save –verb

1. the fallacious suggestion of decreased costs which excludes from consideration an inevitable trend towards DMV-quality service, severely muted market competition, an army of new bureaucratic goons, the introduction of inestimable stress to everyday life, an exodus of talented professionals, skyrocketing taxes and/or skyrocketing inflation, and an inevitable *increase* in all associated costs for all involved parties: The healthcare bill will save Americans money.

Imprisoned over orchids…

The subtitle of the article above laments the festering state of American jurisprudence stemming from lack of an objective standard of law.

Needed: A ‘clean line’ to determine lawfulness

That ‘clean line’ to determine lawfulness is individual rights. Objective law is based on a standard to punish and preclude forceful encroachment of individual rights (life, liberty, and property). If that standard is abandoned, there is no logical limit to what can be criminalized - the result is mob rule.

A mob fueled by pragmatism can rationalize prosecution for just about anything.

A recent story from Michigan depicts an egregious attempt by the state to regulate babysitting which leads to an unavoidable question: To what extent will America condone state involvement in parenting?

The victims in this particular scenario seem only to be concerned with the specific limitations of how the state can regulate child care, but the far more important question is, should the state have any say in the matter of private child-care arrangements?

When you fail to argue on principles, in favor of quibbling over superficial details of implementation, then the possibility of any objective determination of where to draw the line is discarded. Once you throw out the map, there’s no telling where you’ll end up – especially when all passengers compete for their turn to steer the car.

This is yet another symptom of America’s suicidal march into the bowels of socialized education. Once the principle (that the state has a right to our children) is conceded, there is no way to decide the proper extent. If it’s proper for Government to establish compulsory education according to their standards, why start at age 5? Why not pre-school? Why not daycare?

If parents are incapable of adequately providing intellectual guidance according to the state, why not regulate all supervision? Why allow any parental involvement? Why not seize the child just after weaning and just have the parents send in a monthly check?

Better yet, socialize it by calling it free and make it a mandatory element of payroll tax for everyone.

This Orwellian nightmare shouldn’t sound far-fetched considering it’s based on the exact premises of public education - only applied consistently. If America continues to tolerate Public Schools in principle, we should expect more and more of the above.

Children are not property of the state. In a free society, individuals properly have the right to enter into voluntary contractual agreements for child care according to their own wishes, and according to their own financial capabilities. Child care providers, like all other market entities, stand to erect or erode a positive reputation for quality care based on objective standards – those of the parent (the customer). That reputation vouches for their service record objectively.

Conversely, when the state oversees and regulates child care, that objective reputation is replaced with the subjective approval of the state, an artificial facade of quality based on subjective standards that are potentially incompatible with those of the parent.

Many parents unwittingly assume that “state approval must vouch for something!” Yes, parents should consider the conditions for childcare diligently regardless of the state, but phony state approval urges them to shortcut the process under the premise that government is looking out for them.

I’m aware of countless horrifying examples of Daycare establishments, which bear the state approved mark of acceptability, where the conditions are such that I wouldn’t leave my dog in their care. Children wander around in waste-soiled clothing, snot running from their nose, essentially unsupervised by mindless sloths chatting on their iPhone is a common sight in supposedly state-regulated facilities. Very few offer security measures which could prevent any motivated scoundrel from walking off with a child. Just like in other markets, the state regulation has destroyed the notion of an objective reputation that only a free-market can provide, and should be considered irrelevant as metrics of quality or value.

This type of intrusion should be opposed on the basis of individual rights - specifically, a parent’s right to control the education, care and upbringing of their children.

By what right can the state tell a parent or caregiver how many children they can manage effectively? Such terms are properly agreed upon by parents and the caregiver. So long as the terms of service are properly disclosed and adhered to, that agreement is sovereign.

An individual has the right to choose who, where, and on what terms their child can be cared for. The state has no moral, logical, or economical base for involvement the matter.

The role of government is to protect individual rights through the enforcement of objectively defined criminal law. In For the state to be involved with any other aspect of childcare, commercial or private, is beyond the proper scope of government.

I won’t grant it the benefit of linking to it, but I must comment that the mock “PSA” recently produced by moveon.org, featuring a gaggle of hollywood drones, is one of the most superficial, outrageously fallacious, and economically ignorant displays of human stupidity that I’ve seen in some time - a message which accurately reflects the de facto ideological debris surfacing from the bowels of American pop culture.

It’s chock-full of mostly shopworn rhetoric, but there are a few exceptionally erroneous humdingers - the most stunning of which is this sarcastic mind-bender:

“…what’s so American about competition?”

He’s partially correct, there is nothing American about what he refers to as “competition”, i.e., nationalizing an industry, but referring to such as competition is an (intentionally) obscene misuse of the word.

His incredibly distorted implication is that competition is American, and the healthcare market is lacking competition (which it is only to the extent that government intervention has facilitated). His sarcastic portrayal of a stereotypically “greedy” insurance exec (a supposed free-market advocate) dismissing the need for increased competition is intended to A) condemn businessmen as exploitative predators, B) highlight the supposedly un-American essence of the “free-market” as represented by the greedy exec, and C) suggest that anyone who doesn’t advocate “reform” is un-American.

These conniving insinuations are united by condescending sarcasm in order to justify the need of (even more) Government intervention. Let’s unpack this irrational nonsense.

Competition is a vital economic aspect that can exist only to the extent that a market is free of coercion. Government intervention, i.e, reduction of freedom, can only decrease competition. There is no way to legislate competition. Competition is a dynamic which reflects a sum of individual choices. Those choices present an unyielding potential for the loss or gain of market share, if the market is free, i.e., void of unnatural barriers to entry for new competition. If an insurance company had rates that were unnecessarily high, or coverage that customers deemed inadequate, then another firm could seize the opportunity to earn the business of any customers who unsatisfied with their insurance coverage. The only way that a company can escape acknowledging that constant threat of competition is through some barrier to market entry. The only entity that can legally pose such a barrier is Government - the only entity which can regulate and tax businesses by force.

The greedy insurance executive portrayed has no control over competition short of leveraging government force in some manner. So, if there is any lack of legitimate competition, it can only be as a result of government acting beyond its proper scope - protecting individual rights.

In fact, the market is not free, and that is the exact cause for its dysfunctional state today.

The second, more ridiculous fallacy presented is the implication that further government intervention can remedy the claimed lack of competition. This absurd contradiction suggests using illogical means to achieve fallacious ends. There is no conceivable scenario where socializing a market could possibly incite more competition than completely de-regulating the same market. Competition is driven by the sum of consumer choices. Socializing, by definition, spends consumers money apart from their discretion. Socializing a market is the antithetical destroyer of competition - just as we see in the stagnant debacle known as our “public” schools - which can hardly be described as a competitive market. How could there be any substantive competition when “customers” (as the IRS likes to refer to taxpayers) are forced to pay into the government system. In order for would-be competitors to even exist, much less compete, they’d have to stay afloat considering both a forced, artificial decrease in demand since the “customer” has already been persuaded at gunpoint to choose another vendor, as well as the main “competitor” they’re up against (government) is effectively immune to market influence, i.e., can operate at a loss, since his customers are guaranteed and his funding is the unlimited virtual piggy-bank known as the treasury. How can one compete with an entity which holds the power to legally force customers to unconditionally pay for services and can arbitrarily charge as little or as much as they want?

Forcing consumers to pay for services from a “producer” immune to customer satisfaction - this is what Turk, as a perfect caricature of pragmatic, collectivist ignorance, means by competition.

Free-market competition is American - the enslavement and looting of an entire nation is not.

How can one distinguish such similar manifestations of irrationality?

Our media has yet again dug up the wearisome bastion of pragmatist irrationality to enlighten us with more of his wholly predictable socio-political analysis.

“I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he’s African-American,” Carter told “NBC Nightly News.” “I live in the South, and I’ve seen the South come a long way, and I’ve seen the rest of the country that shares the South’s attitude toward minority groups at that time, particularly African-Americans.”

“That racism inclination still exists, and I think it’s bubbled up to the surface because of belief among many white people — not just in the South but around the country — that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country. It’s an abominable circumstance, and it grieves me and concerns me very deeply,” Carter said.

Being as collectivist as they come, Carter cannot begin to grasp the abstract concept that some people don’t view man in terms of groups - let alone on such a crudely obtuse metric of assessment as a man’s race. We have no way of knowing if Carter’s racist charge is an honest (yet debilitated) assessment, or if he merely intends to obfuscate and undermine any opposition with the time-tested art of smearing.

” He grouped Wilson’s shout of “You lie!” during Obama’s speech in that category, according to AP. “I think it’s based on racism. There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president,” he said.

According to whom? Or is this just Carter’s projected hunch? There may be a sliver of mindless brutes who’d utter such nonsense, but I’d be shocked if a staunch, charismatic republican who happened to be black would not have received the same percentage of the country’s vote as did McCain.

This conflict is predominately about ideals, not skin color. Granted the ideals in opposition are seldom to be explicitly defined, the lingering sense-of-life rooted in freedom and rights, retained by a portion of Americans, is what’s fueling this rebellion. I think it goes without saying I’d vote for a candidate who promoted Capitalist ideals regardless of his race, sex, religion, age, where he was born, how many wives he has, how many cats he has, how many guns he has, where he lives, where he wants to live, what he drinks, what he smokes, what he snorts, or any other imaginable attribute - so long as he understood individual rights and the proper role of Government, he’ll have my adamant financial and ideological support.

It’s an insult to all Americans for Carter to insinuate that they’re incapable of separating a candidate’s genetic lineage from his political philosophy.

Again, is this the honest opinion of a senile collectivist, or an argument from intimidation?

Next, we get this inspiring bromide from Jimmy.

“The president is not only the head of government, he is the head of state. And no matter who he is or how much we disagree with his policies, the president should be treated with respect.”

I suppose Carter would also prescribe Jewish citizens being hauled off to Nazi gas chambers by the Gestapo afford Hitler the same respect?

Respect is a form of esteem granted to another individual based on shared values and in appreciation of his character and integrity, not a automatic and causeless emotion granted by hierarchy of command, and certainly not a permanent emotional blank check immune to continual scrutiny, and covering any tyrannical whim. Respect and obedience are two entirely different concepts. Respect is earned. Obedience is volitional.

The other noteworthy tidbit in this piece is this quote by Michael Steele, chair of the Republican National Committee (whom the group-think author very quickly identifies racially).

“Injecting race into the debate over critical issues facing American families doesn’t create jobs, reform our health care system or reduce the growing deficit. It only divides Americans rather than uniting us to find solutions to challenges facing our nation,”

For some reason, I’m guessing the solutions Steele alludes to don’t include complete deregulation of health care, abolishing the welfare state, and establishing a strict separation of Government from our economy as a whole. When one party’s play of the “race” card is met with the other playing the “create jobs” card, we’re in bad shape.

Related Reads:
Is Disagreement with Obama Racism?

(edited 09.29.09 to add related links)

…was apparently let out of the bag.

Obama’s racist/marxist Green Jobs thug seemed to fit the administration’s statist mold in all but one aspect - he’s too honest. Recognizing the potential for Jones to undermine their dictatorial yearnings by being a a bit too open about his ideals, the Obama administration decided he should go.

Too bad - the last thing we need is more statist politicians in office who effectively conceal their destructive wishes for America. I wish more bureaucrats would explicitly verbalize their ideals - perhaps that would arouse more serious dialogue amongst our intellectually lethargic culture.

If nothing else, at least Van Jones is honest and doesn’t betray his ideals on stage - for that I applaud him.

• For a market to be prosperous, both consumers and producers need to be free to act in their best interest. Our current market enables substantial freedom for consumers, but not for producers. Government imposed regulations, controls and mandates have substantially driven up operating costs for producers - increases which are passed directly to consumers. Most Americans sense the freedom they have as consumers, but are ignorant of how, and to what detrimental extent, government regulation and intervention stifles producers. Failure to consider the producer aspect leads them (along the encouragement of statists pining for power) to incorrectly blame the “free market” as faulty and inadequate. They are right to advise doing something, but wrong in the something they condone (increased government intervention). The solution is to free the other essential realm in the market - the producers.
  
  Consumptive Freedom + Productive Freedom = Prosperity
  Consumptive Freedom + Production Regulation = Escalating Costs/Declining Value
  Consumptive Regulation + Production Regulation = Market Stagnation

• Americans have tolerated (and confessedly bought into) the welfare state out of altruistic default. We’ve dealt with more and more wealth being confiscated in countless new ways to fund seemingly endless streams of income redistribution. We can only hope that enough people will sense that this collectivist endeavor is a different beast altogether. Socializing medicine differs in that it moves beyond simply confiscating money through taxation to buy other people’s widgets - it effectively (in time) stifles and stagnates the entire widget market for everyone.
• Until recently, I never imagined a day would come where I’m actually considering which of my physician friends would function as my “Black Market Doctor”.
• The only way a private business gains any kind of immunity to economic forces is through some form of government influence impinging upon it. Without such influence, businesses (regardless of size) are subject to consumer choice. They may have immense capital assets and infrastructure, but they still have to keep the customer happy or in time they’ll go bankrupt. This is the key difference between economic and political power - only the latter, the power of government, can be legally forceful. The only way insurance companies, the most commonly demonized player in this scenario, obtain any power to operate in a manner which may appear to be immune to market forces is as a result of some government distortion of economics. The demand for medical expertise, usually through insurance coverage, is so high that any lack of efficiency or uncompetitive offerings would present an opportunity for other players in the market to seize the chance for expanding their market share. However, if some unnatural force prevents new players from entering the market, or prevents existing competitors from acting upon the opportunity, then the market goes unchecked and prices may rise while quality of service declines. This should sound very familiar.
• Insurance companies are typically condemned for the amount of profit they earn, but this can only be an issue in a mixed-economy, i.e., an unfree market. A producer can increase profits by either raising the market price of their goods to consumers, or lowering their costs of production through efficiency - the high-price method, or the low-cost method. In a free market, competition urges producers to compete on the latter, because competing on high prices would be contrary to the law of supply and demand. This competitive dynamic leads to lower prices, because any savings from the low-cost method can be used to gain a competitive advantage and are transferred directly to consumers. But, when that competitive dynamic is retarded or eliminated by barriers to market entry, or oppressive regulations that stifle competitive pressure, prices tend to trend upwards. This escalating trend that appears immune to supply/demand is what grants certain businesses the facade of power - political power. The only way insurance providers, or any business in any market for that matter, can obtain political power on consumers is when equipped with government assistance.
• When prices in a given market escalate at a higher rate than inflation without a comparable increase in value to the consumer, some force is distorting the economics. That force could be a natural one, e.g., a shortage in some vital resource (labor, materials, etc.), or an unnatural one - which, in a mixed-economy, is most often government intervention in some form or manner.

Here’s my official self-flagging notification for the thugs in Washington.

I’m officially flagging myself as one of those radical Capitalists spreading “fishy” information regarding the socialization of American medicine.

I am, in fact, adamantly opposed on both moral and practical grounds to any and all measures that socialize the field of medicine, or any segment of our economy for that matter. I have, and will continue to, thoroughly, coherently and boldly express my opposition to as many individuals as I can effectively reach.

I am neither a partisan hack, nor an insurance lobbyist. I’m just an honest, productive individual who understands the founding principles of America and loves life, my family and the use of my mind - all of which stand to suffer greatly considering the path down which America is headed.

In the moral context, socialization blatantly contradicts the principle of individual rights on which America was founded. The rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of one’s happiness are incompatible with a system designed to operate on the confiscated wealth, compulsory participation, and involuntary servitude of productive individuals – all in the name of an allegiance to a supposed common good.

The notion of self-sacrifice to the collective is repulsive and irrational. It is a mental illness that served as the philosophical fuel for the bloodiest dictatorships in the history of man. Adding Americans to its list of over 100 million victims in the last century will be an accomplishment unmatched in history. No other country originated with ideals so contrary to those that are now strangling the American spirit. Driving America into utter ruin will indeed be its greatest victory.

In the practical sense, socialization can render a single logical result - stagnant misery. History illustrates that our standard of living increases when humans are left free to think, act and retain the profit from doing so. The human mind, in its natural and appropriate state, yearns for knowledge and achievement, both of which also have tremendous practical value in terms of mans survival. In a specialized economy, man can earn a profit from ideas and productivity. When man is left free to profit from and find joyous fulfillment in his thought, action and productivity – our standard of living benefits.

Socializing medicine negates both of these human needs. It stifles the profit motive by distorting the economics of the market by encroaching on the property rights of drug manufacturers, regulating rates and salaries, and legally eliminating consumption of health services outside of the socialized system in order to control costs. It stifles the freedom to think and act by forcing physicians and patients to abandon their judgment in favor of bureaucratic procedures and conformity to the artificial economics of the system.

In time, services will deteriorate, innovation will stagnate, prices will escalate and every single member forced to use it will suffer. There is no possible way this system will work. It is morally and economically unviable. You should accept this fact now and grant yourself extra time to fabricate palatable excuses.

I do realize that flagging myself may invite a myriad of “unfortunate” circumstances. I know that financial auditing, harassment, abduction, incarceration and elimination are all standard fare for dictatorships, but when compared to the thought of not voicing my opinion while the lives of my children expire in your dream Socialist-cesspool, any of the above seem quite preferable.

Please add me to your list of patriots.

Brad Harper
Statesville, North Carolina

More Related Links:
The Shallowness of a Demagogue: A Fishy Analysis
The Patriots List
Email To The White House
Flag Me

(Updated 08/10/09 @ 5:33PM to add the self-flagging of GVH)

Yep, the next chapter in the most blatant story of economic ignorance in history gets under way. Anti-trust, the American hallmark of self-destructive and senseless tyranny, is rearing its obnoxious head again - this time to aggravate Apple and AT&T.

The Department of Justice has started an informal review of the exclusive arrangements that limit handsets such as Apple’s iPhone to particular wireless communications companies, according to people familiar with the matter.

The inquiry follows consolidation in the US wireless industry that has left four operators accounting for more than 90 per cent of the country’s wireless subscribers. This has left them with the market power to carve out exclusive deals with makers of the most popular handsets, making it hard for smaller rivals to compete and leading to higher prices for mobile services, according to rivals. [emphasis added]

Hmmm, so the resources and market position that AT&T and Apple have earned should be sacrificed to the needs of smaller rivals? Only in altruist-collectivist-statist-wonderland.

Apple, as the creator and producer of the iPhone, has the right to sell it to whomever under whatever terms they choose. Likewise, AT&T has the right to distribute and market products of their choosing; also according to whatever terms they choose. In sum, Apple and AT&T have the right to work together under whatever terms they agree upon. Any law that trumps their right to do so is unjust, irrational, subjective law.

So long as a market is left free from Government intervention, new competitors will step in if prices are set higher than the market will tolerate. If AT&T’s exclusive contract to sell the iPhone is leveraged to charge more than the market will bear, other competitors like Google and Blackberry will have an opportunity to seize a share of the market. Apple’s rightful purpose in business is to make money, not to provide phones as a charitable cause. Likewise, AT&T’s purpose is to make money, not to dole out phone service to the needy. If any relationship between these two companies results in prices that are higher than what the market will bear, consumers will spend their money elsewhere.

Thanks you meddling idiots, but we can take care of ourselves - no brilliant Government intervention is necessary.

A parable depicting the rise of tyranny being cloaked in supposed benevolence - should sound very familiar. Source unknown.

A chemistry professor at a large college had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab the Professor noticed one young man (exchange student) who kept rubbing his back, and stretching as if his back hurt. The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country’s government and install a new communist government.

In the midst of his story he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked, ‘Do you know how to catch wild pigs?’ The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said this was no joke. ‘You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come every day to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again.

You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat; you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught.

Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. While we continually lose our freedoms — just a little at a time.