individual liberty

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

 The reason America become great and is still great despite,chocking regulation on individual liberty. The Gop finds itself in the worst possible position,there numerous contradictions have come home to roost. The Gop has come to a fork in the road,do they take a right or a left. Well the Gop to me needs to become the party of individual rights,that means kicking out thr religious fanatics,because individual rights cannot co -exist with the altruism of the christian right,they totally incompatable.

The Gop needs to embrace free markets in every area from immigration to healthcare,not this mixed economy we have,whichis a complete form of facism,with sacrificial lambs for other people.

H/T Michelle Malkin

Evidently what Joe the Plumber asked Barack Obama so bothered the Democrats running OH state government that the bigwigs ordered a full scale document review of his files.

New report: Ohio employee was ordered to snoop on Joe The Plumber

http://michellemalkin.com/2008/10/31/new-report-ohio-employee-was-ordered-to-snoop-on-joe-the-plumber/

Glad to see OH state employees have nothing better to do than run oppo for the Obama campaign.

There's a very sad commentary here. Obama claims to have taught constitutional law. Does he believe the 4th Amendment  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution applies only to terrorists making phone calls, or abortion providers, but not to plumbers from Toledo?

If anyone out there has any libertarian DNA in their blood they simply CANNOT vote for a collectivist like Obama 

I had a few interesting comments when I posted Part I of the subject on Asian-American politics, or the lack thereof. Mike Warren succinctly pointed out that he is "cautious to want Republicans to start trying to appeal to identity groups like this, because it dilutes or negates the basic conservative message" while also pointing out the importance of communicating non-raced based principles to ethnic communities in America. Repack Rider was especially harsh in assuming that I had no experience within the Asian-American community; fortunately, Freedoms Truth came to my defense. Like I said last week:

"What I am about to opine on comes from a combination of life experience being raised by Korean immigrants, my limited experience of dealing with Asian communities around the nation, and maybe some bald assertions about what Asian-Americans care about."

This includes experiences that I have had as a first generation American-born citizen of Asian descent, developing friendships and relationships with people from many ethnic communities from around the nation from different socioeconomic situations, and academic study into the sociology of race. Does this mean from time to time I have to make a few assertions here and there to get a point across? Yes, but it does not mean those assertions come out of thin air. So instead of making ad hominem attacks on the observations that I make, please disagree with me if you have had an experience different from mine.

Part I of this post focused a lot on the importance of family and freedom to Asian-Americans. I want to take the time to really delve into the "freedom" part of the message we can send to this relatively politically inactive group. On Tuesday, David Brooks of the New York Times penned an op-ed from Chengdu, China, making some key observations on the differences between individualistic societies (like those of the West) and collectivist societies (like those in Asia). Brooks makes several important distinctions. (Read the stories that go with these contrasts.):

"This is a divide that goes deeper than economics into the way people perceive the world ... Americans usually see individuals; Chinese and other Asians see contexts ... Americans are more likely to see categories. Asians are more likely to see relationship."

"The individualistic countries tend to put rights and privacy first. People in these societies tend to overvalue their own skills and overestimate their own importance to any group effort. People in collective societies tend to value harmony and duty. They tend to underestimate their own skills and are more self-effacing when describing their contributions to group efforts."

The thrust of Brooks' column was to point out that collectivist societies seem to now be competing economically with individualistic societies with the emergence of China as an growing economic powerhouse, that "the ideal of a harmonious collective may turn out to be as attractive as the ideal of the American Dream." While I can't expound on how Asians in Asia feel today about their new position in the world, the individualistic vs. collectivist mindsets might shed some light on the motivations of Asian-Americans, especially those who are naturalized citizens.

Great thoughts from Mark Tapscott. -Patrick

It's not often that one gets the opportunity to be among and converse with several hundred of the smartest people in the world, but that is precisely what I was able to do last week as a participant at Personal Democracy Forum 2008 at Rose Hall in New York City's Lincoln Center complex.

It was my first PDF and, despite only being able to attend the second day, it was a memorable experience because I came away with a heightened sense that we are on the cusp of profound, even revolutionary changes in government and public policy thanks to the Internet. Being a conservative, I don't use that word "revolution" lightly.

I was in fact continually reminded throughout my time at PDF of Alexander Hamilton's prophetic observation at the outset of The Federalist Papers, America's most important contribution to serious  political thought:

"It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force."