On Medical Freedom

Lately, in regards to the current debate as to whether we ought to have some form of federally sponsored health care regime, I've been running across the following type of comment: We already know what a free market in medicine looks like (or capitalistic health care), and we already know that it doesn't work. I beg to differ.

I am not any kind of expert on the health care industry. I am not a doctor. I do not work in the insurance industry (though I did once process records for workman's compensation). I'm not any kind of lawyer. However, from my own vantage point, I can see that we do not have a free market in health care in this country. And it isn't merely that it isn't "free enough," so far as I'm concerned, it's not really all that free, at all.

I have worked for a couple employers over the years that provided health benefits. One of them allowed a choice between Kaiser Permanente and Cigna; the other, Kaiser only. Those were my options. Sure, I could have opted not to participate in my employer's program and gone with an independent provider, but in doing so I both forgo the matching contribution of my employer, and become one in a very small, noncompetitive market: people who get their health care through someone other than their employer. In short, it is very expensive to get health insurance via any source other than an employer, and your employer offers very limited options, if any. With such a captive subscriber base, is it any wonder health insurance is expensive?

This state of affairs is not the result of the functioning of the market. It is the result of government regulations that require certain kinds of employers to provide health care to certain kinds of employees. These regulations, creating a captive market, drive up the price of health insurance. Given it is mostly insurance companies paying doctors for their services, it also drives up the cost of health care, in general.

Then there are the doctors themselves. Medicine is a highly guarded field in this country. In unregulated product and service fields, you generally have a range of qualities of product and service, with a similar range of prices. You can pay some kid or immigrant to mow your lawn, or you can hire a professional, highly paid landscaper to turn your yard into a work of art. You can buy the older model car used for a couple thousand, or you can pay fifty grand for a luxury car. You can get a free cell phone from a service provider that has frequent outages for next to nothing, or you can get one of the latest models with all the bells and whistles from a carrier that covers everything for considerably more. But when it comes to medicine, if you're not doing it yourself, it's either The Doctor, a Nurse supervised by The Doctor, or nothing at all.

Simply put, Doctors (along with people in many other service professions, including teaching and my own industry: pest control) enjoy a situation much like that of the crafts guilds in mercantilist Europe: the right to control the supply in order to keep prices artificially high, to the point of being able to prosecute anyone outside their club of practicing "without a license." With the AMA enjoying a monopoly--established, once again, by the government, not by the market--in medical services, is it any wonder prices are high?

Even if anyone was allowed, there's still the paperwork. No, I don't know the details, but sending enormous stacks of records and reports to the government costs money, as well. Either the doctor has to waste time he could spend helping patients filling out stacks of redundant paperwork, or he can hire someone else to do it. Either way, that's more money to spend.

Then there's prescription drugs. The price of bringing new drugs to market includes the price of assuring the government that the drug is totally and completely safe: that price is astronomical. And if you think that the approval process is necessary for public safety, understand something: under current regulations, aspirin would not be approved. This is a drug that, while most people are aware there are potential problems with it, most people use safely both as a pain reliever and as a heart medication. I won't even go into the tendency of the federal government to ban any potential medicines that could be grown just about anywhere (cannabis was long known as an effective medication until that "evil Mexican weed" marijuana was banned during the early twentieth century).

Put all this together, and you have an enormously expensive system, and every last extra expense is the result of government regulation. I'd say it isn't the result of the greed of the market participants, but understand that the organizations I mentioned earlier--the AMA and the big pharmaceutical corporations--lobby for and approve of efforts to regulate the industry further. There is corporate greed, but the tool with which they express that greed is not the market (where the consumer is king--that's you and me), but the government.

Sure, there are people out there that can't afford medical care regardless, and perhaps some change is necessary to help those people out. However, I am certain that the number of people unable to get care would drop considerably if both existing and potential medical providers were given the freedom to compete for our business, rather than existing providers alone being given barriers to prevent competitors from finding ways to lower prices. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if those last few who couldn't afford care in a society that possesses medical freedom are few enough that doctors (and other medical practitioners) could afford to treat them themselves, without government payment. Or not.

Public distribution of land rent could help.

John McCain Invokes Godwin's Law

lol

Throne, Altar, and Uniquely American Conservatism

I honestly didn't expect, when I first read this article, to digg and blog off it. David Gordon's review of Paul Gottfried's "Conservatism in America" initially came across as dry, long, and moderately interesting... worth a read, but probably not worth adding my digg to maybe ten others. Then I got up to start cleaning my kitchen, and all kinds of thoughts started sparking off. You can read, and digg, the article that has inspired me by following the links below.

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I have, for the past few months, been very perplexed as to what, exactly, Conservatism is. I understood that, in the REALLY old days, Conservatism in America would have meant loyalty to the English king, and opposition to the American Revolution. In a way, I've seen today's Conservatism meaning a leaning toward enthusiastic assumption of Britain's former imperial glory. How does that square with the longstanding rhetoric Conservatives have given in favor of the Constitution, and reverence of the Founding Fathers, most of whom were, in their day, quite liberal?

Paul Gottfried's Conservatism in America (or rather, what I gleaned from David Gordon's review) points out that European Conservatism has always referred to "an all-encompassing reverence for 'Throne-and-Altar,' for whatever divinely sanctioned State apparatus happened to be in existence." Thus, French Conservatism was distinguished by loyalty to the French King, the feudal order, and the Catholic Church. German Conservatism was distinguished by loyalty to the Kaiser, the feudal order, and the Lutheran (or possibly the Catholic) Church. British Conservatism was distinguished by loyalty to the British Monarchy, the slightly less feudal order, and the Anglican Church. And so it would go for any European country.

The American Conservative would appear to be in a bind. Without a feudal order, without a state-sanctioned church, and with liberalism (in the old European sense, not in today's socialistic sense) firmly ingrained in the American character, what is a would-be Conservative to do? Where is their "throne-and-altar?" The answer that came to me (as I placed dishes in the dishwasher) suddenly became a startling argument in favor of American Exceptionalism, a doctrine I normally reject. For the American Conservative, the only throne they can look to is the Constitution, and the only Altar they can look to is the melchisian high priesthood of Jesus himself!

At its best, this produces an uneasy unity between Conservative and Liberal that was absent in Europe. The Conservative can be devoted to liberty, limited government, religious tolerance and similar ideas due to their enshrinement in the Constitution. The Liberal shares a similar devotion on principle alone. A Conservative with a view of scripture that prohibits warfare on the grounds that warfare is as far from "love thy enemy, and pray for him that persecutes you" as it can get, can ally with a Liberal that opposes warfare on humanistic grounds. Constitutionalist Conservatives and Liberals can rally together in defense of the freedom of speech, assembly, and worship.

Of course, this doesn't make America into some kind of land without conflict. In addition to the disagreements and dislikes that naturally arise between the two temperaments, there is another conflict that is, I believe, uniquely American (today, at least): that between those who favor the limited government spelled out in the Constitution (for whatever reason), and those who favor a much more active, authoritarian government (for whatever reason). This is a conflict that transcends "Conservative" and "Liberal", for both sides can rally behind one, or the other.

For the Conservative, I suppose it is the underwhelming nature of Constitution and Jesus as their "throne-and-altar" that produces this schism. From the very beginning of the Republic, there have been those who hungered for a much more down-to-earth hierarchy to revere, which I identify with Alexander Hamilton's advocacy of a government headed by a congressionally elected president with a lifelong term (a king, basically), which would pursue "imperial glory" (his words). Being a Puritan, he likely also favored the idea of a state-sanctioned church (as the Puritan Church was in his day). Today, we see this idea coming to full fruition: a staunch Conservative alliance lining up behind an Imperial Presidency, with interchurch associations bragging about their closeness to and influence over various politicians, even as the influence flows the other way as well, and various church leaderships actively support one candidate or another.

For the Liberal, I suppose it is the disappointment in the failure of the Liberal political program to achieve Liberal results. Egalitarianism is a prime goal of Liberalism, and the fact is, even if you extend the vote to every last man and woman in the country, the State will continue to be largely the playground of the rich and the politically connected. The belief that this can be dealt with by the forceful application of the power of the state, at the behest of a popular majority, to the distribution of property, is yet strong in this country. Thus, while Liberalism in continental Europe continues to refer to what we call Libertarianism in this country, in America Liberalism became, in the minds of many, synonymous with Socialism. Thus, from another angle, we see Liberals advocating a government every bit as powerful as that aimed at by conservatives dissatisfied with the Constitution as written.

To big government Liberals, I pose a question: how is it then that an institution that is incorrigibly under the influence of wealth and power is expected to supply a remedy to the problem of the misuse of wealth and power?

To big government, religious Conservatives, I pose a warning: you seek to bring throne-and-altar down from heaven onto earth. Understand, however, that what you will get is not throne-and-altar, but usurper-and-idol. In particular, America has long been blessed by a Church which is lead, at the top level, not by Man or Men, but by God. Will you overturn this, and place your image of God in His stead?

Hands Off Iran

Okay. So Chris Hedges has declared that, should the Administration attack Iran, he will not pay his taxes. This is an issue I myself have wrestled with privately over the past couple years--what would it take for me to rebel against the Government in this fashion? Given the accelerating violations of constitutional law by the governing elite, I think we can consider ourselves at the point where the government is now fully illegitimate.

I will now declare openly what I have considered privately: if the Administration declares war on Iran, I will take the actions recommend by Chris Hedges. I modify this only slightly: if Congress can actually muster the political will to make a proper declaration of war, I will continue to pay my taxes. If, however, we have the Administration committing yet more illegal acts of war, I will join this tax revolt.

Somebody set up a pledge site. I think a message needs to be sent.

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Republican Unity?

One thing that kept coming back to me today was the fact that the existing party structure here in Fresno seemed anxious to bring the Ron Paul supporters into the fold. The last of the speakers, speaking on behalf of... was it Mitt Romney?... took some of his time to congratulate the Ron Paul supporters for their strong showing (this was before the vote count) and to express his pleasure at seeing so many excited activists. He also tried to make the point that the honorable thing for us to do is to support whomever the Republican nominee turns out to be, whether or not it's Ron Paul. A lady who came to sit at the table I was sitting at reiterated the point. I'm fairly certain some Hillary doom-and-gloom was mentioned, as well.

I can see their point. Indeed, I am at the point where I have officially participated in a Republican event. I am participating in the primaries, and I am beginning to believe that perhaps supporting the eventual nominee, regardless of whom it turns out to be, could well be the honorable thing to do. I am also aware, however, that many, if not most, Ron Paul supporters are not susceptible to this sort of thing. For many of us, what we are doing is not participation; it is an invasion. They are in now, but if Ron loses the nomination, they will be gone just as quickly, many of them supporting a third-party or write-in campaign whether Ron likes it or not.

And I can definitely sympathize. I do have respect for the non-voter, and my usual practice of voting for a third-party candidate serves a similar purpose. There is nothing wrong with making an exception for Ron Paul. And given the fact that our laws fairly firmly establish a two party system, there is nothing wrong with joining an established party and attempting to enact change from within, any more than there is anything wrong with a Soviet-era Russian joining the Communist party, lacking other options, or an Iraqi joining the Baath party, lacking options. Indeed, if the "core" of the Big Two really want to keep their parties to themselves, they're going to have to establish voting methods that provide what can only be described as the disenfranchised portion of the population opportunities for representation, such as approval voting, or, better yet, range voting. So if more established Republicans don't like the Ron Paul Revolution invading "their" party, they really only have themselves to blame.

However, I tend toward seeing what I am doing as participation, not invasion. Partially this is because I don't like invading, and partially this is because I strongly believe that acting like an invader will only end up stirring up more active resistance to our attempts to get Ron Paul nominated. Is that not the very same principle behind much of our opposition to the Iraq War--that there are other ways of getting at the terrorists that do not generate yet more sympathy for the terrorists among their potential recruiting and fundraising base? The principle looks the same to me, thus I shall endeavor to treat my newfound Republican colleagues with due respect. I may only be around for this election cycle, but I'm not going to act like an asshole while I'm here. (For anyone who thinks I am calling them an asshole, please re-read the previous paragraph.)

However, even if the Republican party does manage to keep a few Ron Paul votes, I can tell you for sure: they will not get our energy or our enthusiasm. This isn't because we will withhold it in a miserly fashion; it simply will not exist to be given. If the Republicans want us to cut a single check (figuratively speaking) in favor of their candidate, it had better be Ron Paul. If they want awesome videos on YouTube for their candidate, it can be no candidate other than Ron Paul. If they want us on street corners, waving signs and cheering their candidate's name, it has to be Ron Paul--and no other. I just might vote for whomever the Republican nominee turns out to be, but the Revolution is for Ron Paul alone.

And so that's the score. So what do you Republicans, those of you primarily concerned with beating the Democrats (and not primarily concerned with beating any particular potential Republican nominee), want behind our candidate? Big big corporatist and/or military/industrial money, money that comes with corrupt strings attached? Or do you want the Revolution's money? Do you want slick campaign ads that at least 60% of the population will regard with only the most contemptuous cynicism? Or do you want a labor of love? As I said in my previous entry, it really looks like it's going to come down to Giuliani vs. Paul. For those of you who have your candidates being left in the dust, what is it you want not only in a candidate, but the campaign that will come with him?

Rudy Giuliani is pro-choice, but likely to nominate so-called "strict constructionist" judges. Ron Paul is straight-up pro-life--he outflanks the Democrats on the Right. However, his goal at the Federal level is simply to remove it from the jurisdiction of Federal Courts, making him non-threatening to pro-choicers in pro-choice majority states who also have localist sympathies... and yes, they do exist. This makes Dr. Paul more palatable to staunchly pro-life voters than Rudy Giuliani, while at the same time making him less frightening to pro-choice voters than Mike Huckabee, for example.

It is pretty well demonstrated that a majority are opposed to continuing the Iraq War. Rudy advocates an even more warlike foreign policy than the current Administration. Ron is against the Iraq War... but unlike most of the Democrats, he is also staunchly in favor of a strong national defense, and has also stated repeatedly that he DOES want to go after the terrorist threat, but using different (and more precise) tools than are currently being used. Believe the Democrats don't know what they're talking about regarding foreign policy if you want (and I tend to do the same), but Ron Paul is an expert. Thus, he outflanks the Democrats on the LEFT... while at the same time being sensible enough to keep us safe, making him far less frightening to voters on the Right than any Democrat.

On these two issues alone, we see how Ron Paul outflanks any Democratic candidate on both the right AND the left, while Rudy has issues which make him at least vaguely unpalatable on both sides of the spectrum. Many on the Religious Right are underwhelmed by Rudy's stance on abortion, while lefties of all stripes would support Hillary over Rudy, perhaps begrudgingly, but support her all the same.

And wouldn't you want to see the Income Tax gone? From what I've read, the federal budget has grown at such a rate that we only have to go back to year 2000 spending levels to account for the loss of revenues from the personal income tax. And the benefits of ending the Income Tax only begin with the amount of money people would be allowed to keep. In my opinion, the primary benefit is the removal of the tax code compliance burden that currently limits economic creativity, and thus limits the population's ability to create new wealth.

Finally, I want to ask a question: when are rank-and-file Republicans going to hold their own representatives accountable for broken promises? My primary example is the Department of Education. From what I understand, Republicans once held the position that if they controlled the government, they would abolish the federal Department of Education. However, with Republican majorities in both the House and Congress, as well as a Republican in the Oval Office, we didn't get the Department of Education abolished. What we got was No Child Left Behind, an expansion of federal power over education unprecedented even in Democratic years. Why? I really want an answer to this question.

We Won! WHOOOOOO!!!

Honestly, I wish I had more to report on this event. I just got back from the straw poll, held by the Fresno County Republican Party. Ron Paul took first place, edging out Rudy Giuliani by two votes (good thing my brother and I showed up!). Ron had something like 35% of the vote. Mitt Romney was third, I think, at 17%. The only other number I remember is that Fred Thompson has 7%. I think Huckabee might have taken 2% or something like that.

Honestly, at least so far as I can see, it's looking like the Republican primary is shaping up to be a contest primarily between Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul. So for all you Ron Paul supporters out there, don't forget to sign up at http://www.teaparty07.com/. I fully expect that the Tea Party will be an even bigger success than Guy Fawkes Day was, with all the coverage that got him, and all the new supporters that's likely to generate.

I think we may have even won a new convert tonight, an undecided fellow who came to sit at our table, and went away carrying Ron Paul yard signs. Oh, how I wish I had a yard to put a sign in!

The Fed Has Wrecked the Stock Market

"America is finished, washed up, kaput. Foreign investors and central banks around the world have lost confidence in US markets and are headed for the exits. The dollar is sinking, the country is insolvent, and its leaders are barking mad. Investors are voting with their feet. They've had enough."

So says Mike Whitney "and many others" at Lewrockwell.com. I feel the need to be contrary to the alarmism. Yes, the dollar is on the way down, down to the bottom... of the market (not the ocean). However, it is entirely possible that the bottom is NOT at flat zero value. I've been concerned in the past that the deliberate attempts to artificially raise foreign demand for the dollar (such as the constant maneuvering, both diplomatic and warlike, to ensure that the middle eastern oil market continues to do business in US Dollars) was unsustainable. The dollar was strong, but brittle. The current rejection of the dollar as "worldwide reserve currency" was bound to happen at some point, and is now dropping relative to foreign currencies not because the physical part of the US economy has anything wrong with it now that it did not have before, but because the foreign dollar speculation "bubble" has burst.

So long as the response in the US is not panic, but rather acceptance of our new place in the international order, it's entirely possible that this situation can pass, that the bottom for the dollar will not be total collapse, but rather a settling to a lower, more sustainable level. The US can, as a result of its lowered currency, go back to being an exporter and a lender, rather than relying upon artificial foreign demand for our currency for our standard of living. The other thing that has to happen, of course, is for the political and economic elites to realize they can no longer borrow and inflate at the rate they once did.

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RE: Salon’s Psychoanalysis of Libertarians

Lewrockwell.com's Gene Callahan and Bob Murphy had some things to say about some things Andrew Sullivan had to say about the Nov 5th Moneybomb for Ron Paul's Campaign. Sullivan seems to think (or at least wants his readers to think) that geeks, being computer programmers, believe in the power of sets of rules to produce an ideal society. Somehow, governing society by rules seems to equal the libertarian position for Sullivan... however that works. Callahan and Murphy have already dealt adequately with the absurdities of Sullivan's arguments; I am going to propose a different explanation for why the Internet is such a hotbed of libertarianism.

First off, consider Sullivan's "computer programming nerds." If there is any kind of person who understands that rules and people do not interact in the fashion a rule maker imagines, it is a computer programmer. A computer programmer has, at his disposal, a machine that will follow his instructions exactly. A computer never disobeys, never argues, it just does exactly what it is told... and all to often, the result of that is counter to what the programmer is trying to accomplish. You write, run, debug, run again, debug, cycle through that process repeatedly until the program is finally judged ready for the end user, and STILL the program will have problems. Try to govern human beings by sets of instructions (that is to say, legislation) and the imperfection of sets of instructions is compounded further by the self-directed nature of human beings.

Other than "computer nerds," there's also those of us who have been on the Internet for a long time. The seed of the physical medium may have been established by a government program, and may currently be under the ownership of a small set of big corporations, but the society that has evolved within this medium was, and to a large extent still is, unregulated by government. There are, of course, rules everywhere, but these rules are developed and enforced by the mutual consent of the participants. Nobody has a monopoly on communication, on any particular subject, on anything at all. If you don't like the rules of one community, there are others to join, as well as the option of creating one's own. And there is no "police power" involved in the enforcement of these rules. The moderator of an individual community has no more or less power than that of the host of a party: the authority to exclude. Sure, people get mad at trolls and spammers sometimes, but the existing methods of dealing with problem people are fine.

Even when conflicts do get physical, when hackers and virus creaters cause damage to other people's data, the solution is nearly always technological in nature, and government rarely has any help to offer. By the time government is aware there is a problem, the locals are already fixing it. By the time the government has figured out a "solution," people have already moved on. It's as if, in the real world, somebody was robbed, the thief was surrounded by a group of neighborhood toughs as well as a few older people, testimony was offered, a verdict rendered, the property returned, the people dispersed... and right about then the cops are finally rolling up.

Simply put, we've seen how much can be accomplished without the "help" of government, and don't really see a need for it, in the online realm. How hard is it to imagine that the offline realm might work just as well if people, rather than sitting around waiting for the government to act, just got in and solved their problems without having to ask for permission first?

That's my take on this whole "Internet libertarianism" thing, anyway. This is a very rough draft of it, and I'll probably have to take some stuff back and elaborate on other points later on. I'm also sure there are others who have said it much better.

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