. Like so many great structures built on such sturdy foundations, it is settling on the rot of apathy and consumption by opportunistic infestations.

Much of the problem our governments face today is the result of the failure of the electorate, not the method of choosing governors. We have fallen for the idea that any educated person will make good decisions for us, without the need for us to keep an eye on them. The truth is, that there is nothing so ignorant as an educated man outside his area of expertise. We point out the difference between book sense, and common sense. The devotion of seeking one, voluntary or otherwise, often leaves little time for the pursuit of the other. We, the doctors, teachers, engineers, construction workers, factory workers, stay at home moms, etc., ad nauseam, have stopped paying attention, stopped making sure that our elected representatives are not making decisions for us about topics that we are better equipped to make for ourselves. (Just as importantly, individuals can make mistakes with relatively little affect on our neighbor and indeed, change our actions following those mistakes with lightning speed compared to the large scale harm government mistakes have and the near impossible reversal of government action.) Once we took our eye off of the public servants, they were persuaded by those who did not. Their egos were stroked and sensibilities wooed by groups who know of the ignorance of the educated man. A doctor would show up and persuade a Congressman that everyone should be able to get their retinas flushed, and would except that the insurance industry doesn’t “want” them to. If only someone would step up and be brave and take them on for the benefit of the little man. . . . and his dusty retinas.

The retinal flusher gizmo manufacturer got his money’s worth by hiring the doctor turned lobbyist. The insurance company would not stay in business long in a free market without offering retinal flush insurance if there were demand for it, as their competition would quickly fill such a void and squeeze them out. But the lobbyist would have them cover such procedures, demand or not. The insurance purchaser is forced to buy insurance for many such procedures that were not asked for, which they may not need. A blind, eyeless man, for instance would be required to buy such insurance if the State he lives in mandates that all minimum policies cover flushes. The ultimate democratic system, the free market, is usurped in this way a thousand times a day. Eventually, the market is so complicated with government mandates that Bob’s Discount Neighborhood Insurance and Surety will never be allowed to open, much less compete with the only insurance company left in town. Democracy creates competition, government creates monopolies.

Limited self government has fallen to unlimited-government-by-lobby. This is organized favoritism which is the hallmark of socialism. An industry or individual succeeds, not by meeting public demand but by receiving favored treatment from government. This is the most common, pervasive, and difficult to eradicate form of corruption. We are no longer governing ourselves, we are serving the government because we are too lazy to keep an eye on those in our custody: Politicians. The inmates are running the asylum because we are too politically correct to call them nuts!

We would not consider it fair if a trial by jury were held where the jury only heard from those with a vested, financial interest in the outcome. Yet we seem perfectly willing to allow a hodge podge of mostly lawyers vote on the health care the rest of us will receive, exempting themselves, behind closed doors, with only lobbyists as a source of information. We then blame democracy when we get something that has more back scratching and pandering than health care.

Democracy has not failed us, we have failed democracy.