I buy quite a bit of merchandise online. Between Brownells, and Stew-Mac, I usually get a package or two per week. The online shopping experience at Brownells is first class with one caveat - USPS. Their e-commerce system is well written and adequately sends notifications as your order progresses through the system. The notifications that alert you of the shipping of your order are great… unless you ended up with USPS shipping.

USPS generates a “tracking number” which is utterly useless. I cannot remember a single occasion where a USPS tracking number successfully retrieved tracking info. I think it’s all a huge facade so that USPS can appear to track in the same vein as DHL, UPS and FedEx.

More excellent service from yet another unconstitutional government entity.

As it is proven time and time again, in every single example, and despite all the money they take by force; private enterprise will always run circles around a government bureaucracy immune to the just laws of economics.

It’s official. I’ve returned to the dreary conclusion that there’s not a single candidate in the 2008 election that I can vote for in good conscience. Yep, I’m thinking I was very wrong regarding Ron Paul. Over the past week, I’ve reconsidered my support for his campaign. Like a light switching on in a closet with rats, it’s become shockingly apparent that part of his platform is pragmatic, and built on shaky premises. I applaud his adamant defense of the constitution, his open intent of dismantling several government agencies, his unfaltering support of the second amendment (without stipulations), his defense of property rights and his acute denigration of collectivism (which he accurately summoned is as the underlying pier of racism).

I agree with lots of what he says. Unfortunately, he misses the target on some key issues. Why can’t he tie it all together?

He condemns our ridiculous degree of taxation, but his primary reason is that it would “help the economy”. Why can’t he mention the case that it’s simply wrong to take by force from person A and give to person B? He chastises collectivism in the form of racism, but he fails to criticize the largest collectivist death-blob - the welfare state.

From his letter to congress on May 22, 2002, Paul writes.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to help free senior citizens from oppressive taxation by supporting my Senior Citizens’ Tax Elimination Act and my Social Security Beneficiary Tax Reduction Act. I also urge my colleagues to ensure that moneys from the Social Security trust fund are used solely for Social Security benefits and not wasted on frivolous government programs.

Ok…. great - as if Social Security itself isn’t a collectivized frivolous government program.

Why doesn’t he connect the dots?

He correctly points out that our mission in the middle east is hugely misdirected, but just today in a South Carolina speech claims that we should be “minding our own business”.

Minding our own business? Is he a pacifist?

To completely absolve barbaric faith, and to blame the threat of terrorism on the US not “minding its own business” is absurd. Barbarians fight even amongst themselves by the same means, for the same ends… is that due to us not minding our own business as well?

Let’s be honest, there’s no way Paul will even be in the top three, so my vote is really nothing more than a symbolic gesture. That being said, I still think Paul is the way-lesser of all evils… I just wish he could fix the 20% of his premises that seem to be syrupy gray.

After this, I find myself asking…

In the land once known for freedom and the individual, should I really have to be contemplating a stockpile of real light bulbs for my home?

In this article, Yaron Brook very eloquently defends individual rights against the gigantic, emotionally pulsating, collectivist death-machine.

Although this glob of evil seems to be just another page out of the collectivist playbook, there is a distinguishing factor that is noteworthy. Most socialized schemes simply want to horde the results of your productivity in order to redistribute to those who need them more. Socialization of medicine actually takes it a step further in that it requires the wrangling of a highly specialized skill set. Not only does it need your money to pay for someone else’s care, it also needs the brain and body of the individual who completes the equation - the physician. To exist, it needs both indirect and direct slavery.

Despite the emotional appeal that government-imposed “universal health care” would repair American medicine, it would utterly destroy it. A “national” health care system would be immoral, impractical and unconstitutional; it violates the volition of all parties involved, which stifles their ability to innovate, administer, or effectively conduct business.

It is immoral because there is no individual right to health care. There is only the right to pursue the ends that maintain one’s survival without encroaching on the rights of others. It is immoral (commonly known as theft) to take from one individual, to sacrifice one individual, for the sake of another. Individuals are responsible for their own (and anyone else’s whom they choose) health care cost and choices. Medical care is a service that requires expertise in biology, anatomy, medicine and technology. Individuals who achieve this expertise spend a large portion of their life becoming educated and adept in these fields. They then assume extremely high risk in administering and executing their skill set. Individuals who offer this service have the moral right to charge whatever cost they see fit. You and I as consumers have the choice to either use their service (on their terms) or not. That’s it… we have no right to their expertise, no right to a portion of their life… regardless of who’s footing the bill.

It is impractical because the free-market is the only proven means to innovation and productivity. The reason we have $400 notebook computers and $500 50″ flat panel televisions is the free-market. Any time you abandon the objective rules of economics, innovation and value suffer. Entrusting government the responsibility of managing life or death situations for millions of individuals is absurd. The same dysfunction that thrives in public education and all other socialized schemes will prevail in the most deadly way imaginable.

It would be unconstitutional because no where in the either the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, or any other document pertinent to the founding of our nation, is government meddling in the health care industry mentioned. Conversely, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, both of which are required by socializing medicine. Forcing professionals to render services outside of their terms and/or forcing individuals (you and I) to pay for someone else’s medical care is slavery.

13-1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

We have no right to health care - period. By definition a right cannot impose action on another individual… only privileges or mandates can do such.

The real culprit responsible for our current state of medicine is Government. Government meddling in the insurance and medical industries is precisely what has led us to where we are. This read in The Objective Standard offers a vivid summary of the meddling. Get Government completely out of medicine and our level of affordable care, technology and innovation will soar to unprecedented heights.

Our lack of socialized medicine is one of our last remnants of capitalism and the principles this once great nation was founded on. Science, technology and productive individuals coupled with our consistently objective friends, supply and demand, is the only prescription that can/will remedy the woes of American medicine.