Why Do You Oppose Obamacare?

The following is a quote from Stuart Butler of The Heritage Foundation.

In a civilized and rich country like the United States, it is reasonable for society to accept an obligation to ensure that all residents have affordable access to at least basic health care — much as we accept the same obligation to assure a reasonable level of housing, education and nutrition.

http://www.heritage.org/research/testimony/laying-the-groundwork-for-universal-health-care-coverage

He continues on.

But as part of that contract, it is also reasonable to expect residents of the society who can do so to contribute an appropriate amount to their own health care. This translates into a requirement on individuals to enroll themselves and their dependents in at least a basic health plan - one that at the minimum should protect the rest of society from large and unexpected medical costs incurred by the family. And as any social contract, there would also be an obligation on society. To the extent that the family cannot reasonably afford reasonable basic coverage, the rest of society, via government, should take responsibility for financing that minimum coverage.

So this is from The Heritage Foundation, the bulwark of conservative thought against the onslaught of socialist triumph. And this is the best that they can mutter up? This is an implicit agreement with socialist thoughts about equality. If this is supposedly the conservative thought, then what is the source of opposition to Obamacare? It makes me wonder what the popular opinion would have been amongst conservatives had a Republican president pushed such legislation.

For the libertarian, opposition to the bill is simple. It is too demanding on employers, infringes on liberty, forces young people to buy insurance when they usually do not really need it (thus making them poorer), and does nothing to fix our corrupt medical establishment (medicare, medicaid, forcing employers to provide healthcare, the HMO favoritism which obscures a price system, etc.).

So I will pose the questions to you. Do you consider yourself a conservative? Do you agree with the thoughts of Dr. Butler? Do you oppose Romneycare on principle or was what he did okay because it was at the state level? Do you oppose government ownership of industries?

I would love to see the discourse on this issue, especially among those who portray themselves as vehemently against Obamacare, yet are supporting Mitt Romney.

The National Defense Resources Preparedness

Just a quick post today and I will update on what sounds like a shocking executive order that no one has heard about.

Quoting from the article at the Huffington Post:

Last Friday, March 16, President Barack Obama may have quietly placed the United States on a war preparedness footing, perhaps in anticipation of an outbreak of war between Israel, the West, and Iran. A newly-propounded Executive Order, titled "National Defense Resources Preparedness," renews and updates the president's power to take control of all civil energy supplies, including oil and natural gas, control and restrict all civil transportation, which is almost 97 percent dependent upon oil; and even provides the option to re-enable a draft in order to achieve both the military and non-military demands of the country, according to a simple reading of the text.

He wants to control all energy supplies, restrict transportation (sounds like martial law), and even re-enable the draft? Bloggers, this is up to you. Spread the word about this monstrosity. The reason that you have not heard about this is because both Democrats and Republicans support our military and police state. Do not let them get away with this. We have at our hands the power to spread awareness about this. Do not let the state hide this!

Sourced at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/edwin-black/obama-national-defense-resources-preparedness_b_1359715.html - Thanks to Edwin Black

Do You Really Want Another War?

Let's think clearly about this. Do we really want to get into another war in another Middle Eastern country? Do we really want to take on another regime that supposedly poses some great threat to our safety? Do we want to go down this road again?

Do we have the money to go and invade another country? Have we been cutting spending and reducing our debt? Is our economy improving? Are employers hiring? Is our standard of living rising? Do we have the financial resources to topple and install a new regime?

Have we studied and do we know the enemy? Do we know what their people are like? Do we know generally how they feel about their government? Do we know their religion? Are they Sunni or Shiite? What is the difference between a Sunni or Shiite? How does the Iranian government feel about the new Iraqi or new Afghani government? Do they support Hamas, Hezbollah, or neither?

As to the actual threat, do we know that they are building a bomb? What type of bomb are they building? Where are they building it? Do they have the resources to actually pull it off? Are they even enriching uranium for weapons? Are they allowed to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes? How does the Ayatollah feel about acquiring nuclear weapons? Do the people of Iran like the idea of their government acquiring weapons?

Before we even begin a hot war, how would we asses our cold war? How effective has our intelligence been recently? How well do they know the area of Iran? What effect have our sanctions had? Have they crippled the government? What do the people of Iran think about our sanctions? What do they think about the US national government? What do they think about American people?

Have we remembered one of the most famous quotes from Sun Tzu's Art of War, "It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle."?

And this is just a short list of question. I would hope that at the very least we would be able to answer these questions before we push for war with Iran. I think that most people who are agitating for it cannot answer even half of these. And if history teaches us anything, it is that this does not matter, and we will invade anyway and ignore the consequences of our actions. Iraq was only 10 years ago. Do we really want to do what seems to be almost the exact same thing?

Strange Happenings from the Alabama Election

Take a look at the instructions from the Alabama ballot:

"Votes for delegate candidates pledged to someone other than the voter's choice for President ARE NOT ALLOWED UNDER REPUBLICAN PARTY RULES."

In other words, you vote for the delegates of the candidate that you voted for and only those delegates. Now with that said, does someone want to try to explain this?

//Popular Vote
Ron Paul: 5.0% 30,494

//Delegate Votes
Ron's delegates Place 1: 75,385
Ron's delegates Place 2: 71,069
Ron's delegates Place 3: 67,953
Ron's delegates Place 4: 68,630

Sourced from peluski17 at the Daily Paul.
http://www.dailypaul.com/node/220691

How is it that Ron Paul got more delegate votes than he received from the popular vote? At the very least, Paul must have received 75,000 votes (because voters can choose 4 delegates). So how is it that his popular vote total is less than half of the minimum that he could have actually received?

Something stinks in Alabama, and it isn't the water. If you are offended by the apparent vote manipulation, and even if you aren't a Ron Paul supporter this should offend you, then repost this on your blog. This should be headline news. If you care about the truth, then spread the word!

Results from the Alabama election can be viewed directly here:
http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/AL/38312/75686/en/summary.html

The Slow Return Back, Part 2

As I slowly return to my posting habit, I want to point out something else that is irritating me. It is very specific and the problem is very obvious, but you shall not dare to talk about this. If you try to discuss this, you hate kids, the elderly, and the sick.

Now what could I be discussing that would garner this kind of personal attack against me? Let me first discuss the economic principle lying behind my contention. Economists have known for centuries that increasing demand raises price caeteris paribus. So naturally, we should expect that by trying to raise demand, that we will raise the price. When we speak in generalities, I assume that everyone would agree with this. Of course, we also have monetary inflation that plays a role in why prices rise.

So now finally to my point. I speak of course about financial aid, student loans, medicare, and medicaid. We wonder why prices rise so high in these areas more than any other, and it is because of these programs. Why is it that we cannot talk about this? What is so horrible about discussing these issues? These are apparently off-topic because the intended benefits are more important than the actual consequences? This seems to be a common theme that runs through American politics. It is disgusting, and it is aborrhent, yet it apparently is the modus operandi of our news media and politicians.

If we want to get out of the black hole we currently have of debt, unemployment, endless wars, and the increasing totalitarian nature of our national government, then we must always call for open dialogue, and we must make certain that we never engage in these emotional appeals that destroy free discussion. Until we demand this, the media will continue to suppress the truth by their logical fallacies, and the elite will retain control of the hearts of Americans (the fact that we are discussing a Romney v. Obama contest tells you how completely the elite dictates acceptable dialogue). Support independent blogs and alternative news sources. These are our way out of the intellectual cell the the elite have tried to lock us away into.

The Actual Employment Picture

With the talk of an improving economy especially with regards to unemployment numbers, what is an Austrian economist to do? After all, it was Austrians who predicted that the economy would start to crash, not improve. By all the recent data, it seems that these economists were wrong. Instead, the mainstream economists have triumphed and Austrians have once again been thrown out of the mainstream. Right?

The issue is that we are playing by the rules of the establishment economists. They produce all of the data. In essence, what they have done is set their employment numbers to show changes in unemployment. If employment numbers begin to stabilize, then their data will show that employment is actually recovering. Why is this a problem? Because what if we have stabilized in a horrible situation? And if we have, is there any way to prove it?

Fortunately for Austrians, there is. The graph of civilian-employment population ratio is not subject to the same fudging as unemployment numbers. There is a word of caution with using this data as social trends can also change the data (think housewives who started entering the workforce in the 1960s and '70s. Recently, there have not been any major changes like this, so this data should be pretty reliable. How does it look?

Is this really how we want our economy to stabilize? Does this look good to anyone? Can anyone defend this?

The Slow Return Back, Part 1

Yes, after quite a long hiatus, I feel as though I have too much to say to keep this mouthpiece of mine muted. Much has been going on in the world: a presidential election, reform in Europe, tensions in the Middle East, and the continuing monetary fiasco, among other things.

I have been keeping up with the news, and frankly the things that I have begun to notice are horrifying me. I have many things with which I am taking issue, and I will deal will them in due time. However, I thought that I would touch upon what seems to be at least somewhat related to all of the issues: the triumph of rhetoric over reason.

What I mean by this is quite simple, but in a way, quite sinister. For probably decades if not longer, people have discussed the bias of the media. They have shown evidence of some issues, but they are mostly partisan ones. While this is important and should not be ignored, I feel that there is a much larger problem that is much more sinister. Essentially, the media (and our politicians!) dictates to us the bounds of discussion. Let me list a few examples.

The income tax is probably the most blatant example of the issue. The debate with which we are presented is whether we should raise or lower taxes. This works for both income and capital gains taxes. Funny, why do we never hear the argument raised by those who feel that this country should have no income tax? Frank Chodorov made the point earlier in the century that essentially it was the income tax which allowed the federal government to become the behemoth that it is. Without that, we would have the same government that we had during the Gilded Age. Isn't it interesting that this is just seen as laughably absurd? After all, how would the government function without an income tax, they would say. It it just too extreme for rational discussion. Funny, the federal government functioned quite nicely before the income tax, and that system allowed the United States to rise to prominence. Now it is laughably impossible?

The second issue is war with Iran. This has been a particularly hot issue lately, and it is understandable. Discussion of war and nuclear bombs will easily pique the interest of those worried of the Islamist menace. But how much of a menace is it? Is it too extreme to discuss the possibility of our military actions raising up anti-American sentiment? Is it too extreme to say that our debt is far too large to be going into more wars? Is it too extreme to discuss the practicality of a war for peace that kills 100,000 people and displaces millions (I'm looking at you Iraq)? Why are we not allowed to even discuss these things? Are these not valid points?

One issue particularly close to me concerns the election of Ron Paul. From the start we have all heard that Ron Paul is never going to be elected. After all, he is too old, too extreme, and too crazy. Funny, whenever somebody mentions that he is unelectable, they never discuss why exactly that is. Is it his crazy idea that we should be concerned about our debt? Is it his crazy idea that we should not be so trusting of the rising police state (if he's crazy about this, then so were our forefathers)? Is it crazy that we should understand our enemy before we attack them? Is it crazy to vote against unbalanced budgets? Ultimately, the opposition to Ron Paul relies on flash and not substance. What he says makes sense, but just because he is not great at oration he gets dismissed easily. This is nonsense. Ron Paul deserves a look, especially among conservatives who claim to be concerned about our national debt and unfunded liabilities since he is the only candidate that has a plan that would actually lower that debt.

The most entrenched issue revolves around welfare. We all hear about how welfare spending is out of control or how social security is broke. We hear all kinds of proposals to fix it or given the programs back to the states (even this is deemed as too extreme!). When was the last time that any of us heard about just getting rid of these programs? Oh no! Why, if we did that, we would be branded haters of the old and sick, Social Darwinists, or any other kind of dismissive label that is placed on real fiscal conservatives. Hmm, that's funny, how did the poor, old, and sick survive before welfare spending? Did all of the old people die of starvation before social security? Were people dying because of access to care before medicare? Of course not! But can we ever discuss it rationally? Of course not. We're not allowed to.

If this sounded like a rant, it was intended to be. The state of politics in this nation is despicable. We no longer judge proposals on their ultimate conclusions, but rather on superficialities. This is nonsense. If we are ever going to have significant change in this country, we must demand a real discussion, not the pandering that is doused upon us daily. If you want to escape this cespool or pseudo-intellectual discussion, I would suggest visiting sites that actually offer opposing viewpoints. Recently, I've been visiting antiwar.com, rt.com, al-Jazeera, lewrockwell.com, and others. Do I agree with everything on these sites? Of course not. However, they actually present another viewpoint. Read them with a grain of salt, but read them, and don't just rely in big media. They've lied to us before and will again. Be bold, search for the truth, let propaganda not your source of information be.