I’ll use this thoughtful post (HT: GVH) as an introduction to my latest blog link. John’s path of philosophic evolution is very similar to mine.

Great blog - check it out.

I’ve been unusually busy writing a new semi-dynamic persistence layer for work - an effort that I’ve been thoroughly and pleasantly engaged in. I have only a few minutes to post, so I thought I’d plug a book that I’ve enjoyed reading.

I highly recommend these reads by Craig Biddle, which are highlights of his book Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It.

Most people are skeptical of a code of morality based on reason, but here Biddle lays it out very clearly.

• Part One
• Part Two
• Part Three
• Part Four
• Part Five
• Part Six
• Part Seven

Our country is the final stages of a tremendous mistake - one that will have adverse effects on every person you know. Acting as if human lives are disposable and that economic laws are pliable, so many are willing to give in to consensus and experiment with Government run health care. It can’t hurt to try right?

This is a deadly pragmatic notion that must be rejected. Not even a single right or life is properly available for sacrificial experimentation. Even if dissecting one human being would save the lives of billions, doing so is immoral. If one man’s rights are violated, so all men have suffered injustice.

For America to endure we must return to nothing less than a free-market in health care.

Politicians are masters at muddying the water in order to aid their efforts. The more they obfuscate and complicate the issue, the more likely citizens are to give-up and give in to what appears to be the superior insights and motives of our leaders. Throw in some hollow rhetoric and spike the potion with the moral tint of altruism and consensus will stomp over an endless sea of corpses. However, If one peers through all the emotional fog, the entire conversation is revealed to be senseless. To make the case much clearer, I’ll frame the principles in an analogous market less prone to emotional fraying.

This not-so-hypothetical market is comprised of a fictitious entity called “Technicare” - a taxpayer funded program to assist a segment of the population with their electrical appliance needs - and a retailer, in this example I chose Wal-Mart, arguably the most highly qualified bastion of efficiency and value.

Like all cases of market dysfunction throughout history, the cause is unnatural economic forces. Essentially, the only force capable of wide scale economic influence is Government. Economics is an elegantly simple system governed by principles that endure time and scale. Producers produce goods that consumers consume according to the standards and prices that both parties agree on voluntarily. That’s it. These fundamentals are absolute and unforgiving, and when any component of the preceding summary is acted against, the market becomes dysfunctional. If producers ability to produce is either enhanced or hampered, if consumers ability to consume is enhanced or hampered, or if the voluntary prerogatives of either are restricted to any extent, the result is some degree of market dysfunction.

Our Heath Care market is one that’s clobbered with regulatory assault from every angle. Each of the components prescribed above are unnaturally manipulated by Government. Government meddling inevitably serves to reduce competition, and decrease purchasing power, the two elements that form the lifeblood of a growing and prosperous economic system.

There are far too many instances to cover exhaustively, but fortunately a principled examination of only a few will clearly illustrate the negative impact that is universally achieved by market intervention. We’ll start by considering an element that achieves tremendous competitive detriment and has no logical justification - The Certificate of Need.

From the NCSL site:

Certificate of Need (C.O.N.) programs are aimed at restraining health care facility costs and allowing coordinated planning of new services and construction. Laws authorizing such programs are one mechanism by which state governments seek to reduce overall health and medical costs.

The basic assumption underlying CON regulation is that excess capacity (in the form of facility overbuilding) directly results in health care price inflation. When a hospital cannot fill its beds, fixed costs must be met through higher charges for the beds that are used. Bigger institutions have bigger costs, so CON supporters say it makes sense to limit facilities to building only enough capacity to meet actual needs.

Profit is determined by the difference in revenue from a unit of work in relation to the unit’s associated costs. Profit increases by either charging a higher price per unit to consumers or establishing a lower cost per unit for producers - by higher prices or by lower costs. Competition amongst market players urges them to offer services at the lowest possible price, thus their opportunity to increase profit will be naturally determined by their ability to operate at the lowest possible cost, as opposed to selling at a higher, less competitive price. Competition is a necessity.

By hindering the competitive aspect of the market, the CON hurdle is actually prone to a rise in costs precisely because mitigates (or eliminates) external pressure to compete on price. Additionally, the process is tedious, timely and expensive. For productive endeavors, time is money, and this process equates to an atrociously misdirected waste of capital.

The other fallacy used to justify this process is that investors would risk such vast amounts of money as typically involved without doing the proper market research to justify the expense. Like in so many other cases, and for obvious reasons, bureaucrats just can’t grasp the concept of personal responsibility. Unlike moochers wasting handout money, when an individual is spending his own earned resources, he’d best be, and typically is, mindful of how he does so. Successful investors seeking a profitable avenue for their capital do not need parental guidance.

Let’s consider this absurdity in our fictitious market:

• How would the “Certificate of Need” process and burden, including all the inherent political wrangling, affect an aspiring Wal-Mart store?
• Would the associated cost cause their prices to increase or decrease?
• Would that money be more appropriately invested in real estate, infrastructure and inventory, or as the cost of asking permission to do business when and where they see fit?
• On what logical grounds should they have to ask permission?
• By what right could some authoritative body decline their request?
• By what right does anyone or any entity have such authority in a country founded on individual rights?
• Whose right to what would be in jeopardy of encroachment by a lack of oversight for this new entity?

Consider Technicare’s impact throughout the rest of Wal-mart’s business model:

• Once the tedious CON process is complete and business is booming, how would Wal-Mart compensate for selling televisions to Technicare customers for an amount that’s significantly reduced - possibly below cost?
• Would these customers tend to spend more or less if given a Technicare credit card for which they have no financial responsibility?
• How would this consumption impact the individuals who are liable for the Technicare expenditures?
• How about if Technicare was granted the authority to determine what Wal-Mart could charge non-Technicare customers for televisions, how would this affect these customers if the pricing was at or below cost?
• By what right should Technicare posses such authority?

If Technicare was expanded to include storage media:

• Would this amplify or negate the existing affects of the program on Wal-Mart?
• How about if the storage media market was regulated by Technicare’s parent company GovCo. so that the media could be adequately tested, which led to drastically increased research manufacturing and legal costs and the time to market for a new product was a number of years. Would this impact the cost of storage media for all consumers?
• What if Wal-Mart was also regulated on how much they could charge Technicare customers for storage media?
• What if they had to sell below cost? What would this do to the costs of storage media for non-Technicare customers?

If Wal-Mart were forced by law to give away products at no charge:

• How would the rest of their business model be impacted?
• Would they continue operating at a loss?
• Would this raise or lower costs to the remainder of their customer base?

If Wal-Mart’s prices increased drastically over time due to the mandates of Technicare:

• How would the “Certificate of Need” process and burden, including all the inherent political wrangling, affect an aspiring competitor?
• Would it make market entry easier or more difficult?
• Would this affect lead Wal-Mart to be more or less responsive to its customers?
• Would such market-entry overhead inspire entrepreneurial interest?

Given the above scenario and the obvious answers and established patterns:

• On why logical grounds would some suggest granting Technicare/GovCo drastically increased, if not exhaustive, control of Wal-Mart operations, accounting and pricing?
• What would the expected results entail?
• As non-Technicare customers lose purchasing power as a result from both having to fund Technicare and having to endure higher prices as a result of Technicare, what changes would be more likely to repair the situation?
• What if Technicare decides to restrict all customers from shopping anywhere besides this new WalTech-GovCo?
• By what right could they?
• Wouldn’t this be a coercive monopoly?
• What would that mean?

With “solutions” like these, who needs problems? Is this issue really as complex as so portrayed by the media and politicians?

Socialization proponents consistently offer supposed aspects of the health care market that exempt it from economic laws due to some disadvantage faced by consumers. Regardless of the specifics, for each such claim we should ask “Why is this, and what are the repercussions?”

My point in general is that the “whys” are far more important than their corresponding repercussions. If a patient has a rash it could be a sign of a number of things, such as poison ivy, a food allergy, an infectious disease like measles, or a skin infection. Treating the symptoms without accurately identifying the cause could leave the patient worse off. Making assumptions on faulty or unrefined premises is a recipe for failure.

I’ve yet to hear a valid claim of “market-dysfunction” (if you will) that is actually more in substance than an acknowledgment of reality, e.g., individuals have varying financial means, or an example of a symptom caused by an existing economically unnatural force in the system, e.g., how Medicare rates affect private insurance premiums.

The former family of claims, in the context of “what should be done?” should properly be answered “whatever motivated individuals choose to do with their own resources.” The charge of “not providing unlimited free service to all who’d consume it” is no more valid a charge of dysfunction than criticizing a rock for not spurting pop-tarts on whim. Demanding a breach of reality in the form of non-causal action is irrational.

If the same question is posed in the context of the second category above, the answer should be “identify and remove the source of the issue.” - which arguably is in all cases, Government intervention.

Despite all the attempts to complicate this issue, it really is as simple as the answers above. Unless and until that is, as I mentioned previously, ulterior motives come into consideration. As soon as the rights of producers and consumers to contract freely are inhibited to any extent, the only possible result is a distortion in the market that will exponentially correlate to the extent of the inhibition.

Individuals thrive under, and have a right to, freedom. Innovation, value and efficiency are the result of freedom. Regulations, on the other hand, reduce freedom - which results in inefficiency, shortages, escalating prices and general stagnation. History illustrates this condition quite well.

Patients have the right to choose from whom, for what, and at what price they consume medical services. Likewise, providers have the right to choose from whom, for what, and at what price they provide their expertise.

This is the only moral and practical relationship between patients and providers.

A diligent consideration of any elements of the market that affect these mutual rights, including their cause, will very accurately highlight what needs to change for the market to operate normally. Increase freedom and all the positive dynamics of this and any other market will prevail.

Again, history unequivocally supports this fact.

To concretize - a free-market in health care, just like every other field throughout history - would result in the best service at the lowest price, according to the discretion of the consumers and producers involved.

There’s nothing unique about the health care market that should exempt it from basic economics. Providers gain expertise in medical services that individuals would consume based on supply and demand.

Only third-party involvement by force can disrupt economic laws and patterns. If one detects a flaw or undesirable pattern, prudence suggests one identify any source of unnatural tampering. Any market traits, e.g., “Forty-plus million uninsured”, could either be symptoms of an illegitimate disruption, or merely factual attributes representing reality. If one were to consider the statistic in slightly different terms, say “Forty-plus million individuals can’t own a 42 inch widescreen television”, then the issue becomes less clouded by by emotion. The facts illustrate that five years ago, indeed a large percentage of individuals couldn’t afford a 42″ television. However, the market (a relatively free one) has responded to demand and now a 42″ television is much more affordable. These principles work regardless if the market is for widgets, televisions, mobile phone service, wellness physicals or CT scans. Where the conversation veers drastically off course is when egalitarian politics come into play. If authentic rights are to be subsumed by artificial privileges, some external force must attempt to usurp economic reality. For every ‘yin’ of Government intervention, there’s a corresponding ‘yang’ of market disturbance. These ‘yangs’ reverberate through the system and their effects continue to amplify until very serious results surface. The system we have now is a result of 50+ years of intense ‘yin’ing. What, other than a tremendously distorted market, could we expect? And, exactly why would we propose more intervention as the solution?

So long as consumers are left free to consume (by their own means) and producers are left free to offer services (as they see fit), the market will perform and innovate like any other.

The government depriving people of opportunities and choice regarding their livelihood is not the solution to the problem of the government stifling competition with distorted economic forces. The solution is to get the government out of health care altogether.

Supplemental Ammunition:
I highly recommend Paul Hsieh’s work demolishing the case for socialized medicine:

FAQ On Free Market Health Insurance

Health Care Reform vs. Universal Health Care

Moral Health Care vs. Universal Health Care

Mandatory Health Insurance: Wrong for Massachusetts, Wrong for America

Daniel Hannan is a wonderfully refreshing voice.

In general, Hannan is absolutely right in that we’ve abandoned the essence of America, in particular, we’ve discarded the notion and sanctity of individual rights. Rights, if revered, facilitate freedom. Freedom enables productivity. Productivity generates wealth. Wealth creates prosperity. Prosperity benefits life. To the extent that the root of this logical sequence is hampered, so each subsequent link suffers the same diminution.

Americans, in general, have never fully understood the source of this country’s greatness. None of the commonly mistaken notions; religion, race, or resources, can explain the unprecedented achievement by America. Only one concept, rights, i.e., freedom from compulsion, did and can ever facilitate the American ideal. Until our culture learns the meaning of that concept, its logical roots and obvious repercussions, the thrust of America is completely neutered - we’re running on the fumes of reason and justice, and time is running out.

Relying on the last remnants of reason, so many sense the need for immediate action to repair our economy. They fail to realize that action void of principled purpose is chaos, regardless of the intensity or desire by which such action is fueled.

“Something is better than nothing, and bigger was better than smaller in terms of the stimulus needed,” said Chris Varvares, president of prominent forecaster Macroeconomic Advisers in St. Louis. “The economy needs a fiscal jolt.”

Something. They don’t know what, just something has to be done. So called “economic experts” are all adamantly voicing their opinions to perpetuate the power-grabbing monstrosity about to clobber the United States. There is one opinion in this piece piece that has merit at least at face value:

“[this] is 25 years of government expansion jammed into one bill and sold as stimulus,” said Brian Riedl, the director of budget analysis for the Heritage Foundation,

Indeed. Like a school of entranced, confused piranhas enjoying the largest power-pork frenzy in American history, even in the face of economic collapse it’s politics as usual for our leaders. While millions of productive individuals face daunting uncertainty watching their retirement circle the drain, or wading through a year’s worth of online out-of-state shopping receipts in order to accurately report use tax, our dear representatives in Washington are bickering over how many billions of dollars they can squeeze in for eco-friendly golf carts, Socialized medicine plumbing and any other pet they can lead to the trough.

If the motives of Congress, and the nature of American Government aren’t brilliantly clear to you at this point, please check your pulse. As Myrhaf @ The New Clarion put it, “This bill is the most dishonest government act of my lifetime, if not all of American history. “ - I couldn’t agree more.

Many are quick to spin this conversation into partisan terms, but very little would be different if the other team were calling the shots. Keynesian policies are poisonous regardless of who’s administering the dosage. Lack of explicit principles is why we are in this situation and exactly what will render attempts to remedy as futile.

The truth lies in the fact that our leaders don’t know what to do, so they resort to their penchant for spending other people’s money. The seemingly unanimous sense of urgent necessity for this bill coupled with fear in the private sector brews a green light for ruthless indulgence. This is as close to free-reign looting as they’ve ever been allowed. Like teenagers in a shopping mall with unlimited credit - anything goes.

Economics is a science of elegant simplicity, one that markets of the utmost complexity follow with strict compliance. Supply and demand for capital, labor and goods are the supreme rulers. Their only stipulation is the freedom of choice on behalf of suppliers and demanders. So long as this requirement is met, the market will function in perfect accord with reality and justice. Individuals are free to produce in order to survive and improve their quality of life, specialization will allow men to focus their energies where they are most productive, and the resulting innovation will add value to the lives of all participants. So long as men are free to think, act and keep the results there will be economic growth. Freedom and productivity lead to supply and demand - simple and elegant justice.

Only when the gremlin of Government intervention is introduced does the market become saddled with a layer of foggy complexity. Freedom is limited, production is reduced. Regulatory coercion serves to distort supply and demand in immeasurable ways by granting immunity from any number of economic laws to any number of market entities. For the Yin of every nudge there’s a Yang of market repercussions. In a free market, individuals will direct their time and energy towards whatever endeavor will provide the most return. A good decision on where to spend time or money rewards the individual with wealth, a bad decision destroys wealth. So long as the decision is left to the individual, the market will regulate itself. Conversely, when the productive efforts of individuals are restricted or amplified by forces outside the market of choice, supply of and demand for capital, labor, or goods is affected. These affects represent the tangible departure from justice because the gauges that indicate a good or bad business decision are no longer calibrated with reality. Faulty gauges represent a corrupted economy because men no longer can exert energy or direct capital as effectively. To destroy a man’s wealth, or even worse, hamper his means to produce wealth, is to restrict his ability to survive. Men will always seek to avoid a force acting to their detriment, so their behavior is distorted. They are acting against their own judgment by force. Add into the mix a set of arbitrary rules further restricting an individual’s ability to make good decisions precisely because of his tendency to do so and only chaos, uncertainty or crime are his possible avenues. The reason that regulation is impractical is that it is immoral. Destruction of wealth is the only possible result of trampling a man’s right to life, liberty and property by regulating trade amongst voluntary individuals.

These unnatural complexities are the same reason it’s virtually impossible to concoct a remedy, especially one that requires and prescribes more of the same infectious agent. Like an act of viral combat, our leaders aim to introduce Smallpox to alleviate Ebola. Even if the symptoms of Ebola are mitigated short term, does it matter now that the patient has Smallpox?

A mixed-economy is how we refer to the perfect market infected with the virus of regulation. Like any virus, regulation conveys damaging structural effects on its host. This is the exact nature of what the American economy has suffered from throughout the last 119 years. Not only have we ignored the cause, we’ve continued to amplify it at every opportunity.

The obvious something that is better than nothing is to stop introducing new viral agents. Let the infection run its painful course and act to administer a vaccine. The vaccine should be dismantling entities or legislation that interfere with the market. Any form of regulation should be removed, and we should return to an objectively backed currency. If a trillion dollar shopping spree is the decision, the only moral usage for that money is to send it back to the individuals that earned it.

History brilliantly illustrates the correlation of prosperity to freedom. The economic growth of America highlights the immeasurable benefits of a market void of the regulatory virus. Our current economic realities reveal the immeasurable degradation to human existence where the virus runs exacerbated by repeat exposure. To survive, man must think and act according to his rational judgment. If you want man to produce and innovate, get out of his way.

This is the only something that we should consider.

America’s recent Olympic mega-hero Michael Phelps is in the spotlight for apparently committing an atrocious act, one that Richland County, SC Sheriff Leon Lott finds offensive enough to consider legal repercussions.

“This one might be a lot easier since we have photographs [sic] and a partial confession. It’s a relatively easy case once we can determine where the crime occurred.” - The Sheriff

Did Phelps forcefully violate any other individual’s right to life? No.

Did he forcefully violate anyone’s right to liberty? No.

Did he forcefully encroach upon anyone’s right to property? No.

According to photo evidence, Mr. Phelps is guilty of consuming a particular substance that society doesn’t approve of.

Sure, his physical body is his property. Indeed, we are a supposed nation of freedom. Yes, his life is his responsibility.

However, America has now deteriorated into a luke-warm slosh of laws and regulations based on subjective whim. Considering how routinely our culture passively dismisses revolutionary ideas as platitudinous clichés, should there be any surprise in our betrayal of principles? John Adams’ optimistic vision has nearly met its full inversion by our continual descent towards a government of men and not of laws.

For reasons that no human can rationally articulate, our cannibalistic society has determined that regardless of where, how or when, Michael Phelps doesn’t have the right to his own body, and can only consume items which meet the state’s approval.

The arguments typically fall into two categories. The increased risk category, and the immorality of behavior category. Both are flimsy attempts to rationalize the initiation of force by Government.

The claim by the increased risk camp contends that under the influence of certain substances, an individual’s capacity to reason is inhibited, which increases their potential likelihood to encroach upon the rights of others. The statist answer is that we must mitigate this increased risk by regulating or restricting the behavior. This constitutes a wholesale violation of rights. Based on this logic, why not mandate regular sleep patterns, diet and exercise regimens and make the emotions of anger, jealousy and resentment illegal? Wouldn’t all decrease the potential likelihood that a man would violate the rights of others? If this should be our guiding premise, why not lock men in cages or crank up the slave labor camps? Wouldn’t such measures even further reduce the potential for man to offend? Yes, but doing so would constitute an initiation of force against man by government, which is contrary to both the founding principles of America and to reason and justice. Additionally, there are already numerous laws in place to punish every conceivable way an individual can violate the rights of others. Burglary, trespassing, assault, armed robbery, speeding, reckless driving, extortion, kidnapping, arson, manslaughter and murder are already codified into law. Any action an individual could do under the influence, he could do otherwise. Consistent enforcement of these laws is far better suited for a country bent on the cause of freedom, as opposed to continual erosion of man’s freedom to act in an attempt to make it impossible for him to breach the legal code.

The second, even flimsier, justification for drug laws is the claim that such behavior is immoral. When faced with this justification one must ask according to what standard of values? If the justification is based on religious tenets, which is commonly the case, we should remind ourselves that America was founded as a safe haven from religious mandate, where one was free to pursue any spiritual cause, or none at all. To introduce religious premises into a secular legal system is contrary to the essence of America. If an individual deems consumption of particular substances as immoral, they are free to abstain from such actions. They are not free to enforce that abstinence on others. Coincidentally, the notion to establish religious ethics by legal mandate is the also the root of controversial blue laws, which are clear violations of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Supreme Court rulings notwithstanding - as no valid secular justification has even been conveyed.

It stands to reason that man has the right to take any action he chooses so long as it doesn’t objectively encroach upon any other individual’s right to life, liberty or property - by force. No force, no offense. Until American culture reverts to one that considers individual rights as the cornerstone to freedom and prosperity, we’re in a steady decline towards statism - which history illustrates as a bloody and miserable path.

While I have consumed substances which subjective law would deem illegal, as a general rule, I refrain from doing so because they inhibit my ability to reason and perceive reality. To condone any initiation of force against those individuals who do choose such consumption is unjust, immoral and precisely contrary to the proper role of Government.

I adamantly wish Michael Phelps would use this episode to publicly and proudly proclaim his right to use his body as he chooses - including consumption of any substance in any amount at any time.

Contained in this excellent post by Gus Van Horn commenting on the notion of sacrifice as a virtue.  His piece is tangential to an Obama quote from a recent interview by super-thumper Rick Warren:

“Americans’ greatest moral failure in my lifetime has been that we still don’t abide by that basic precept in Matthew that whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me.”

As Gus noted, B.O. just thinks we’re too selfish.  If we want to live up to the world’s expectations all we need to do is toss our selfish priorities aside and follow Barack.  He can lead us to the glory of full sacrifice.

I especially like the point Gus made about charity:

I, who non-sacrificially donate money to charity, find it presumptuous [for another] to impute altruism to my actions and a huge leap for him to do so on behalf of millions of others.

Including this observation:

There can be many valid, non-sacrificial reasons to donate to a whole slew of charities. To have a personal, selfish interest in doing so would, I have a hunch, make one more inclined to give generously than if one merely felt an annoying obligation to do so. This is part of why some religions have to demand a ten percent cut of their followers’ incomes: They took self-interest out of the equation long ago.

Indeed, if writing a weekly check (or setting up direct deposit for technically advanced believers) gave one a sense of worthy investment, why stop at 10%?

He then conveys:

America is moral because its political system comes closest to allowing all men the freedom to act on their own best judgement to further their own lives while harming nobody else. In other words, America is moral because she is fundamentally selfish.

Read the whole thing.

Poor, poor John Edwards gets nailed for adultery.

“In an admission that rocked American politics, Mr Edwards, 55, said his egotistical belief that he was special drove him to have an affair with Rielle Hunter two years ago. ”

“In the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became egocentric and narcissistic.” [emphasis mine]

His attempt to spin his actions as being rooted in self-interest relies on the commonly distorted concept of selfishness, which has hijacked the real meaning of the term and replaced it with a package-deal of non-sense. Altruism prescribes selflessness for the sake of others. People maintain this vague notion as the cornerstone of whatever hodgepodge morality they are brought up with. The result is the virtual destruction of the real meaning of the term - which is coincidentally a goal of such (a)moral codes. Here are Rand’s thoughts on the perversion of selfishness:

In popular usage, the word “selfishness” is a synonym of evil; the image it conjures is of a murderous brute who tramples over piles of corpses to achieve his own ends, who cares for no living being and pursues nothing but the gratification of the mindless whims of any immediate moment.

Yet the exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word “selfishness” is: concern with one’s own interests.

This concept does not include a moral evaluation; it does not tell us whether concern with one’s own interests is good or evil; nor does it tell us what constitutes man’s actual interests. It is the task of ethics to answer such questions.

Unless Mr. Edwards views an adulterous and scandalous extra-marital affair (that likely spawned an illegitimate child) as being in his own self-interest, egoism isn’t to blame. A truly selfish person would see that dishonesty, betrayal, and hiding under a veil of secrecy are all attempt to evade reality - and can only lead to self destruction. Actually it’s precisely his lack of values, morality and character that led him to an affair.

Every stance, every position, every platitude uttered by this man implies a disdain for reality, rights and justice. This should surprise no one. On the one hand I consider the obvious embarrassment and pain this creep has caused his family, I am sympathetic to them.

I hope he, on the other hand, is miserable.

I’m speaking to those of you with little ones - those who’ve felt the overwhelming boil of instantaneous love for a newborn - those of you who’ve awakened and stared at them for minutes just to confirm their breath - you who’ve had the burden of sleepless nights erased by the joyous first rays of morning light across their face. I’m writing to you.

I’m writing to you regarding a subject of unparalleled importance, your children - the ones that have your undivided attention - the ones that have your ears, your spouses eyes, and your fathers dimples - the ones that you’ve re-prioritized your entire life around - the ones you think about just before bed and when you first rise - the ones you can’t seem to take enough pictures or videos of - the ones you hope you’ll always vividly remember how it felt to hold, the sound of their breath, the magic of their laugh, the life in their smile.

Unfortunately, I write to warn you.

There is a man out to get your children. His mission is to take that precious life you are emotionally and morally bound to protect, to teach, to lead. He only insists, with at first a smile, but if resisted, will take by force, at gunpoint if needed. His reason is that the precious life you’d give yours for is not really yours. The work, the planning, the long nights, the financial adjustment, the pain of labor, the trials of parenting, the genetic bond, the portion of your life dedicated to their existence - means nothing. His claim is that they are only partially yours, and your rights expire at his whim. Consensus has privileged him with the invasive power to take your child, by force, and at the age of five (if not sooner) he’s coming to assume the role of shaping their mind, regardless of your discretion.

He does not value your opinion on the matter. It’s not up for debate. Your morals do not matter. Your philosophy does not matter. Your view of existence, and its roots, its values, its hurdles, its caves, its perils - do not matter. His view, his priorities, his opinion of what is important, what is real - is all that matters.

His goal is to shape your loved one into the form of his vision, as an integral part of his master plan. To him, your child’s aspirations, their goals, their strengths, their weakness, their passions are irrelevant. Their function is to exist as the man sees fit, just as yours.

Not only does he proceed with ignoring our rights to raise our children as we see fit, the man’s additional offense is perpetuating a system rank with incompetency, one infested with economic ignorance, moral decay, gross mismanagement of resources, and in place of true education, a rash of irrational indoctrination. Instead of reading, writing, science and math as a primary tenets, they serve as mere tinsel on a grand decorative of social engineering.

The man operates as if he owns both you and your child. Despite the horrible results conspicuous to all reasonable minds, his grin is a peaceful insistence that despite any claim, his intentions are good, and are all that matter. He simply wants you to ignore the results, and only focus on his intent - for you to concede that the ends justify the means.

There are individuals in the system that are moral, competent and effective. However, even the most competent and able mind can be rendered impotent in a system designed to fail, and driven on immoral premises. We must consider that even if his intents were genuinely good, and his system flawlessly rendered the most intelligent students in the universe, it would still be one erected on the grounds that his wishes trump a parents rights, a premise that is morally wrong - therefore we must not condone it.

The man is Uncle Sam. His role of benevolence has turned on us all. As a young man he stood for freedom, and the sovereignty of the individual. Now he has sunk into the champion of submission in favor of the group. He churns through our youth like cattle being prepped for slaughter. They’re herded in, flushed through the system, sprayed with subjectivist, anti-man, anti-life venom, with only remnants of real knowledge flashed in glimpses before it’s bluntly drilled into their memory not as understanding, but through hours of busywork. They are systematically dumbed down and propped up according to the latest subjective funding metric. Teachers and therapists are consistently compelled, if not forced, to act against their own and students’ best interest, whether it be for lack of funding to provide adequate materials, absurdly tedious paperwork, unmanageable caseloads or class size, or any combination of these. The nature of our current system is a gross injustice - trampling rights, wasting money, and corrupting minds.

I urge any of you who know the explosive joy and emotion that sparked when your little one announced his existence to pause and take a moment, an hour, of genuine reflection on the grim reality we’ve created. As parents we have a moral obligation to prepare our children for a productive and virtuous existence. How they revere life, the degree of which they acknowledge reality, their code of values, their scorn of such that destroys life; all are encompassed by our philosophical imprint on our children. The imprint that is rightfully ours to leave. Guidance in such areas of life are the proper role of parents, not strangers, politicians, activists, counselors, or professors. Education is the exclusive privilege of a child’s legal guardians within objective legal guidelines precluding abuse or neglect.

As rational, moral and free individuals, we must reclaim our inalienable right to shape the minds of our children by abolishing our current compulsory system. Socialized education is immoral, impractical and unconstitutional. It must end if our children are to be appropriately revered as the priority which they are.

By Craig Biddle of The Objective Standard

Because Earth Day is intended to further the cause of environmentalism—and because environmentalism is an anti-human ideology—on April 22, those who care about human life should not celebrate Earth Day; they should celebrate Exploit-the-Earth Day.

Either man takes the Earth’s raw materials—such as trees, petroleum, aluminum, and atoms—and transforms them into the requirements of his life, or he dies. To live, man must produce the goods on which his life depends; he must produce homes, automobiles, computers, electricity, and the like; he must seize nature and use it to his advantage. There is no escaping this fact. Even the allegedly “noble” savage must pick or perish. Indeed, even if a person produces nothing, insofar as he remains alive he indirectly exploits the Earth by parasitically surviving off the exploitative efforts of others.

Exploiting the Earth—using the raw materials of nature for one’s life-serving purposes—is a basic requirement of human life. According to environmentalism, however, man should not use nature for his needs; he should keep his hands off “the goods”; he should leave nature alone, come what may.

Environmentalism is not concerned with human health and wellbeing—neither ours nor that of generations to come. If it were, it would advocate the one social system that ensures that the Earth and its elements are used in the most productive, life-serving manner possible: capitalism.

Capitalism is the only social system that recognizes and protects each individual’s right to act in accordance with his basic means of living: the judgment of his mind. Environmentalism, of course, does not and cannot advocate capitalism, because if people are free to act on their judgment, they will strive to produce and prosper; they will transform the raw materials of nature onto the requirements of human life; they will exploit the Earth and live.

Environmentalism rejects the basic moral premise of capitalism—the idea that people should be free to act on their judgment—because it rejects a more fundamental idea on which capitalism rests: the idea that the requirements of human life constitute the standard of moral value. While the standard of value underlying capitalism is human life (meaning, that which is necessary for human beings to live and prosper), the standard of value underlying environmentalism is nature untouched by man.

The basic principle of environmentalism is that nature (i.e., “the environment”) has intrinsic value—value in and of itself, value apart from and irrespective of the requirements of human life—and that this value must be protected from its only adversary: man. Rivers must be left free to flow unimpeded by human dams, which divert natural flows, alter natural landscapes, and disrupt wildlife habitats. Glaciers must be left free to grow or shrink according to natural causes, but any human activity that might affect their size must be prohibited. Naturally generated carbon dioxide (such as that emitted by oceans and volcanoes) and naturally generated methane (such as that emitted by swamps and termites) may contribute to the greenhouse effect, but such gasses must not be produced by man. The globe may warm or cool naturally (e.g., via increases or decreases in sunspot activity), but man must not do anything to affect its temperature. And so on.

In short, according to environmentalism, if nature affects nature, the effect is good; if man affects nature, the effect is evil.

Stating the essence of environmentalism in such stark terms raises some illuminating questions: If the good is nature untouched by man, how is man to live? What is he to eat? What is he to wear? Where is he to reside? How can man do anything his life requires without altering, harming, or destroying some aspect of nature? In order to nourish himself, man must consume meats, vegetables, fruits, and the like. In order to make clothing, he must skin animals, pick cotton, manufacture polyester, and the like. In order to build a house—or even a hut—he must cut down trees, dig up clay, make fires, bake bricks, and so forth. Each and every action man takes to support or sustain his life entails the exploitation of nature. Thus, on the premise of environmentalism, man has no right to exist.

It comes down to this: Each of us has a choice to make. Will I recognize that man’s life is the standard of moral value—that the good is that which sustains and furthers human life—and thus that people have a moral right to use the Earth and its elements for their life-serving needs? Or will I accept the notion that nature has “intrinsic” value—value in and of itself, value apart from and irrespective of human needs—and thus that people have no right to exist?

There is no middle ground here. Either human life is the standard of moral value, or it is not. Either nature has intrinsic value, or it does not.