Van Irion's blog

The War at Home While brave men and women fight overseas for our American way of life, we have a war raging at home that many Americans are just waking up to. Some try to label this war Right versus Left, or Republican versus Democrat, but those are smoke screens for the real battle – Statism versus Individual Liberty. It’s time we get down to the crux of the disagreement – do you believe you know best how to run your life or do you believe that the government knows best how to run your life?

Let’s look at a couple of battles in this war.

HEALTHCARE

Our current system has never operated under free market capitalism. Statism won this battle from the start. Since the first health insurance program was conceived by Blue Cross in the 1920’s, government has been involved in subsidizing and controlling how health insurance is offered. Since that time, there has been increasing government intrusion in the health care industry to the point that in 2010, the government has effectively taken over the industry. The “Individual Liberty” option never had a chance, even though we have seen Statism tried and failed in Europe. Universal health care is bankrupting Europe while providing inferior service.

So, what would the “Individual Liberty” option look like as applied to health care? 1. Competition amongst insurance companies, including the ability to buy health insurance over state lines (the original intent of the Commerce Clause), which would be an incentive to lower the cost of coverage. 2. Owning your own insurance versus employer-paid insurance. Which means you don’t lose insurance if you lose your job. 3. Choice on scope of coverage just like in your auto or home insurance, you don’t pay for the coverage of expenses your lifestyle doesn’t require. Repealing the laws that prevent these 3 changes would deal with most of the problems in today’s health care chaos.

BAILOUTS

Here again, we have tried the Statism approach of the Federal government making the decision for all of us that certain business were “too big to fail”. The bailouts didn’t achieve their stated goals and arguably made the problems worse. GM claims they paid off their loan but, in reality, they just borrowed more money from you and me to pay off what they already owed you and me. TARP (for which Congressman Wamp and other Republicans voted yes) transferred billions of dollars from taxpayers to a select few bank executives to do with what they willed with essentially no strings attached. Has credit been freed up? Have you been able to get a better mortgage or business loan?

Now let’s look at the “Individual Liberty” approach. GM made a series of poor decisions that led them into bankruptcy. GM would argue that the government is to blame as there were so many regulations to comply with. They are right, in part, there are too many regulations that make doing business in the US very difficult, and that should be changed. However, other car companies are surviving even this economy. The Liberty approach would have let GM fail; we wouldn’t be out the billions of dollars we gave them, other companies would have bought up GM’s assets and put them back to use and employed the laid off workers. Same story for the failed banks. The bailouts have actually prolonged the recession by preventing this natural recovery process.

These are just two of the many examples of Statism making problems worse instead of solving them, so why this battle against Individual Liberty? It’s simple. Statism empowers those in government, typically by appealing to the busybodies that want to “help” others with taxpayer money. They convince voters of their concern for the “environment” or for “the children” or for “the less privileged” and that they know what to do about it.

The battle between Statism and Individual Liberty rages on now more than ever because the Statists aren’t willing to give up the power that they have accumulated, and because the busybodies aren’t willing to give up the baseless notion that they can solve all our problems for us. Americans are finally waking up to this war at home. The economic collapse in Europe and repeated failures of socialistic countries give us stark examples of how Statism turns out. The question for voters this 2010 election will be this: do you recognize what’s really going on? Will you pick Liberty or Statism?

Van Irion, Candidate for Congress, Tennessee District 3

www.van4congress.org

During the 9/12 march in DC I saw a sign held by an old man wearing an army uniform. It said “I didn’t serve 25 years for Socialism!” For 234 years Americans have fought and died to defend the American way of life. They fought for freedom. They fought for the right to keep what you earn. They fought for the right to make decisions for themselves. They even fought for the right to live with the consequences of their own bad decisions. These are the ideas that made America great. These are the ideals that we fight and die to defend.

On Memorial day we honor those that have given the ultimate sacrifice in defense of America. Most of those heroes died far from home in lonely places. Many left children at home that they never got to see grow up. All gave up precious days on Earth. They gave up the only life God granted to them.

Such sacrifices cannot be forgotten. We must remember their sacrifice, but we must also remember the reason they sacrificed. Their gift to us is freedom. But it isn’t ours to use up and throw away. It belongs to our children, and our children’s children. Our fallen heroes died to preserve the American way of life for all generations that would follow them. They knew that if freedom is lost, it may never be regained. That is why they were willing to give everything they had to defend the ideals that made America. Those of us left behind must defend the way of life that our fallen heroes gave so much to preserve.

The American way of life is about to be lost, not to a foreign invader, but to our own tyrannical Federal Government. We have let our own government ignore the Constitution and because of that, we’re losing our freedom. Government taxation to fund entitlement programs is Socialism. Socialism is not freedom. It’s the opposite of freedom. Governmental control of corporations is not freedom. It is Nazism. These are the evils that our fallen heroes fought against for most of the twentieth century. Yet we’re now electing politicians that ignore our Constitution, and ignore the sacrifice of those that died to protect freedom. We must stop this abomination and return to our founding ideals.

Please remember our fallen heroes. But more importantly, please remember why they were willing to die. They gave us a gift that we must now fight to recover for our children. Please fight to prevent our own government from destroying the American way of life.

Van Irion, Air Force Veteran, Constitutionalist, and Congressional Candidate, TN03