Government and Moral Values

I recommend that one read Selywn Duke's entire article, "Yes, Folks, We All Would Legislate Morality (Psst, Even You Libertarians)" dated October 17, 2010, which can be found at http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/10/yes_folks_we_all_would_legisla.html

My comments run too long to be posted to the site where it appeared. For this reason, I have chosen to comment here on my blogspot.

From that article, I have excerpted the statements that I answer.
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To begin with, Mr. Duke's title is ambiguous. Is he claiming that government should impose moral values? Or that government imposes some moral values in the act of passing some laws? If the former, one cannot agree. If the latter, such a statement immediately raises the questions: what moral values are being referred to? Are they in keeping with man's life or opposed to it? Mr. Duke does not say.

He wrote: ". . . for a law to be just, it must have a basis in morality."

COMMENT: The problem here is that Mr. Duke does not clarify what he means by morality or what moral values he is referring to. One assumes that he means the morality of altruism, which is the moral doctrine most in vogue these days, accepted by virtually all religions and other types of groups.

At issue is the kind of values lawmakers accept and hold and which guide their choices in making law.

So, if Mr. Duke is referring to the altruist morality, then most laws are unjust since they ignore the moral principle of individual rights. To make a true statement, therefore, one must say, "For a law to be just, it must have a basis in objective morality."

"[Morality] is a code of values to guide man's choices and actions---the choices and actions that determine the purpose and the course of his life." (Ayn Rand, "The Objectivist Ethics")

Mr. Duke writes: "... a law states that there is something you must or must not do, ostensibly because the action is a moral imperative, is morally wrong, or is a corollary thereof [emphasis added].

COMMENT: Again, this is ambiguous. Does Mr. Duke mean that it is morally wrong for a law to state you must or must not do something? Or is he saying that a law that commands an action is a moral imperative?

It is true that those who make laws do claim such laws are "right." For instance, the belief that you are your brother's keeper is considered by some to be a moral value. Such a moral value is the basis of all welfare state laws. Such a value made into law claims it is "right" to take from earners and give their earnings to non-earners, and "wrong" not to do so. Not to fulfill your brother's need is therefore considered morally "wrong." All welfare statists base their laws on the claim that it is "right" to take from the producer and give to the non-producer.

Alluding to his statement quoted above, Mr. Duke writes: "If this is not the case, with what credibility do you legislate in the given area? After all, why prohibit something if it doesn't prevent some wrong? Why force citizens to do something if it doesn't effect some good?"

COMMENT: Government officials surely do seek credibility by claiming that government care from diapers to dentures is "good." They did claim that Prohibition would prevent alcohol abuse, drunken violence and family neglect. In fact, it heightened criminality and encouraged gang warfare in daylight, and increased drinking.

The Crusaders deemed it "good" to kill infidels. The Puritans deemed it "good" to burn witches. The Soviets deemed it "good" to impoverish producers. The Taliban deems it "good" to kill Christians. The Palestinians deems it "good" to kill Jews.

The problem is that Mr. Duke does not question whether the legislation government enacts is objectively right---i. e., in keeping with reason, man's means of survival. He simply accepts that when government passes a law, claiming it's "for the common good," it therefore surely will "effect some good."

But that something is held as a moral value by someone, does not make it objectively morally right. In the same way and for the same reason, a reliance on some amorphous "Absolute Truth" does not make something true.

Mr. Duke correctly recognizes that "to prevent some wrong" such legislation based on non-objective values becomes non-objective law and therefore necessitates force. Ayn Rand discusses this in "Faith and Force: the Destroyers of the Modern World," which curiously Mr. Duke does not refer to, although he claims knowledge of Miss Rand's words to the point of "quoting" her sentences I've never heard of or read anywhere else. One must wonder did he make them up?

If one holds the view that man is a volitional being whose rights are natural---i.e., acquired by the fact that he exists as a man, and that his nature as a volitional being requires that he must use his reason in order to survive---then laws based on that view would shun the initiation of force, precluding the welfare state entirely.

Laws would not be passed that forced others to live by legislators' values. Laws would not be passed that morally obligated one to help others against one's own better judgement---a thing altruism demands---which includes bailouts of failed companies and government created institutions such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and rushing to the aid of every disaster around the globe with taxpayer money at the ready, but curiously unable to maintain and repair the infrastructure across our own nation.

Mr. Duke writes: ". . . we couldn't credibly prohibit force, protect property rights, or prevent harm in the first place unless unjustly using the first, violating the second, or causing the third wasn't "wrong." Ergo, morality.

COMMENT: Mr. Duke fails to recognize the context of proper law: to protect the moral principle of individual rights. Law based on a proper moral code prohibits the initiation of force. The use of police force in the protection of property, for instance, is proper because it is retaliatory. Those who initiate force against others violating their rights, forfeit their own rights. Therefore, the use of police retaliatory force against them is morally right.

There should be no objection to the use of police force retaliating against violators of rights. There is mighty objection to the use of government force against non-violators of rights, which altruism in the guise of the welfare state daily initiates.

Mr. Duke writes: "Another argument I heard was that not all law reflects morality; the example given was law mandating that we drive on the right side of the road. Yet this is where the "corollary thereof" part comes in. Without such a law, more people will be harmed in accidents, and we believe it's "wrong" to allow people to get harmed.

COMMENT: Such issues as which side of the road one drives on---including other traffic regulations---are fundamentally procedural issues, not moral issues. While the consequences of not following them can cause harm, the event of harm is not the source of morality. It is questionable journalism to introduce such procedural matters into an article on morality and the law.

Mr. Duke's argument then devolves into the tiresome equivocation of preferences in ice cream to moral values as if this puerile parallel had originated with him and as if it proved Objectivism and its author are "moral relativists." But in a serious discussion of morality and the law, it is important to recognize that individual men hold personal values as well as fundamental moral values and that these are not the same in the face of ultimate alternatives.

Philosophically, "moral relativism" refers to a subjectivist view of morality, which finds its origin epistemologically in holding the primacy of consciousness. To accuse Miss Rand of moral relativism shows a dreadfully vast ignorance of Miss Rand's philosophy.

Mr. Duke writes: ". . . Insofar as our government does legislate . . . it must impose morals, not just "values" (which can be positive or negative).

COMMENT: Another ambiguous statement. Does Mr. Duke means that any legislation by its nature is applied moral values? Or does he mean that the government should make laws that identify, choose, direct, and control moral choices?

A proper government has only three functions. And it does not involve itself in welfare programs. It is concerned only with the function of protecting and defending individual rights. If any legislation violates individual rights---such as a welfare program---then it is an immoral law and should not be imposed upon citizens.

He writes: For it is only when government imposes morals residing within its legitimate domain that laws are just; when it imposes merely values, they may be unjust.

COMMENT: Mr. Duke does not specify what he holds is government's "legitimate domain." So there is no way to know whether such laws he refers to are just.

However, if you know that the only legitimate domain of government is the protection and defense of individual rights, then you know that any law that upholds that moral principle is just. If you know that today's government hardly recognizes the existence of individual rights, you know that today most legislation is unjust.

It is quite true that if the government imposes "merely values" it will be unjust---no maybe about it. There can be no right to violate rights. Forcing men to buy health insurance, for instance, is imposing values. Such a law is unjust.

That said, I am puzzled by Mr. Duke's ignorance of or perhaps contempt for individual rights. It is this that makes his views suspect. His unspecified "laws" and undefined usage regarding the relationship between morality and the law indicates that he believes government should impose moral values. Such a view must lead logically to tyranny, despite his protest that he is "a man who proposed the Defense against Tyranny Amendment."

Government's insertion of moral values---beyond the protection of the moral principle of individual rights---has resulted in the creeping socialism that started at the end of the 19th century when government demanded that earners must financially support those who had not earned their way. It was, it was said, the "right" thing to do. This view took more rabid form in the 1930s when, in addition, government withdrew part of men's paychecks to "secure" their future. It was, it was said, the "right" thing to do. Then government proceeded to loot that alleged security.

From the 1940s to the 1990s, the ballooning welfare state in this country and around the world showed the extent to which government's imposition of moral values perverted education and bankrupted producers. Anti-Trust, it was said, was the "right" thing to do---although it is one of the most unjust of our laws. It strangles businessmen and lowers the standard of living across the board. Affirmative Action, it was said, was the "right" thing to do---although it hindered the group it was suppose to help and lowered the standard of professional and academic excellence. Medicare, it was said, was the "right" thing to do---although it is bankrupting families and all levels of government, and wasting the time of skilled medical personnel forcing them to care for malingerers while true emergency cases wait with little hope.

Today, the new health care law, it is said, is the "right" thing to do. But Americans have awaken to the fact that government imposed morality is the wrong thing to do. When you tell men what they must value, you are telling them how they must live. And that is tyranny. The original Tea Parties patriots knew it. Americans today know it, too.

Mr. Duke wrote: ". . . first and foremost, understanding what morality actually is.

COMMENT: I agree that "first and foremost, [we must understand] what morality actually is." But to understand what morality is, one must understand the standard of value of the good. One must grasp the volitional nature of man and his means of survival. One must understand the role that reason and freedom play in one's life, in production, in capitalism. Not to understand that is to be where we are today.

To demand that people value what government officials declare they should is the harbinger of statism in government and the Middle Ages in culture. During the Middle Ages both state and church oppressed men relegating them to thousand years of poverty, disease and ignorance. Today, the danger is that the state and church will once again struggle for authority resulting in a similar consequence.

If we allow this blending of church and state, together they will bring about another Middle Ages. This will happen, however, only if people accept the notion that morality should be imposed by government. The Inquisition tried it. So did Hitler and Stalin. They all "accomplished" only slaughter. One must conclude that that is the goal of every such advocacy.

Mr. Duke ends his article by stating, "So people who want [Ayn] Rand can have her. I'll side with George, James, and the rest of those Taliban, neocon socialists of dead-white-male fame."

COMMENT: I definitely will take the philosophy of Ayn Rand. As many Americans are discovering, her ideas must be implemented if we are to restore individual rights and prosper.

Mr. Duke has made it clear where he stands.

Prohibition Revisited

Survivalists, or "Preppers" as they sometimes call themselves, see a bleak future. They could be right…or not. It depends on which road we take: acquiescence or resistance.

Prohibition made it illegal for Americans to buy alcohol. It did not stop them from drinking. It increased it. Going to a speakeasy was groovy, as collegians -- even high school students -- sought new adventures. Others started to drink in sheer defiance of the heavy handedness of the federal enforcement of the 18th Amendment.

Prohibition interfered with individuals' choices. So does the healthcare law. ObamaCare interferes with the relationship between doctor and patient. The new law will not stop suffering. It will increase it. The Affordable Health Care Act (Public Law No. 111-148) forces doctors to give free examinations and preventive treatment. In some cities, doctors are currently paid as little as $8.00 a visit. That fee can be expected to decline further under the new law. The number of doctors taking Medicare/Medicaid patients has dropped from over 70% to approximately 50% in 2009.

This percentage is expected to continue to sink farther, as doctors withdraw or refuse to take part. One hopes so. They have formed a Tea Party and are advocating the repeal of the healthcare law. Most doctors know that capitalism would fairly reward the highly skilled. Welfare states on the premise that the able are obligated to care for the malingerer, do not.

Prohibition increased criminal activity. So will the healthcare law. As the number of doctors decline and the safety of medical practices is sabotaged by corruption and fraud, criminal activity in black markets will erupt. The unscrupulous will offer shoddy, possibly even deadly medications, preying upon those tired of waiting in long lines.

Those denied access to medical care will surely face extortionists. Donald Berwick, arch-socialist, has been nominated to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He admires Great Britain's health care system. He supports massive government rationing. Those who accede to politician/bureaucrats' demands will get treatment. Those who don't, won't.

Mr. Berwick also supports a massive health care bureaucracy to redistribute the wealth. The wealth he will loot will pass into non-productive hands and unprofitable schemes, disappearing down black holes of spending instead of investment. Mr. Berwick's nullification of individuals' choices guarantees that the productive will vanish.

The healthcare law also usurps State sovereignty. It has been widely reported that 21 states have filed lawsuits on the grounds of the unconstitutionality of the healthcare law, that 10 more are planning to, and that 41 states are banning key aspects of it. The infringement on state sovereignty as much as the unaffordable cost prompted Florida, for instance, to act. The Complaint, filed in the US District Court Northern District of Florida, shows that the law will add another 1 million enrollees to Florida's already bloated 2.7 million Medicare/Medicaid recipients. The healthcare cost for Florida will be around $6,700 per person. New Mexico will have to shoulder an estimated 91,000 new enrollees at $7,074 per person.

Nationally, the new health care law will add $562 billion to the deficit over the next ten years. Since the costs of implementing and creating state bureaucracies to run the healthcare program are not included in healthcare estimates, the actual deficit is expected to be close to $1 trillion. Former New Mexico Congresswoman Heather Wilson rhetorically asked in an e-mail to several acquaintances, including this author, "Where is that money coming from?"

Productive citizens in the private sector are the government's only source of real revenue. To illustrate one way of squeezing that source, a business associate related the following: "A friend was medi-vac'd from St. Vincent's to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Her bill there was $106,000. The hospital accepted the Medicare reimbursement as payment in full. That reimbursement was $5,000. The $101,000 then [went] to G & A as overhead to be passed on to other patients with health insurance, [who] will pay higher rates for service."

The new healthcare law mandates even lower hospital reimbursements.

Prohibition sought to force individuals not to buy a product an individual wanted. The healthcare law seeks to force individuals to buy a product an individual may not want. Both laws violate the individual rights to life and property. Advertisers entreat you to buy a product, or shun a competitor's, but they cannot force you to do so. A government can. It points a gun---i.e. prison and/or a fine if you do not obey---at your head to force you to take actions you do not choose. Since life is a process of making choices and taking actions to sustain your life, such laws violate your right to life by placing politicians' values between your choices and your actions. In the same way, they violate your right to property by forcing you to spend your money (your property) as they dictate.

The violation of individual rights is not only a violation of one's political freedom. It is more fundamentally a violation of one's moral values. The violation of one's right to life, for instance, is the attempt to cancel one's reason. Since every man must think in order to live, thinking is a matter of sustaining one's life, and thus it is right to use one's own mind to do one's job and earn one's way. Hence, reason is a moral value. When, however, the government violates your right to life, it violates the function of that moral value. It says, in effect, the government will tell you what to do, you must forgo following your own thinking and choice.

The violation of individual rights also violates one's moral virtues. It is no secret that after more than a generation of the welfare state, those bought up in it have a moocher mentality and a malingerer's approach to self-supporting work. Such attitudes show that the virtue of productivity has been destroyed and that the virtue of pride and the virtue of independence
---the choice to think for oneself---have been obliterated. The individual who held a sign in Arizona protesting that state's immigration law is an example of what violating moral virtues lead to. Her sign read: "We want free food; free housing. You owe us, America."

"They can put me in jail and fine me. I will not comply with that law," Dr. Andrew Bernstein, author of Capitalism Unbound, stated on his Facebook wall. Others have come to the same conclusion. What will happen when a large number of otherwise law-abiding, hard working, tax-paying Americans elect to go to jail rather than comply? Who---or what---is the government going to loot next? Bank and retirement accounts. It has already begun. A proposal is being readied to take over retirement accounts. The productive are the competent. Without the competent to maintain them, electrical grids will break down. Illumination, cooking, heating, cooling, security systems, stock trading, banking, computers controlling myriad operations of all forms of communications, transportation, water supply and fuel pumps, will not function. Food supplies will also be affected.

Harvested food will rot in trucks stopped on the roadside for lack of fuel, and in stores for lack of refrigeration. People desperate for food will tear through crops. Whatever foodstuffs remain in the fields will spoil without a means to harvest and transport it.

As the supply of goods dwindles, the number of sick will balloon. Different forms of medical help will be offered. The government's extortion racket will surely invite "underground" practices. Like the speakeasies of the Prohibition era, you will have to know someone to gain admission into a trustworthy underground medical facility. Thugs will run another type of facility, offering bogus remedies and butcher-knife "operations." Many people will die unnecessarily. And not on clean sheets.

We should be prepared, but our goal should be to retrieve our country. Preppers seek to move to self-sufficient rural areas, isolating themselves as much as possible from what they believe is to come. Let us stay and fight. Let us dedicate ourselves to Patrick Henry's view.

We need not accept so dark a future. We need not acquiesce to the meaning and intent of this law---which comes close to near-total control of individual lives. Consider who fashioned this law: Corrupt, grasping, dishonest politicians who have caused crises after crises---such as Barney Frank's "Affordable Housing" which is acknowledged to have been the underlying cause of the economic meltdown. Such men and women have presumed to write a law violating our rights and telling us we must obey it. Are you willing to be ruled by such creatures?

Let us repeal the healthcare law. Let us vote out those corrupt politicians. Let us recognize the importance of free-market medicine and individual rights, and that we cannot have one without the other and be healthy and safe.

Political Agnosticism

Several months ago, I paused to admire a lovely neighborhood. A man and his wife approached and asked if I was putting up flyers on the wall. "No," I replied.

"How about this one," the man asked pointing at the shreds of a yellow flyer on a utility box.

Perhaps he asked the question because I was standing near that utility box? I explained that it was thought members of Organizing for America had done that and that Tea Party supporters had removed it.

The man asked, "Are you one of them?"

"Of whom? The Tea Party? Yes, I am. But I am an Objectivist, not a Conservative. No one in the Tea Party is OFA."

He said, "You're merely the other extreme. You're all the same."

I was taken aback. In today's clear-cut struggle between individual rights on the one hand and statism on the other, I had never met anyone who considered both as anathema. If he were a centrist, he would advocate features of both sides. But he had not. He considered both sides "extreme" and "the same."

Did he genuinely believe that both the advocacy of individual rights and government's violation of them were equally reprehensible? What sort of government was he for?

I did not discover the answer to my question until a couple of days ago.

I had a telephone conversation with a woman who is an officer of an organization allegedly devoted to advancing Albuquerque businesses. I thought an interview with her might be interesting for a radio show I'm helping to produce for the Patriot Activist Network.

After explaining why I had called, she asked, "What is your agenda?"

Thinking that she meant what was my political perspective, I answered, "I don't like what's happening to my country. I want to help businessmen understand that government should be limited, and that markets should be free."

"Are you connected with the Tea Party?"

"Yes. PAN is a branch of the Albuquerque Tea Party," I said."

"I am tired of anti-everything," she said, implying that Tea Parties are anti-everything. "I do not denigrate the President. I am not anti-anything." She continued in this vein for quite a while. Eventually, she began to tell me about what she undoubtedly considered her accomplishments.

She had been interviewed on an Albuquerque public television program, she said. Also the United Nations had hired her to go to China to teach technology. She had worked in Russia, too, doing the same thing. She wanted to be for things, she said, repeating again that she was not anti anything. She ended by declaring that she was for populism and worked "to develop and promote populism as the basis of a safe and strong society."

Now, populism is the doctrine that arose in 1891-1904 as a political party advocating among other things, public ownership of utilities, an income tax and government support of unions and agriculture. It is a variant of statism. Her claim that she was not anti anything means she is not anti our government's infringement of individual rights, not anti Russia's slaughter of millions of peasants, not anti China's ruthless suppression of student protests and Tibetan priests, not anti the removal of the clitoris of Islamic women, not anti the Taliban's bombing of the World Trade Center, and so forth.

Like the man I had previously met, she was a political agnostic. Not being against anything means not taking sides. What is it about taking sides that the political agnostic abhors?

Many people avoid passing negative judgments openly. In personal relationships they might be "sweet" to one's face but scathingly critical behind one's back. In political matters, however, the same people can take a specific stand and loudly protest in defense of it.

The political agnostic takes the opposite tact. He will tell you to your face face that you are wrong, but he is loath to criticize the government. Both the man and the woman referred to above told me, respectively explicitly and implicitly, that I was wrong to be involved with the Tea Party, wrong to criticize the government or denigrate the president. They claimed that they were not anti anything but in fact they were anti taking sides against the government.

The political agnostic is an authoritarian. He is comfortable taking orders. But only from authority figures. He feels safe to be told what to do. He resents those who question authority. He feels such questioning is a slur on his own self-image of a "good person cooperating with those who know best."

Safety to the political agnostic means the absence of public dissent. He does not say, "a plague on both your houses." He says, "Let there be only one house, the central government that tells everyone what to do." The political agnostic does not say, "I don't want to be bothered with politics." He says, "Let a leader decide, which we will all obey."

By advocating a central government he feels secure from that constantly moving ocean of different types of individuals, different premises, different tastes, likes, dislikes, opinions, desires, goals, and choices. In that continually teeming roar of ebb and flow, of striving toward different goals that is society, he believes that only a centralized authority will guarantee him "safety"---the "safety" of the straight-jacket---and a "strong" society---the strength of a prison's iron bars.

He evades recognizing that men of wisdom, integrity and benevolence are not interested in controlling others and consequently are not attracted to offices of omnipotent government. But vicious, fear-infested, manipulative and shrewdly malevolent men are. As has been seen countless times in an abundance of ghastly acts---the Nazis, the Communists, the Taliban, the Khmer Rouge---the bloodlust of totalitarianism does not stop with the abuse of men, women, children and animals but goes on to erupt in torturing, dismembering, starving and slaughtering all that lives.

The political agnostic's role in this mayhem is seen in those who stood by and did not protest the rise of Adolph Hitler and his "Final Solution." It was revealed during the 1920s and for decades following, by those who celebrated the "noble experiment" of Soviet Communism in which countless millions were slaughtered outright or were driven to despair, mental paralysis and starvation by government policies. It is expressed in the intellectual distortions of those who deal commercially with Communist China providing them with western technology, know-how and world wide instant communication. It is seen in the empty-headed shortsightedness of those who declare, "I'll take anyone's money: I'm a businessman."

By refusing to take sides, the political agnostic shuns the virtue of justice and damns the good.

No one can justly stand on the sidelines and refuse to take sides at any time. Today, no one who makes the effort to arrive at an objective evaluation of the Obama Administration and Congress can justly conclude that Americans are not being railroaded into socialism against our will. And no one can rationally come to the decision that in such circumstances, one should do nothing.

The lives and thought of John Locke and the Founding Fathers resulted in the creation of the United States, the freest nation on earth and in history. For a while.

To regain the republic they created, one must take sides. Nothing short of that will regain our freedoms and restore our individual rights. And it will not end in November. That is only the beginning.

Ideas and the Coming Election

Polls measuring the political concerns of grassroots Americans consistently show that a majority is "extremely angry about government intrusion into personal lives." Despite that finding, a parochial, anti-conceptual view of politics predominates among political party officials, politicians and candidates.

For instance, as the Tea Party movement was born in March 2009 discussion groups proliferated around the nation. Grassroots Democrats, Republicans and Independents, candidates for political office, ranking political party officers attended the meetings. So did many activists, bloggers and Tea Party supporters. The discussions tended to revolve around political corruption, excessive spending, budget deficits, the bailouts, government take-overs, and so forth. Grassroots attendees seemed to be looking for something that would tie together all of their concerns.

But when one stated that the growing intrusion into American lives shows that "we must demand a restoration of individual rights," political party officials and political candidates declared that "Voters are turned off by that philosophical stuff." One candidate said, "The only way you can get elected is to talk about fiscal accountability and transparency. Talking about ideas is a waste of time. Philosophical ideas are too abstract. People don't understand them. What they understand is their pocketbook."

Such fatuous remarks reveal the magnitude of the speaker's ignorance. Bookstores are doing a booming business selling books that deal with ideas. For example, "Total sales of Ayn Rand's novels reached 1.1 million in 2009.
. . . Nearly half of those total sales were Atlas Shrugged," a novel that deals with philosophical ideas. During the first quarter of 2010, sales had not slowed. Her non-fiction work, such as the Virtue of Selfishness, is also reaching new highs in sales. Libraries have long wait lists for books that deal with ideas. Bloggers dealing with ideas have good-size followings. Articles posted on the net by columnists who deal with ideas generate hundreds of comments. Talk radio has grown large, with steady audiences. The questions phoned in are predominately thoughtful.

The majority of American voters characteristically have worked hard all their lives to improve themselves financially and intellectually. One does not improve oneself financially and intellectually by reading exclusively the comics, the society page or the tabloids. Americans are looking for ideas.

They know it is not right for government to confiscate their money and give it to those who have not earned it. What idea makes them know that such action is robbery? The right to property. They know that it is not right for government to set salaries. What idea gives substance to that knowledge? The right to life. They know it is not right for government to demand homeowners have a license to sell their home. What idea is behind that? The right to property and liberty.

Rights are the foundation of our Republic and of men's well being. Only the restoration of our rights can stop the descent into collectivism---and it does not matter if you call it socialism, progressivism, fascism or communism, all are expressions of collectivism, the fundamental political principle guiding the Obama government.

The opposite of collectivism is individualism. Morally, individualism is the doctrine that says man has the right to live for his own sake. Politically, it espouses the individual's right to life, property, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Economically, it results in the free-market. Under individualism, men are free to pursue the shape and meaning of their own happiness as long as they do not violate another's rights. Under individualism, men are free to choose the work that interests them, earning their own way, minding their own business, helping those they wish to help. These are some of the aspects of individual rights that need to be discussed, advocated and made the center of a political platform.

The political party that does, will be the winning party in 2010 and in 2012 will sweep the collectivists out of office. The candidates who do, will be statesmen returning this country to the land of freedom it once stood for.

"A republic if you can keep it."

At a recent activist training session an 18-year old said, "I'm here because I want to do something about the antipathy among my own age group."

A work-at-home mom said, "Forty-five times I've written to my Congressman asking questions. He will not answer."

To a Tea Party worker, the manager of a car dealership said, "Congress is out of control. We have to stop them."

Volunteering to help raise money for protest rallies, an insurance office worker said, "I've never demonstrated before against my government. But now I must."

A preacher said, "Today I received the thirty-seventh form letter from my Representative."

Most congressional members continue to ignore their constituents. Although Americans have loudly and persistently registered their opposition to health care, the latest Pelosi/Obama 1,990 page monstrosity is now in the Senate under consideration as if Americans' opposition to it is irrelevant.

Congress evidently believes we have no say in the matter. We have sent them letters, e-mails, faxes and telephones messages. They turn off their phones, shred the incoming faxes and emails and ignore our letters. On their web sites, their idea of responding to our opposition to government health care is to send long, boring canned letters that have nothing to do with anything except their own plans.

They do not answer our queries. They do not answer our complaints. They do not address our concerns. They do not vote the way we want them to vote on the dozens of bills they write aimed at taxing us more and listening to us less. They do not admit that they are violating our rights, that their countless regulations are onerous, the taxes they impose burdensome, their corruption outrageous. They evade the fact that we pay their salaries in return for which they do little more than posture.

Much of that posturing revolves around repeated announcements that they create jobs. They do not. Businesses create jobs. Businesspeople have an idea, figure out a way to make and sell it, hire others to help them. That is job creation. It increases employment and general productivity. Job creation necessarily leads to product improvement---one cannot remain static in any business. Product improvement leads to improved sales, which expands business, which raises salaries and results ultimately in raising the standard of living.

Every businessperson is aware of the process---from small to large businesses, from the manufacture of common nails to complex computers, from the making of cheese to the design of satellite sensors. We know who creates jobs. It ain't the government.

One does not create jobs by taking money from one person and giving it to another. One does not create jobs by commanding company bids for infrastructure work, ordering that helicopters be built for politicians, or agreeing to pay $200 for a toilet seat. One does not create jobs by regulating established enterprises, taking them over, making deals with unions, or ordering banks to lower their mortgage and credit card rates.

Such actions depend on the goods being there in the first place, and are violations of individual rights. But individual rights are the foundation of our culture and the basic meaning of a republic. Congressmen who ignore their constituents do not sustain a republic. They reveal a preference for a different type of government organization: statism, which is collectivism, which means ultimately totalitarianism.

What's to be done to stop Congress' stampede toward statism? What's to be done to counter this massive infringement of our individual rights? What's to be done to end this flagrant invasion of our lives and property? How can we terminate congressional dismissal of our opposition to government health care, to energy controls that guarantee shrinkage of agriculture, mining and fossil fuel production, to business and professional regulations that are suffocating our economy, to strangling taxes?

Must we move to Washington, stand on the Capitol steps and grab each Congressman by the arms and shake them to register our disagreement with what they're doing? Would that help?

What can one person do? You can organize. You can vote.

The Tea Party is one type of organization that has brought together hundreds of thousands of grassroots Americans. Many such organizations have been formed across the nation. Most of them have a plan. And most of the plans are identical: vote out of office every single representative coming up for re-election in 2010.

The plan is already in operation. The mayoral and a city councilman race in Albuquerque, New Mexico started the drive. Virginia and New Jersey followed suit. New York gave it a shot. More races are taking place in 2010.

But there is more to the plan than voting out of office every current incumbent that has ignored our choices. The grassroots is no longer sitting on the couch and cursing. They've jumped to their feet and are taking part in politics. They are finding ways to enter primaries. How great a part they are taking is being revealed as more Americans realize that Ben Franklin was right.

If we want a Republic, we have to work to keep it. Now, more than ever, more Americans realize the truth of this and are taking action. We will succeed. As one Albuquerque Tea Party member recently said, "I will never give up. Never. We will take back our country." Yes, we will. It's up to us to restore and keep our republic.

Ideas and Politics

It is not unusual to hear politicians express contempt for philosophical ideas while simultaneously claiming they are Progressives and Pragmatist---as if those words did not give title to volumes of philosophical ideas---each resting upon the most lethal premise in man’s history.

While many Republicans---conservative and liberal alike---steep themselves in social issues of highly charged emotionality, such as abortion, they evade or ignore fundamental ideas. Some fail to distinguish between concretes and fundamentals completely, thus disarming themselves for a battle that requires intellectual clarity and moral certitude.

Fundamental ideas give rise to, make possible and color every concrete with which an individual deals. To evade or ignore them is to invite disaster. That’s what has happened to the Republican Party. They have for too long mouthed the same Democrat pap that we’ve heard scores of times. If the Democrats, for instance, say they want to provide universal health care, the Republicans do not denounce such a flagrant attack on individual rights. Instead they say, “Yes, we do too, but not your way.” On this issue as on every other, the Republicans are on the same page with the Democrats, singing the same tune, using the same chords, merely in a different key.

Some politicians claim that voters are not interested in ideas. This is patently false. The grassroots assuredly are interested in ideas, as witness the avalanche of interest in Ayn Rand’s books---which deal exclusively with the dramatization of ideas. American voters are not indifferent to ideas as the lines at libraries, the sales in bookstores and the explosion of blogs attests. At present they are looking for ideas more eagerly than ever before.

The Republican Party has said that it wants to figure out how to re-invigorate the GOP. They can do it if they throw out collectivist ideas. This will disassociate the party from past mistakes. In lieu of discarded collectivism, the GOP should rally Americans to the restoration of individual rights, the only effective way to counteract the Obama government's collectivist assault on the American people. The restoration of our individual rights protects our freedoms, makes possible limited government, and leads to capitalism.

The grassroots recognizes the validity and importance of the right to life, property, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They understand the connection between their individual rights and their choice of work, keeping what they earn, disposing of their income as they see fit, choosing their own doctor and paying their own way. They are fully aware that when one takes from the producer/earner to give to the non-earner, one is depleting savings. They know that reducing savings reduces investment in productive enterprises, which chokes growth, which reduces the standard of living.

Collectivism holds that the individual exists for the state. For decades Democrats have advocated taking from the earner and giving to the non-earner. They have advocated enforced unionization, enforced medical care, enforced social security, enforced public education, enforced business regulation. Obama’s Administration has crystallized this practice.

The grassroots has been clearly shown the irresponsible spending that blasts through the stratosphere, the disastrous regulations and take-overs of companies, the harassment and intimidation of businessmen, the support of corrupt union leaders against the membership, the appeasement of our enemies and the snubbing of our allies, the attempts at “fishy” censorship, and now, recently, the attempt to shut down free expression on the net. They have been told the topsy-turvy collectivist line that a rich nation is a bad nation, that producers/earners are demonical threats to society, that those who create jobs are exploitative, that dissent is unpatriotic (now, but wasn't during the 1960s), that supporting countries that deserve it is intolerant but kissing thugs and bowing to savage rulers is sensitive diplomacy.

The preceding are all concrete expressions of a fundamental idea: statism. Statism is the culmination of collectivism, the rule of brute force, in which the state is supreme, the individual subservient to the ruler in all respects and instances. Statism is the complete destruction of the individual and his rights.

To stop the Obama Administration’s giddy plunge toward statism, the Republican Party would be foolish---and self-destructive---not to join the grassroots and commit itself to the restoration of individual rights. The GOP could seek no greater re-generation than to re-establish the abstract ideas this country was founded on: individual rights, limited government and capitalism, and their concrete social expression, our constitutional freedoms: freedom of speech, of press, of assembly, of worship, and to keep and bear arms.

Collectivists say might makes right. But it does not. Rights make right. If the Republican Party wants to be a viable political party, they must self-righteously proclaim the practical virtue of individual rights, a moral principle that assures peace and prosperity. Nothing more than this is needed. Nothing short of this will win.

The Nobel Peace Prize & Mr. Obama's Intentions

Americans are well aware that these are troubling times. Things have been turned upside down. We are told that obeying government edicts constitutes "freedom." We are told that government health and insurance plans are "competition." We are offered movies dramatizing the view that a free-market economy---which made this country the richest nation in the world---is barbaric and exploitative.

One sometimes feels that the entire world has gone insane. A case in point is awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Mr. Obama for his intentions.

Certainly, Mr. Obama has shown us his intentions.
1. He intends to force every American into government health care and insurance plans whether they want it or not, and to force us to pay a penalty if we refuse.
2. He intends to enact censorship. His "fishy" expedition was merely a trial balloon. He has now gone a step farther. He wants the FBI to monitor the net and fine and/or jail those who dare to dissent from his views.
3. He intends to disarm every American, thereby violating our right to keep and bear arms.
4. He intends to violate our right to peaceably assemble. Police are instructed to arrest those who form a group of more than ten. Others are arrested without cause.

These are only some of Mr. Obama's intentions. Are any of them good? Do they take cognizance of our freedoms stated in the Constitution? Do they acknowledge our individual rights to life, property, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? They do not. Every one of Mr. Obma's intentions promises to generate hostility, anger and violence, if not outright rebellion. Should such intentions be awarded a peace prize? They should not.

It is not surprising that Norwegian officials would consider Mr. Obama's intention to crush Americans' individual rights as meriting an award. Like most European countries, individuals there regard themselves as subjects---not citizens---and have no idea what a right is. The Nobel Committee would be composed of such individuals. They would be pre-disposed to award the intention to destroy the characteristic unique to Americans, i.e., the recognition that each individual is a sovereign and autonomous intellect. That is the essential meaning of individualism. It is what Mr. Obama intends to destroy. From his actions, there is no other conclusion to reach.

The result of Mr. Obama's acts and intentions is that he and his administration have driven an angry and bitter wedge between Americans and their government. Franklin D. Roosevelt was widely disliked and referred to disdainfully as "that man in the White House." But Americans--- thanks to enterprising businessmen---got on with their lives, found jobs, moved to less-congested areas and discovered ways to pick up the pieces left by government interference in the economy. McCarthy and Nixon were tarred and feathered by the media, but generally Americans were split on their assessment of both men's effectiveness. Johnson was distrusted for his back-room politicking, but Americans were more concerned about Civil Rights. Government shortcomings did not create a hostile gulf between our representatives and us.

Mr. Obama has changed things. As promised. Never has there been such deep alienation between Americans and government officials as presently exists in this country. As his acts took form and his intentions unfolded, many Americans for the first time in their lives began to fear the government. Then, as violations of our rights followed more such violations, fear turned into outrage and Americans started to fight back. Their fight is paying off. Those in government are now starting to fear Americans.

That's understandable. Most government officials are no longer Americans. As a nationality, Americans are identified around the world and in their own minds as champions of individual rights, limited government and free markets. But the majority of government personnel---elected, appointed and hired---no longer hold such values. They retain the nationality but that is all. They have betrayed their loyalty to fundamental American values for "pull," for private jets and fine houses, for special medical and insurance plans and salaries that exceed most middle class incomes, all of which the American producer/earner pays for.

The decline of our representative republic toward statism has been gradual and is at present incomplete. Mr. Obama is seeking to complete it. Most government officials and their supporters are rushing to help him.

His Organizing for America, for instance, brazenly performed a skit in which collectivism destroyed individualism. OFA members laughed raucously and loudly applauded. Knowing full well that decades of Soviet collectivism murdered millions on farms and in cities, in frozen Siberian gulags, in the dungeons of the Soviet "police," in countless, unrecorded suicides, Mr. Obama's OFA cheers for collectivism. Knowing full well the terror and agony in which people existed under communism, and refusing to consider the strangled ambitions, the corruption and repeated "Five Year Plans" promising utopia in the future but requiring that wheat be imported from the USA, Mr. Obama's OFA members chanted "Go Communism!"

No matter whether one calls their efforts progressivism, socialism, communism or fascism, it is all the same and it's all collectivism. And collectivism is what Mr. Obama intends for the United States of America.

I hope Americans will embrace their values and not let go of them. I hope they will vote into public office those who will advocate the restoration of our individual rights. We must not allow Mr. Obama to get away with his intentions. 2010 is not that far away. It is time to start working to replace all those who support Mr. Obama and his intentions.

The Undisclosed Danger of Government Health Care

Government health care is not concerned with patients. Politicians' interest is primarily focused on the productive---in the U.S., about one-third the population. Government has no income other than what it confiscates from the productive. So, promises of "affordable health care" depend on the able while devouring life from them. In other words, parasitism.

Some people seem oblivious to this. A man wrote on Twitter, "I'm a socialist and proud of it." Whatever he may feel about being a socialist, pride is not a virtue possible to a looter and a parasite. Blood lust is.

State planning demands obedience. For example, Organizing for America held a meeting in Belen, New Mexico on government health care. OFA would not allow any expression of opposition. They told dissenters to "Sit down!"-meaning: "and shut up!" They became angry when questioned. They spoke to one of the dissenters using coarse language. They put obscene notes in other dissenters' vehicles and ignored those who complained about such conduct.

Such creatures abound in government health care. It is common knowledge, for instance, that those in state-run sanitariums, asylums, and senior care centers are sickeningly abused. Little is done about it. The government is in charge.

Interfering with impunity in other people's lives and property is characteristic of those who advocate government health care. Some time ago, Wal-Mart announced its support of socialized medicine. It wrote, "[T]he best way to lower costs is by managing the supply chain [meaning the medical professions] and encouraging efficiencies of scale [meaning medical rationing]."

"Managing" those who aren't employed by you is a euphemism for violating others' individual rights. Those who took over Sam Walton's extraordinary achievement are helping to destroy what made it possible. They are evading the importance of individual rights, which protects private property and promotes innovative thinking.

They're not the only ones evading facts. The AARP declares "need is a right," while seeking to deny rights to those they plan to force to fill those needs. But need is not a right. No one has a right to other peoples' work and effort wrested from them by force-legalized or not. Yet the AARP says force is a proper means of dealing with individuals. They say might makes right.

So does Mr. Obama. He declared that he will set doctors' fees based not on how many patients the doctor treats, not on his specialty, not on how many hours he works, but on the patient's improvement. Mr. Obama evidently does not grasp that medical problems characteristically are replete with numerous variables and that results of medical treatment are not as predictable as sunrises. Should we trust such stupefying ignorance?

Mr. Obama has no understanding of the free market. In a free-market, the patient judges a doctor's performance, not a politician. If the patient is dissatisfied with the doctor's performance, he can sue for malpractice. He can seek out another doctor. He can persuade others to boycott the doctor and drive him out of business. He can write to newspapers describing the doctor's performance. He can complain to whatever associations the doctor is a member of.

Government health care offers no alternatives. The state dictates. The doctor must obey. And so must the patient. Like the doctor, the patient under government health care is frozen into a system that is riddled with irrational requirements dreamed up by politicians and their lackeys. The dream revolves around control of the able.

Whether doctor, businessman, blue or white-collar worker, it is the able that make life worth living. It is the able that stand with the facts of reality against fallacies and falsehoods. It is the able that earn the money that pay politicians salaries. It is the able that politicians seek to control.

Government officials seek to force their edicts between doctor and patient, declaring that their force is superior to your choice. They seek to insert ignorance and suspicion between knowledge and trust, declaring that their say-so is superior to a physician's knowledge and judgment honed by medical experience, and to a patient's evaluation and decision.

But the mind cannot be ruled by force. Those that can, are incapable of creating anything. They can only destroy. Such minds are those of thugs and goons, the lowest ranks of society.

Thought does not function efficaciously under threats. Minds that are able, shut down under force or the threat of force. In medicine, force discourages interest in a medical career. The number of doctors declines; the quality of medicine follows suit. Research and development becomes sluggish, eventually ceasing altogether. This is the undisclosed danger of government health care.

Destroying another's rights does not guarantee health care. A right yoked to a bureaucrat's whim is not a right. "A right is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context." (Ayn Rand, "Man's Rights.") To destroy one man's rights is to destroy all men's rights. To destroy the rights of doctors and patients is to turn a nation into warring camps and those needing medical attention into numbers on a waiting list.

Either doctors are free to work unfettered by government edict or they are not. Either we are free to choose our doctor or we are not. Either each of us is free to earn our own way, keep what we earn and decide how to dispose of it, or we relinquish that freedom to government officials---which means, we relinquish our individual rights of life, property, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

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.

Government Health Care is Hazardous to Your Health

On June 25 a town hall meeting was held in Rio Rancho, New Mexico to discuss Obama's health care plan. The meeting opened with a televised study of the Canadian and UK's health care plans. Afterwards, a factual report of the Obama plan was presented. Listening to it, I felt like I was in 1938 Germany listening to someone explaining Nazi proposals to crush everyone under an iron boot.

The Obama plan is a full-scale collectivization of America, of our lives and of our relationship with our government. It is the undiluted destruction of our individual right to life and property, a denial of the right to choose what to buy, from whom to buy it, how much we choose to pay and at what time we choose to pay it.

It proposes to tell doctors and others working in the medical industry what to do, and what to charge, what treatments to offer, and what prescriptions are permitted. It proposes to tell patients who they may have access to, what treatments they may have, how long they must wait for treatment and whether---as in the case of those over 70 years of age---they will be treated at all. On top of all that, it forces earners/producers to pay for what they do not want.

It spreads its fetid breath over every aspect of health care. The result is total control of every citizen's well being and ultimately of every citizen's life. It is not a health care plan. It is the destruction of individual rights and the transformation of our nation into a socialist state. This is the "change" Obama promised. He meant it then. He means it now.

Obama's universal health care plan proposes to force American earners/producers to pay the medical bills for every United States resident, whether a citizen or not. The same idea in principle was tried in New York City many years ago with welfare checks. Every moocher, looter, free-loader, malingerer and other form of parasite dwelling elsewhere, moved to NYC to take the checks that New Yorkers were forced to pay. Within John V. Lindsey's first term, the city was swamped with "migrants" who lived on welfare, cluttering the city's streets, esplanades and parks. With Obama's "medical care for every resident," the result will be the same and very likely considerably worse.

Additionally, the plan requires by law that everyone have health insurance whether they want it or not, making the government the single, sole payer. The single payer concept means there is no alternative the citizen may choose from, there's no way to redress a wrong. There's no way to seek a different opinion, there's no way to select a doctor you feel more comfortable with or a treatment you prefer. Doctors and patients alike will be under the command of government bureaucrats.

Most important the single payer concept effectively eradicates competition and makes health care into a monopoly. In private enterprise, monopoly doesn't exist for very long because competition eventually finds a way to get a foot into the market---by lowering prices, improving products, offering different products. But a government monopoly is enforced by the gun. A government monopoly guarantees ruinous practices, lower quality goods, decreasing competence and efficacy, higher prices and, therefore, higher taxes. The best example of this is the U. S. Postal System.

The self-employed doctor will be effectively eliminated. Those working at health care facilities, clinics, hospitals and other voluntary associations will be government employees. Without any competition to make money in medicine, loaded down with government paperwork and bureaucratic "watch dogs," doctors will not be able to see as many patients as they might like. They will not be able to improve their skills and discover new treatments or develop better, more effective skills. Without competition to make good money, interest in the field will decline and the quality of care will deteriorate while political pull-peddlers will replace skilled medical personnel.

Do not make the mistake of attributing to this health care plan and its sponsors the currently fashionable bromide of "good intentions with unforeseen consequences." There are no good intentions in this bill. The government knows exactly what it's doing. Here's one telling piece of evidence: All members of Congress and all of their staff will be exempt from the plan.

Like the stimulus bill, Congressional representatives have not read the health care bill. They will vote on it without knowing what they are voting on. And like the stimulus package, it is expected to pass. In 2 weeks.

Please call your representatives in Congress and insist they vote against all the government health care plans pending.

ABC Network Corporation & Town Hall Meeting

Following is a communication received this a.m. from the Co-ordinator of the Albuquerque Tea Party.

"ABC is going to the White House on the 24th of June to hold a townhall on health care and has specifically refused any participation by someone with a different point of view (response to Republican National Committee was flat, "Not going to invite anyone to Republican alternative.") To protest the health care reform and that kind of blatant media bias, tell people to show up with a sign at the corner of Carlisle and Comanche in front of KOAT, our local ABC affiliate, at 6 PM on June 24. But tell people to remember that it is ABC Corporate that made this decision, not KOAT, so be respectful and polite and just ask them to "pass it on to Corporate." These "mini-rallies" will be taking place all over the nation.

Pass the word and post where you can. This is NOT an ATP sponsored event as there are many groups working together."

========================================

Sylvia Bokor Comments:
It should not be necessary to point out that a town hall is specifically understood to mean "open to the public to express one's point of view." Of course, as a business enterprise, ABC Network Corporation has a right to invite whom they want. But it's noteworthy that the ABC Corporation refuses participation of those with a different viewpoint:

First, it contradicts the principle of free speech---which one might hope the media would be willing to defend. Evidently not.

Second, it underscores something I'm running into as I help the Albuquerque, NM Tea Party distribute flyers: some businesses are scared of government retaliation to take a position that is contrary to the Administration's socialist polices and programs. Thankfully, however, most small and middle size businesses are showing courage to speak up for their individual rights.

Third, it shows an exceedingly dangerous trend as government becomes more involved in control of communications, nationalizes businesses, tells corporate CEO's what to do, and continues to increase the enormous power of the Treasury---all of which is done without much objection.

Censorship is THE most deadly threat to our freedom. With many in the media presently writing outright lies about the Tea Parties, this latest attack on dissenting viewpoints should galvanize us all to a concerted and renewed effort to peititon the government to limit itself to its proper and only job: the protection of individual rights.

Report on the Albuquerque, NM Tea Party

Last night the Albuquerque Tea Party Organization met in preparation for the July 4th rally. About 60 New Mexican volunteers were present.

The Albuquerque Tea Party leadership is impressive. The men and women are personable and easy to work with. They are affable, dedicated and hard working individuals, objective thinkers who understand the importance of principles and of working toward fundamentals without being way-laid by narrower concerns that often bog down start-up organizations.

The evidence of the ABQ Tea Party leadership's objective thinking is shown by their position paper. For instance,

Mission Statement:
"To preserve the Constitutional Rights of the citizens of the U.S.A., by limiting government; constraining government spending and taxation; and advancing a free market economy."

Core Issues: "
Excessive government spending, taxation, intervention;
Individual's Constitutional Rights;
Free market Economy (Capitalism).

Those interested in the development of tea parties may already know that a vast network of organizations has been and is presently escalating across the nation. The Tea Party Patriots at present seem to dominate most of these and are coordinating a national effort. To this end, most of the Tea Party organizations in cities throughout the nation are now affiliated with the TPP. Some of these affiliates have undertaken various and different kinds of goals. For instance, some of them advocate anti-abortion positions and religious concerns.

The ABQ Tea Party is affiliated with TPP but is more philosophically oriented. This is certainly the better route to take. The way to overturn government excesses is to pound home on the fundamentals of limited government, capitalism and individual rights. Get these; the rest takes care of itself.

The Albuquerque group has a clearly thought out foundation. They are in it for the long haul with their focus presently out to 2012. Primaries are being looked at during "lulls" between Tea Parties to consider candidates best to support and "throw out the bums" as one man said.

A town hall meeting is planned for June 25 to argue against universal health care.

Way to go New Mexico!

Tea Parties - America's New Direction?

On April 15, 2009 Tea Parties protesting the government's fiscal irresponsibility took place throughout the nation. A second Tea Party is being planned for July 4.

Rejecting socialism, Tea Party participants are acting fundamentally on the principle of individual rights. It is right to earn a living. It is wrong to give our earnings to those who don’t. It is right to benefit from one’s own efforts and actions. It is wrong to "bail out" companies which the government caused to fail in the first place, then make us pay for the government's mistakes.

Government-created Fannie and Freddie Mae unleashed Barney Frank's "Affordable Housing" program and pressured banks and insurance companies to give loans and coverage to those who could not afford it. Yet the government claims that capitalism has failed and more government intervention is required. But the present economic system is not capitalism and it is not free.

We live in a "mixed economy"---one with some freedom and many controls. We are still free to start a business, but not free to run it the way we see fit. Government regulations presently control every size business on every level---federal, state and city. We are still free to own some property and visit stores of our choice, but the government controls and regulates virtually every product and service we buy, including entertainment, energy, land, fuel and the air waves.

We have been misinformed about the nature of an economic system that is founded on the individual's right to his own life, to benefit from his own effort, to dispose of what he earns as he chooses. We have been misled about an economic system that despite continuous government interference has resulted in the creation of the richest nation on earth, filled with the most generous individuals on earth. It is an economic system that has been vilified, maligned, distorted and made the scapegoat of every government failure and disaster caused by government regulation since the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913. That system is capitalism.

"Capitalism," novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand wrote, "is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned."

In a completely free society, the government's role is solely to protect individual rights. It leaves men free to produce or not as they choose, to work to the best of their ability or not as they choose, to trade with others, to benefit from their own effort, to save and invest and support charities as they choose.

But over many decades government has increasingly violated our rights and eroded our freedom. Today we are seeing the culmination of that erosion in an open assault on individual freedom. Kennedy's bill, for instance, to make "volunteerism" mandatory for all Americans, from children to seniors, is as flagrant a contradiction in terms as it is a blatant attack on individual rights of life, property, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

To safeguard the individual and thereby the nation, men must be left free to think and act and work without government controls and regulations. Tea Parties may be the catalyst that will help to shift our country toward a genuinely free and morally sound direction. They may be the beginning of a grass roots movement to tell government to leave us alone. Get out of our lives. Limit government. Protect individual rights. Let us implement a truly free enterprise system of economics. Let us for once practice genuine laissez-faire capitalism.

Suggested Reading:
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand, Capitalism the Unknown Ideal
Ayn Rand, Philosophy Who Needs It