The Pelosi Terror: Guillotine The Rich

Nancy Pelosi wants government to take over health care. But there's a snag. At present the yearly income level at which Americans will be slapped with an onerous tax increase, is set at $250,000.

Pelosi's own salary is presently $223,500 per annum, which does not include perks such as free travel and postage and so forth. With a yearly cost of living increase of 2.5%, she will soon reach the $250,000 category. So, she's seeking to raise the income level to $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for families.

In a recent interview pleasantly discussing her desire to slaughter the very rich, Pelosi remarked that if individuals hear that those making one-half million or more will be heavily taxed to pay for the government's health care program, they will be relieved, exclaiming, "My God, that's not me."

Consider the import of such a statement. Pelosi knows that high taxation is destructive. She also knows that high taxes have an adverse affect on the desire to earn more. She knows that those who are below the kill-line will not be motivated to penetrate it.

A yearly salary of $223,500 is a lot of money. Who pays Ms. Pelosi's salary? You do. The taxpayer. Is your employee listening to you? She is not. After the rich have been guillotined to support socialized medicine for a year or two, your taxes will be raised to continue the government charade. Is she working in your interest? She is not. A rich American means more savings, more investments in new business, more jobs, a higher standard of living nationally. Sending them to the guillotine means sending you.

During the interview, Pelosi claimed, "Americans want government health care." Is she telling the truth?

A Gallup poll showed that in interviews with 3,026 adults, 18 years of age and older, conducted in 2009, from July 10 to July12, 56% favored and 33% opposed Congress' passing major healthcare reform legislation this year. Gallup stated that most of the questions were asked of only 1,518 individual adults, with a sampling error of plus/minus 3 %. That means about 850 Americans favor and 501 Americans oppose health care reform. Out of a population of almost three hundred million, no matter whether using 1,518 or 3,026, the number does not constitute "all" Americans.

But wait. Suppose one looks at what these Americans favor or oppose. Saying that one favors government health care reform does not mean favoring government health care. With all the corruption and high prices government has caused, reform understandably would be on one's mind these days. So, it's no surprise that the same poll found that 52% to 42% of the 1,518 polled---that is, approximately 789---said that controlling costs is more crucial than expanding coverage. Does that mean that all of those 789 are enamored with government health care? It does not. It simply means they are concerned with costs. One cannot conclude from this that "all" Americans want government health care. What they want is less expensive care. Who does not?

But will government health care give it to them? Today, under partial control of government medicine, fraud amounts to $68 billion a year. Fraud drives up costs. With a government monopoly of health care, fraud will be considerably worse. The cost of health care under government will skyrocket. Establishing free-market medicine will bring costs down.

During the interview, Pelosi stated, "Every single person in America is an expert on his or her health care."

This is true, so why does she claim the government knows best how to take care of their medical problems? Such a question was not raised. Instead Pelosi referred to regional, generation, and ethnic differences, then stated that she and her cohorts want the government health care plan to work for the entire country, ending with the remark: "So, we have to listen to everybody," she said.

Such a statement would be laughable were it not so flagrantly dishonest. Pelosi like so many of her colleagues does not listen to her constituents. She is not listening to any American who opposes her and flatly refuses to recognize the existence of dissenting points of view. She is determined to have her way no matter how many Americans are rendered destitute, no matter how greatly the economy suffers, no matter how many jobs are lost through the impoverishment of the producers/earners.

"Death to Aristos!" shouted the sans-culottes during the French Terror. Pelosi is fully sympathetic to that point of view.

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Suggested Reading:
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson

A Letter to Lee Scott, CEO Wal-Mart's

Dear Mr. Scott,

I was shocked to read that Wal-Mart's supports socialized medicine. Having asked for a donation to our Tea Party Association here in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I was told that Wal-Mart's policy is not to involve itself in political movements. So, upon hearing of your support for socialized medicine I thought that maybe the government had threatened you. Since the Obama Administration forced the CEO of GM to resign and then turned around and treated Bank of America's CEO so shamefully---going so far as to threaten him to withhold vital information from shareholders---the thought that you had also been threatened was not so exaggerated a supposition.

I don't know whether they did threaten you or not. But I do know that you are helping to destroy the moral meaning of Mr. Walton's achievement by supporting the government's health care plan. You are supporting statism, which has always sought to destroy the free market, while looting the profits of men like Sam Walton.

Don't you recognize that by supporting government take over of the medical profession, you are supporting government take over of every other business, too?

Medicare in this country does not need to be reformed. It needs to be repealed entirely, totally demolished. At present, fraud under only partial government control amounts to $68 billion per year. What do you think is going to happen when government has a monopoly on medicine? Does it not occur to you that the Postal Service is a good example of what happens when government monopolizes an industry? Quality goes down, prices go up. And those with the brains and the dedication and love of medicine are not going to enter into a profession run by bureaucrats.

Of all America's businesses, Wal-Mart's is in a prime position to resist the government, to act as a spearhead and rally doctors and the grass roots who oppose socialize medicine to your side and defeat the government's plans and turn the tide away from the shameful path the government is forcing upon us.

Do not betray Sam Walton. Do not betray the American people. Do not betray your own individual rights and freedom by supporting so venal a program as socialized medicine. Do not dishonor the name of Wal-Mart by supporting a health care bill that no one has read but is being pushed through Congress with maniacal speed. If the bill passes it will be the death of the free market in medicine and ultimately the death of the free-market in many other businesses, too. Don't help the government do this. Rescind your support of it.

Sincerely,
Sylvia Bokor
cc: 1,769 individual American citizens

Addenda: This a.m.---July 15---I send a FedEx letter to Mike Duke the CEO and President of the Board of Directors of Wal-Mart. It was essentially the same as the above. I also submitted a Letter to the Editor of the Albuquerque Journal. I consider this issue very important and encourage those interested in a free market in medicine to also write letters protesting Wal-Mart's support of socialized medicine.

Quo Vadis, America?

The Latin title of Henryk Sienkiewicz's famous novel means, "Whither goest thou?" On this July 4th it's a question we should be seriously asking ourselves.

At any time, for any peoples, there's only one of two ways to regard the individual in relation to society: either as an autonomous and sovereign intellect recognized as the primary unit of action, or as an undifferentiated glob within a group.

For millennium men lived as members of a group or a class---in clans, tribes, dynasties, city states, military oligarchies, dictatorships, theocracies and every other form of communal society in which the concept "individual" was---at that time--- undiscovered.

Then appeared our Founding Fathers who saw a new direction and formualated a startling new idea. They saw the importance of one man, one mind, one passion---the individual, the fountainhead of all that civilization knows and enjoys. They created a government based on the moral principle of man's right to live for his own sake. They shaped the world's first representative republic, a government to guard our freedom, making us the freest nation on earth. They gave us the Bill of Rights---the first explicit statement in history that named the individual's freedoms and his rights to life, property, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. At last, men were free to earn a living as they chose, dispose of their property as they saw fit and live free of government coercion.

Since then, every July 4 we celebrated our freedom and our gratitude to those who left us so precious a legacy. We celebrated our independence from a burdensome government. Today a burdensome government threatens us again, and our legacy is in jeopardy. We hear demands that doctors be enslaved and teachers be shackled in the name of "the common good." We are told that everyone should be subjected to mandatory "volunteerism" to serve the community. We see businessmen who have created the richest nation on earth being persecuted and ordered around by politicians and their appointees in the name of "the public interest," while government cronies declare that the media should shun dissent with government policies.

Whither goest thou, America?

This July 4, the Albuquerque Tea Party celebrated "the Spirit of '76"---a spirit that calls for "more freedom and less government." Focused on the fundamental principles of individual rights, limited government and capitalism, the Albuquerque Tea Party argues against government's encroachment into our lives and objects to government takeover of the economy. They are providing the opportunity to voice our concern about government actions.

However, some people resent the choices engendered by freedom. They want to hide the individual in one big group and forbid individual choices. They advocate the ancient practices of communal living, known as collectivism. Today, it's called socialism.

Socialism is the doctrine that believes society is superior to the individual and that society "as a whole" should be our primary concern. But there is no way to treat society "as a whole." Society is composed of individuals with individual needs and desires and abilities, with individual dreams and goals and ambitions. The concept "society" is an abstraction describing a group of people. That abstraction does not exist as a concrete entity.

Only the individual exists. When individuals come together to cooperate in some venture, they remain individuals. They do not dissolve into unidentifiable globs. The notion that society, or the group, is somehow more important than the individual is putting the cart before the horse.

The Albuquerque Tea Party seeks to put things in proper order. On July 4, they honored our Founding Fathers in the "Spirit of '76." And the grass roots turned out to cheer them on. They recognize that by restoring individual rights we will limit government and that a limited government will make possible genuine capitalism, which benefits us all.

Whither goest thou, America? Do we want freedom or fear? Do we want to be a nation of free individuals who think for themselves and earn their own way, or a straight-jacketed "society" marching goose-step to government edicts?

The answer is up to each of us. And each of us can give our answer loudly and clearly by supporting and advancing the Tea Party in his city.