If someone is going to represent me, I want an opportunity to vote for that person. [Read more…]
environmentalist manifestos
first principles
“The notion of collective rights is wholly the invention of the Progressive founders of the administrative state, who were engaged in a self-conscious effort to supplant the principles of limited government embodied in the Constitution. For these Progressives, what Madison and other Founders called the “rights of human nature” were merely a delusion characteristic of the 18th century. Science, they held, has proven that there is no permanent human nature—that there are only evolving social conditions. As a result, they regarded what the Founders called the “rights of human nature” as an enemy of collective welfare, which should always take precedence over the rights of individuals. For Progressives then and now, the welfare of the people—not liberty—is the primary object of government, and government should always be in the hands of experts. This is the real origin of today’s gun control hysteria—the idea that professional police forces and the military have rendered the armed citizen superfluous; that no individual should be responsible for the defense of himself and his family, but should leave it to the experts. The idea of individual responsibilities, along with that of individual rights, is in fact incompatible with the Progressive vision of the common welfare.
This way of thinking was wholly alien to America’s founding generation, for whom government existed for the purpose of securing individual rights.”
From:
Edward J. Erler, California State University, San Bernardino
The Second Amendment as an Expression of First Principles
regulations ‘R’ us
List of New Bureaucracies in Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – PPACA
(Note: This is just from the enabling legislation. Each of these laws will spawn federal regulatory agency responses with tens of thousands of pages of CFR rules and federal bureaucratic enforcement. In classic Orwellian double speak, nothing about this legislation will make health care more affordable.)
1. Retiree Reserve Trust Fund (Section 111(d), p. 61)
2. Grant program for wellness programs to small employers (Section 112, p. 62)
3. Grant program for State health access programs (Section 114, p. 72)
4. Program of administrative simplification (Section 115, p. 76)
5. Health Benefits Advisory Committee (Section 223, p. 111)
6. Health Choices Administration (Section 241, p. 131)
7. Qualified Health Benefits Plan Ombudsman (Section 244, p. 138)
8. Health Insurance Exchange (Section 201, p. 155)
9. Program for technical assistance to employees of small businesses buying Exchange coverage (Section 305(h), p. 191)
10. Mechanism for insurance risk pooling to be established by Health Choices Commissioner (Section 306(b), p. 194)
11. Health Insurance Exchange Trust Fund (Section 307, p. 195)
12. State-based Health Insurance Exchanges (Section 308, p. 197)
13. Grant program for health insurance cooperatives (Section 310, p. 206)
14. “Public Health Insurance Option” (Section 321, p. 211)
15. Ombudsman for “Public Health Insurance Option” (Section 321(d), p. 213)
16. Account for receipts and disbursements for “Public Health Insurance Option” (Section 322(b), p. 215)
17. Telehealth Advisory Committee (Section 1191 (b), p. 589)
18. Demonstration program providing reimbursement for “culturally and linguistically appropriate services” (Section 1222, p. 617)
19. Demonstration program for shared decision making using patient decision aids (Section 1236, p. 648)
20. Accountable Care Organization pilot program under Medicare (Section 1301, p. 653)
21. Independent patient-centered medical home pilot program under Medicare (Section 1302, p. 672)
22. Community-based medical home pilot program under Medicare (Section 1302(d), p. 681)
23. Independence at home demonstration program (Section 1312, p. 718)
24. Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research (Section 1401(a), p. 734)
25. Comparative Effectiveness Research Commission (Section 1401(a), p. 738)
26. Patient ombudsman for comparative effectiveness research (Section 1401(a), p. 753)
27. Quality assurance and performance improvement program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 1412(b)(1), p. 784)
28. Quality assurance and performance improvement program for nursing facilities (Section 1412 (b)(2), p. 786)
29. Special focus facility program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 1413(a)(3), p. 796)
30. Special focus facility program for nursing facilities (Section 1413(b)(3), p. 804)
31. National independent monitor pilot program for skilled nursing facilities and nursing facilities (Section 1422, p. 859)
32. Demonstration program for approved teaching health centers with respect to Medicare GME (Section 1502(d), p. 933)
33. Pilot program to develop anti-fraud compliance systems for Medicare providers (Section 1635, p. 978)
34. Special Inspector General for the Health Insurance Exchange (Section 1647, p. 1000)
35. Medical home pilot program under Medicaid (Section 1722, p. 1058)
36. Accountable Care Organization pilot program under Medicaid (Section 1730A, p. 1073)
37. Nursing facility supplemental payment program (Section 1745, p. 1106)
38. Demonstration program for Medicaid coverage to stabilize emergency medical conditions in institutions for mental diseases (Section 1787, p. 1149)
39. Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund (Section 1802, p. 1162)
40. “Identifiable office or program” within CMS to “provide for improved coordination between Medicare and Medicaid in the case of dual eligibles” (Section 1905, p. 1191)
41. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (Section 1907, p. 1198)
42. Public Health Investment Fund (Section 2002, p. 1214)
43. Scholarships for service in health professional needs areas (Section 2211, p. 1224)
44. Program for training medical residents in community-based settings (Section 2214, p. 1236)
45. Grant program for training in dentistry programs (Section 2215, p. 1240)
46. Public Health Workforce Corps (Section 2231, p. 1253)
47. Public health workforce scholarship program (Section 2231, p. 1254)
48. Public health workforce loan forgiveness program (Section 2231, p. 1258)
49. Grant program for innovations in interdisciplinary care (Section 2252, p. 1272)
50. Advisory Committee on Health Workforce Evaluation and Assessment (Section 2261, p. 1275)
51. Prevention and Wellness Trust (Section 2301, p. 1286)
52. Clinical Prevention Stakeholders Board (Section 2301, p. 1295)
53. Community Prevention Stakeholders Board (Section 2301, p. 1301)
54. Grant program for community prevention and wellness research (Section 2301, p. 1305)
55. Grant program for research and demonstration projects related to wellness incentives (Section 2301, p. 1305)
56. Grant program for community prevention and wellness services (Section 2301, p. 1308)
57. Grant program for public health infrastructure (Section 2301, p. 1313)
58. Center for Quality Improvement (Section 2401, p. 1322)
59. Assistant Secretary for Health Information (Section 2402, p. 1330)
60. Grant program to support the operation of school-based health clinics (Section 2511, p. 1352)
61. Grant program for nurse-managed health centers (Section 2512, p. 1361)
62. Grants for labor-management programs for nursing training (Section 2521, p. 1372)
63. Grant program for interdisciplinary mental and behavioral health training (Section 2522, p. 1382)
64. “No Child Left Unimmunized Against Influenza” demonstration grant program (Section 2524, p. 1391)
65. Healthy Teen Initiative grant program regarding teen pregnancy (Section 2526, p. 1398)
66. Grant program for interdisciplinary training, education, and services for individuals with autism (Section 2527(a), p. 1402)
67. University centers for excellence in developmental disabilities education (Section 2527(b), p. 1410)
68. Grant program to implement medication therapy management services (Section 2528, p. 1412)
69. Grant program to promote positive health behaviors in underserved communities (Section 2530, p. 1422)
70. Grant program for State alternative medical liability laws (Section 2531, p. 1431)
71. Grant program to develop infant mortality programs (Section 2532, p. 1433)
72. Grant program to prepare secondary school students for careers in health professions (Section 2533, p. 1437)
73. Grant program for community-based collaborative care (Section 2534, p. 1440)
74. Grant program for community-based overweight and obesity prevention (Section 2535, p. 1457)
75. Grant program for reducing the student-to-school nurse ratio in primary and secondary schools (Section 2536, p. 1462)
76. Demonstration project of grants to medical-legal partnerships (Section 2537, p. 1464)
77. Center for Emergency Care under the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (Section 2552, p. 1478)
78. Council for Emergency Care (Section 2552, p 1479)
79. Grant program to support demonstration programs that design and implement regionalized emergency care systems (Section 2553, p. 1480)
80. Grant program to assist veterans who wish to become emergency medical technicians upon discharge (Section 2554, p. 1487)
81. Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee (Section 2562, p. 1494)
82. National Medical Device Registry (Section 2571, p. 1501)
83. CLASS Independence Fund (Section 2581, p. 1597)
84. CLASS Independence Fund Board of Trustees (Section 2581, p. 1598)
85. CLASS Independence Advisory Council (Section 2581, p. 1602)
86. Health and Human Services Coordinating Committee on Women’s Health (Section 2588, p. 1610)
87. National Women’s Health Information Center (Section 2588, p. 1611)
88. Centers for Disease Control Office of Women’s Health (Section 2588, p. 1614)
89. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Office of Women’s Health and Gender-Based Research (Section 2588, p. 1617)
90. Health Resources and Services Administration Office of Women’s Health (Section 2588, p. 1618)
91. Food and Drug Administration Office of Women’s Health (Section 2588, p. 1621)
92. Personal Care Attendant Workforce Advisory Panel (Section 2589(a)(2), p. 1624)
93. Grant program for national health workforce online training (Section 2591, p. 1629)
94. Grant program to disseminate best practices on implementing health workforce investment programs (Section 2591, p. 1632)
95. Demonstration program for chronic shortages of health professionals (Section 3101, p. 1717)
96. Demonstration program for substance abuse counselor educational curricula (Section 3101, p. 1719)
97. Program of Indian community education on mental illness (Section 3101, p. 1722)
98. Intergovernmental Task Force on Indian environmental and nuclear hazards (Section 3101, p. 1754)
99. Office of Indian Men’s Health (Section 3101, p. 1765)
100. Indian Health facilities appropriation advisory board (Section 3101, p. 1774)
101. Indian Health facilities needs assessment workgroup (Section 3101, p. 1775)
102. Indian Health Service tribal facilities joint venture demonstration projects (Section 3101, p. 1809)
103. Urban youth treatment center demonstration project (Section 3101, p. 1873)
104. Grants to Urban Indian Organizations for diabetes prevention (Section 3101, p. 1874)
105. Grants to Urban Indian Organizations for health IT adoption (Section 3101, p. 1877)
106. Mental health technician training program (Section 3101, p. 1898)
107. Indian youth telemental health demonstration project (Section 3101, p. 1909)
108. Program for treatment of child sexual abuse victims and perpetrators (Section 3101, p. 1925)
109. Program for treatment of domestic violence and sexual abuse (Section 3101, p. 1927)
110. Native American Health and Wellness Foundation (Section 3103, p. 1966)
111. Committee for the Establishment of the Native American Health and Wellness Foundation (Section 3103, p. 1968)
It’s what’s for dinner
The Circus is back in town. Or maybe it never left. The names remain the same, the form of the cause evolves slightly, but the theme persists. Shut down growth. Keep the country in the county. Save us.
Locally it started with the Preble’s Meadow Jumping Mouse, a creature near and dear to our hearts that was uniquely threatened by evil developer bulldozers. We awoke to find one day that this rodent species owns a whole basket of usurped property rights. Based on this novel discovery, hundreds of green and left warriors combined with sympathetic government regulators to form the Circus and bring into existence, by mere presumption, thousands of pages of growth-stopping regulations. They empowered the federal Environmental Protection Agency and all subordinate levels of government to save that mouse, and by their curious chain of cause and effect, us too. The economic clout now wielded on behalf of that mouse makes it one of the most powerful rodents in the history of the universe, probably second only to Mickey. And we were not saved.
The Circus rested for a bit and recharged its batteries. Then along came an evil developer intent on bringing commerce to the eastern plains of Colorado with a broad vision for a super highway complete with utility corridors and railroad tracks. Imagine the environmental impacts–pretty much the worst things possible–the smog all that transportation would cause, the ancient trees to be felled, the noise, the light. Don’t go toward the light! Imagine the poor mice that would have to be relocated and provided similar habitat—if it could even be found—outside of the right of way. The damages would surely be irreparable. The Circus shifted into high gear and put the pedal to the metal. They rented busses to carry occupants to the State capitol. They saturated planning and commissioner meetings. They filled the internet with a relentless onslaught of do or die hyperbolic predictions about the end of the world that this road would precipitate. The end of the world was serious stuff. No one wanted that. The laws were passed, the court cases came in. The Circus rested. And still we were not saved.
One day an evil developer came along, intent on bringing water commerce to the eastern plains of Colorado with a broad vision for long distance water transportation to quench the thirst of citizens in a sub-development in Colorado Springs. The Circus double clutched their well-oiled machine and slipped it into gear. Hundreds of loud clamorers filled auditoriums, government meetings and state house offices with a new flag of presumed entitlement, “our water.” The fact that not a drop of it actually belonged to them gave them no pause. “Our water” was not actually “their water” but the mob has never been one to quibble about details like legal property rights. They were all about momentum, sound bites and the persuasion of pure force. Demonstrators and occupyers don’t wait for the subtleties of legal technicalities, unless of course a legal technicality can be found to put wind into their sails, that’s another matter. The evil developer was persuaded to recede into the tapestry of the world, and the Circus rested once again. And still we were not saved.
Then along came the evil energy developers, intent on bringing commerce to the eastern plains of Colorado with a broad vision of energy independence from the beneficial use of dormant oil and gas supplies lying ten thousand feet down in the ground. The Circus kicked their machine into overdrive. To save us once again, the green and left warriors sallied forth and wrote hundreds of pages of zoning laws incorporating every growth stopping agency and device ever conceived by statist man. They employed lawyers to tune their language so those laws could only be challenged—never repealed—by endless years of impossibly expensive litigation.
The Roman government gave bread and circuses to the people to distract them from the messy details of their oppressive governors. Today’s Circus combines the clamoring class of green and leftist warriors with a sympathetic regulatory class of unelected bureaucrats, to form the government itself. Gone are those halcyon times when the mob could be placated by mere food and entertainment. Perhaps conditioned by reality TV, the mob now insists on being part of the action. They want a hand in actually creating the government fascism that will turn around and oppress them. So long as they can applaud a victory, it matters not that the beast they create intends to dine on them.
For all their efforts put in to save our quality of life, our environment, and our property values, you’d think real estate around here would be getting more expensive.
The Jews have their Talmud, the Muslims their Hadiths, exhaustive rules of religious law and taboo to define every nuance of permissible human action. Secular Americans have City, County, State and Federal regulations in a great fascist web waiting to entrap citizens, pending the whim of an invisible unelected bureaucratic shaman somewhere who may notice a non-compliant act, and who then brings down the wrath of government upon the citizen, er, applicant.
The applause is always deafening.
Occupy this
Free enterprise, or to use the Marxist pejorative–capitalism, never had a conscience, and never will.
A “conscience” is a quality of a single mind expressing a moral conclusion. This moral conclusion comes from a person making a decision that something is either right or wrong. It is a subjective individual assessment. To say that capitalism should have a conscience is to say that capital should be employed to do the right thing. While easy enough to say, this statement assumes an objective moral answer exists, and it assumes that capital is a single entity. Both assumptions are wrong.
The current Occupants of various streets around the world, politicians, religious leaders, historians, in fact just about everyone has an opinion about the right way to employ someone else’s capital. But capital doesn’t belong to society, governments, taxpayers, beneficiaries, or to the public. Capital belongs to individual legal entities who hold title to it, and only those holding title have the right to decide how to employ it.
Undeterred, the protesting Occupants of Wall Street along with their Occupant Organizer in Chief currently running the executive branch demonize the owners of capital. They’ve reached a moral conclusion that the capitalist system is mistaken, unfair and a crime against humanity. They prefer social justice instead. Social justice amounts to the forceful removal of wealth from some people, giving a small percentage of the removed wealth to leftist associates, and consuming the rest of it in government bureaucracy. It’s a fluid notion that means something different to each proponent, however, the common denominator between all versions seems to be the confiscation of private wealth for government redistribution.
In the real world, the owners of capital don’t control people, natural events, the environment, or government, as the Occupants allege. Moreover, entrepreneurs could never be culpable as a group for some collective wrong doing because, technically, there is no such thing as a collective mind. Reality, however does not deter believers in collectivism from pushing political myths. Alleging groupthink sins against the collective is one tool they us to bury their opposition in a fuddle of mysterious indefensible wrongdoing. Once you step outside the bounds of cause and effect, the supply of mudballs to hurl at opponents becomes limitless.
Entrepreneurs live in the world of real markets where they must make a profit to survive. The market is neutral. It doesn’t have a conscience, an ability to think, a moral sense, a free will, or qualities of mind like beneficence or malice. It is merely the point where two freely thinking people voluntarily agree that two different things have roughly equivalent value and are potentially worth trading between them. The market is a place in space and time where valuations are objectively decided between willing buyers and sellers. Those valuations are as close as the market ever gets to a moral decision about right and wrong.
The capitalist enters a market at the risk of losing his capital to create something he thinks people in that market will want to trade freely for. In doing so, jobs are created, products are made, and a stream of commerce springs up around his products to the extent other people freely choose to engage in the trade of his product. If the capitalist is right he is rewarded with profit. If he’s wrong he loses his capital and goes away. These voluntary transaction points form the economic basis for our entire society. When we allow ourselves to freely function in this milieu, amazing things happen that organically, systemically, broadly, accrue to the benefit of all of us. Creation and trade generate wealth, prosperity, the fabric for society, and a place for subsequent generations to flourish.
Moreover, the psychosis of moral repugnance that seems to possess the minds of the Occupants from the President on down through the ranks of community organizers and foot soldiers in the streets, is obviated, made moot and superfluous by the mechanism of free trading. When the fabric of our social dealings is built on a voluntary set of trades for values that we individually judge to be equivalent and in our own best interest to make, we simply lose all legitimate grounds for umbrage against other people in society.
It’s only when we introduce corruptions into the market mechanism that the system breaks down. And a lot of corruptions–encumbrances–have been introduced. Taxation, regulation, tariffs, price controls, trade barriers, unionization, guilds, fees, legislated social and behavioral controls, market interventions abound. We are quick to adjudicate power over this or that individual act, quick to narrow the domain of freedom in which we can express our individual judgment, quick to make a rule in our own favor. Literally hundreds of new general rules are created every day.
The Occupants really despise the market mechanisms our system provides to thrive in our society, but at the same time, they blame the market system for failing to guarantee them a job, health care, sustenance, and housing. It was never our society’s responsibility to provide these things to them. Moreover, no society in history that made those sorts of promises ever made good on them. All experiments in collectivism have failed, or are in the process of failing.
Societies don’t have responsibilities. They have rules to govern their members. In our society people have responsibilities to provide for their own well being. We have God-given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These fundamental rights imply responsibilities, in this case, duties to ourselves. A failure to adequately perform a duty to our self does not create a duty for other people to step in and pick up the slack for us. Third parties may freely choose to help those who fall short, and we uphold charity throughout our society as a moral good. But a law that forces people to be charitable is an enslavement. A slave cannot make a moral choice.
For too many years we have burdened our markets and our society with well intentioned controls that have had the effect of shutting down free choices, foreclosing free trades, and removing individual responsibility. In doing so we have narrowed the risk and reward potential for human life. By what right did we limit the future potential of our offspring?
Industry didn’t leave America voluntarily. It was taken away by capital owners acting as they have always done, in their own best interests, chased out by people–unions in many cases–who failed to uphold the individual rights and voluntary foundations of the market system. Capital and industry were moved to places where people, under adverse political systems in many cases, knew how unleashing human creativity would improve their society as it had done for America, and they created conditions attractive to entrepreneurs.
Capital and industry will return to America only when we reestablish legal conditions favoring the accumulation, application, movement and employment of wealth. Industry won’t return to America by government order, by redistribution of wealth scheme, by equalization of condition regulation, by any freedom-limiting law, or by any appeals to fictional collective morality. All of these tactics of the left can only serve to further discourage entrepreneurs from returning.
We have hundreds of thousands of pages of well intentioned legislative and regulatory nonproductive nonsensical laws we must eliminate if we expect industry to return to America. This insane statutory burden–the legacy of the progressive century–will kill us if we don’t kill it first. The sooner it is done the sooner we may begin to heal our economy and put our standard of living back on an upward trajectory.
Do you suppose it’s a coincidence that the former Communist countries in the world who have woken up, have all embraced free enterprise to cure the ills of their respective collectivist nightmares? These Occupants, these perpetual children, need to get a clue. The disgraced myth of Collectivism can only expand through force and oppression because it violates human nature. The Market system, built on voluntary exchange, seeks equilibrium, is intrinsically peaceful, and harmonizes with human nature.
Ironies don’t get much thicker than a first black President attempting to lead America to a future of collective state sponsored enslavement.
Best Will column ever
Collectivists’ Goal Is To Dilute Our Concept Of Individualism
By GEORGE F. WILL
Posted 10/05/2011 06:05 PM ET
Elizabeth Warren, Harvard law professor and former Obama administration regulator (for consumer protection), is modern liberalism incarnate. As she seeks the Senate seat Democrats held for 57 years before 2010, when Scott Brown impertinently won it, she clarifies the liberal project and the stakes of contemporary politics.
The project is to dilute the concept of individualism, thereby refuting respect for the individual’s zone of sovereignty. The regulatory state, liberalism’s instrument, constantly tries to contract that zone — for the individual’s own good, it says. Warren says:
“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there — good for you.
“But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. … You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea — God bless, keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”
Warren is (as William F. Buckley described Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith) a pyromaniac in a field of straw men: She refutes propositions no one asserts. [Read more…]