This July 4th brings unprecedented significance. It’s not that I’ve taken the American essence for granted, but that only in recent years have I formed a sense for how far we’ve strayed from our roots – and how few realize it. The fourth is the holiday for those who love life and freedom and I’ve never granted it proper acknowledgment, appropriate consideration or adequate participation.

All cliché’s aside, today’s America is a fading remnant of its splendorous infancy. We’re marching full-throttle into the stagnant misery associated with every collectivist nation throughout history, and we mostly just bicker about the trivial details along the way.

No longer does America stand for the individual – but the collective. No longer does an individual have the right to contract as he sees fit, to deal and trade with others as voluntary entities to mutual benefit – but must ask the state’s permission and guidelines for virtually every step of daily barter. No longer do individuals enjoy the security of property rights – but must fear that at any moment the statist grip might reign down and seize at will. No longer do we value objectivity in our courts – but champion diversity and compassion. No longer do bad decisions affect only the responsible parties – but the results are forced on all. No longer do we accept the notion that freedom enables individuals the potential to offend – but we strive to legally gag and bound any thought, word or action that might be offensive. No longer does the rule of law stand to protect individual rights – but embodies the primary culprit trampling them.

Let’s be clear – this is certainly not a partisan rant. Yes, the current central-planning administration is forcing horribly destructive policies on this country, but theirs is merely the foremost layer of putrid icing on a cake baking in the statist oven for the past 100 years. At best, the alternate candidate (current and previous administrations) might have possibly been marginally better in a few areas, but unlikely to offer any essential difference. Each would be equally prone to enact the same destructive policies, differing only in minor details. Those who contend that their party is not responsible should check their premises and consult history.

For us to return to the society achieved by our founders, America must resort to her roots. We must resurrect that spark of individual motivation, intuition and responsibility that underlined a nation of laws not men. We must discard the notion that mans purpose is to live for the sake of others. We must abandon the premise that the individual is subordinate to the state. We must reestablish the right and honor of parents to education their children. We must reject the premise that one man is entitled to any portion of the life of another, for any reason. We must get the state out of our schools, hospitals, businesses, cars, homes, minds, and bedrooms. We must realize that theft is morally wrong, whether committed by one man against another or by congressional committee according to consensus. We must return to the era of individual rights.

There are tremendously harmful movements currently in place; the final step in socialized medicine (we’re pretty much there already), gigantic steps to impose environmental regulations on individuals and businesses (potent enough to destroy a healthy economy and deadly to a crippled one), and the continued crusade to disarm American citizens; all pose very serious threats to the existence of this country as we know it – all are diametrically opposed to the founding principles of this nation.

Now is most certainly not the time to be passive, polite or complacent. Now is not the time to ‘turn the other cheek’. The contrasting ideals facing this country are not merely differences of opinion; they are life changing, way-of-life changing, nation-crumbling historical missteps. We are at a crossroad and currently pointing to a very dark place that will leave us yearning for the past.

The individuals who thought, fought and died for this country are responsible for the most glorious achievement in the history of man - glorious precisely because America is the only country founded on the moral basis of individual rights. Individual rights are the only possible basis and the logical underpinning for any system considered under the context of freedom. Our founders had the wisdom and forethought to devise a social structure based on these rights and the sense to realize that such a nation was worth fighting for. To these men, not only was it worth abandonment from their family, everyday routine, and livelihood, it was worth the price of their life – and not as a selfless sacrifice, but as a refusal to live under an inferior system.

The system they envisioned was and still is the only one suitable for proper human existence – where man has the right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness, and with Government’s only proper role as the protector of those rights.

From now on I’ll meet the 4th with the earnest reverence it demands. And now more than ever, we must diligently consider our country’s path and the issues that face us through the lens of our founding ideals and in the context of individual rights. I urge any of you who value life, freedom and joy to do the same. We simply cannot continue our current route – reality cannot be evaded.

• The Obama Health Care Plan: Hazardous to Your Health
• Put the “Independence” Back in Independence Day
• Reason, Rights, and Science Are What Made America Great

Our country is the final stages of a tremendous mistake - one that will have adverse effects on every person you know. Acting as if human lives are disposable and that economic laws are pliable, so many are willing to give in to consensus and experiment with Government run health care. It can’t hurt to try right?

This is a deadly pragmatic notion that must be rejected. Not even a single right or life is properly available for sacrificial experimentation. Even if dissecting one human being would save the lives of billions, doing so is immoral. If one man’s rights are violated, so all men have suffered injustice.

For America to endure we must return to nothing less than a free-market in health care.

Politicians are masters at muddying the water in order to aid their efforts. The more they obfuscate and complicate the issue, the more likely citizens are to give-up and give in to what appears to be the superior insights and motives of our leaders. Throw in some hollow rhetoric and spike the potion with the moral tint of altruism and consensus will stomp over an endless sea of corpses. However, If one peers through all the emotional fog, the entire conversation is revealed to be senseless. To make the case much clearer, I’ll frame the principles in an analogous market less prone to emotional fraying.

This not-so-hypothetical market is comprised of a fictitious entity called “Technicare” - a taxpayer funded program to assist a segment of the population with their electrical appliance needs - and a retailer, in this example I chose Wal-Mart, arguably the most highly qualified bastion of efficiency and value.

Like all cases of market dysfunction throughout history, the cause is unnatural economic forces. Essentially, the only force capable of wide scale economic influence is Government. Economics is an elegantly simple system governed by principles that endure time and scale. Producers produce goods that consumers consume according to the standards and prices that both parties agree on voluntarily. That’s it. These fundamentals are absolute and unforgiving, and when any component of the preceding summary is acted against, the market becomes dysfunctional. If producers ability to produce is either enhanced or hampered, if consumers ability to consume is enhanced or hampered, or if the voluntary prerogatives of either are restricted to any extent, the result is some degree of market dysfunction.

Our Heath Care market is one that’s clobbered with regulatory assault from every angle. Each of the components prescribed above are unnaturally manipulated by Government. Government meddling inevitably serves to reduce competition, and decrease purchasing power, the two elements that form the lifeblood of a growing and prosperous economic system.

There are far too many instances to cover exhaustively, but fortunately a principled examination of only a few will clearly illustrate the negative impact that is universally achieved by market intervention. We’ll start by considering an element that achieves tremendous competitive detriment and has no logical justification - The Certificate of Need.

From the NCSL site:

Certificate of Need (C.O.N.) programs are aimed at restraining health care facility costs and allowing coordinated planning of new services and construction. Laws authorizing such programs are one mechanism by which state governments seek to reduce overall health and medical costs.

The basic assumption underlying CON regulation is that excess capacity (in the form of facility overbuilding) directly results in health care price inflation. When a hospital cannot fill its beds, fixed costs must be met through higher charges for the beds that are used. Bigger institutions have bigger costs, so CON supporters say it makes sense to limit facilities to building only enough capacity to meet actual needs.

Profit is determined by the difference in revenue from a unit of work in relation to the unit’s associated costs. Profit increases by either charging a higher price per unit to consumers or establishing a lower cost per unit for producers - by higher prices or by lower costs. Competition amongst market players urges them to offer services at the lowest possible price, thus their opportunity to increase profit will be naturally determined by their ability to operate at the lowest possible cost, as opposed to selling at a higher, less competitive price. Competition is a necessity.

By hindering the competitive aspect of the market, the CON hurdle is actually prone to a rise in costs precisely because mitigates (or eliminates) external pressure to compete on price. Additionally, the process is tedious, timely and expensive. For productive endeavors, time is money, and this process equates to an atrociously misdirected waste of capital.

The other fallacy used to justify this process is that investors would risk such vast amounts of money as typically involved without doing the proper market research to justify the expense. Like in so many other cases, and for obvious reasons, bureaucrats just can’t grasp the concept of personal responsibility. Unlike moochers wasting handout money, when an individual is spending his own earned resources, he’d best be, and typically is, mindful of how he does so. Successful investors seeking a profitable avenue for their capital do not need parental guidance.

Let’s consider this absurdity in our fictitious market:

• How would the “Certificate of Need” process and burden, including all the inherent political wrangling, affect an aspiring Wal-Mart store?
• Would the associated cost cause their prices to increase or decrease?
• Would that money be more appropriately invested in real estate, infrastructure and inventory, or as the cost of asking permission to do business when and where they see fit?
• On what logical grounds should they have to ask permission?
• By what right could some authoritative body decline their request?
• By what right does anyone or any entity have such authority in a country founded on individual rights?
• Whose right to what would be in jeopardy of encroachment by a lack of oversight for this new entity?

Consider Technicare’s impact throughout the rest of Wal-mart’s business model:

• Once the tedious CON process is complete and business is booming, how would Wal-Mart compensate for selling televisions to Technicare customers for an amount that’s significantly reduced - possibly below cost?
• Would these customers tend to spend more or less if given a Technicare credit card for which they have no financial responsibility?
• How would this consumption impact the individuals who are liable for the Technicare expenditures?
• How about if Technicare was granted the authority to determine what Wal-Mart could charge non-Technicare customers for televisions, how would this affect these customers if the pricing was at or below cost?
• By what right should Technicare posses such authority?

If Technicare was expanded to include storage media:

• Would this amplify or negate the existing affects of the program on Wal-Mart?
• How about if the storage media market was regulated by Technicare’s parent company GovCo. so that the media could be adequately tested, which led to drastically increased research manufacturing and legal costs and the time to market for a new product was a number of years. Would this impact the cost of storage media for all consumers?
• What if Wal-Mart was also regulated on how much they could charge Technicare customers for storage media?
• What if they had to sell below cost? What would this do to the costs of storage media for non-Technicare customers?

If Wal-Mart were forced by law to give away products at no charge:

• How would the rest of their business model be impacted?
• Would they continue operating at a loss?
• Would this raise or lower costs to the remainder of their customer base?

If Wal-Mart’s prices increased drastically over time due to the mandates of Technicare:

• How would the “Certificate of Need” process and burden, including all the inherent political wrangling, affect an aspiring competitor?
• Would it make market entry easier or more difficult?
• Would this affect lead Wal-Mart to be more or less responsive to its customers?
• Would such market-entry overhead inspire entrepreneurial interest?

Given the above scenario and the obvious answers and established patterns:

• On why logical grounds would some suggest granting Technicare/GovCo drastically increased, if not exhaustive, control of Wal-Mart operations, accounting and pricing?
• What would the expected results entail?
• As non-Technicare customers lose purchasing power as a result from both having to fund Technicare and having to endure higher prices as a result of Technicare, what changes would be more likely to repair the situation?
• What if Technicare decides to restrict all customers from shopping anywhere besides this new WalTech-GovCo?
• By what right could they?
• Wouldn’t this be a coercive monopoly?
• What would that mean?

With “solutions” like these, who needs problems? Is this issue really as complex as so portrayed by the media and politicians?

Socialization proponents consistently offer supposed aspects of the health care market that exempt it from economic laws due to some disadvantage faced by consumers. Regardless of the specifics, for each such claim we should ask “Why is this, and what are the repercussions?”

My point in general is that the “whys” are far more important than their corresponding repercussions. If a patient has a rash it could be a sign of a number of things, such as poison ivy, a food allergy, an infectious disease like measles, or a skin infection. Treating the symptoms without accurately identifying the cause could leave the patient worse off. Making assumptions on faulty or unrefined premises is a recipe for failure.

I’ve yet to hear a valid claim of “market-dysfunction” (if you will) that is actually more in substance than an acknowledgment of reality, e.g., individuals have varying financial means, or an example of a symptom caused by an existing economically unnatural force in the system, e.g., how Medicare rates affect private insurance premiums.

The former family of claims, in the context of “what should be done?” should properly be answered “whatever motivated individuals choose to do with their own resources.” The charge of “not providing unlimited free service to all who’d consume it” is no more valid a charge of dysfunction than criticizing a rock for not spurting pop-tarts on whim. Demanding a breach of reality in the form of non-causal action is irrational.

If the same question is posed in the context of the second category above, the answer should be “identify and remove the source of the issue.” - which arguably is in all cases, Government intervention.

Despite all the attempts to complicate this issue, it really is as simple as the answers above. Unless and until that is, as I mentioned previously, ulterior motives come into consideration. As soon as the rights of producers and consumers to contract freely are inhibited to any extent, the only possible result is a distortion in the market that will exponentially correlate to the extent of the inhibition.

Individuals thrive under, and have a right to, freedom. Innovation, value and efficiency are the result of freedom. Regulations, on the other hand, reduce freedom - which results in inefficiency, shortages, escalating prices and general stagnation. History illustrates this condition quite well.

Patients have the right to choose from whom, for what, and at what price they consume medical services. Likewise, providers have the right to choose from whom, for what, and at what price they provide their expertise.

This is the only moral and practical relationship between patients and providers.

A diligent consideration of any elements of the market that affect these mutual rights, including their cause, will very accurately highlight what needs to change for the market to operate normally. Increase freedom and all the positive dynamics of this and any other market will prevail.

Again, history unequivocally supports this fact.

To concretize - a free-market in health care, just like every other field throughout history - would result in the best service at the lowest price, according to the discretion of the consumers and producers involved.

There’s nothing unique about the health care market that should exempt it from basic economics. Providers gain expertise in medical services that individuals would consume based on supply and demand.

Only third-party involvement by force can disrupt economic laws and patterns. If one detects a flaw or undesirable pattern, prudence suggests one identify any source of unnatural tampering. Any market traits, e.g., “Forty-plus million uninsured”, could either be symptoms of an illegitimate disruption, or merely factual attributes representing reality. If one were to consider the statistic in slightly different terms, say “Forty-plus million individuals can’t own a 42 inch widescreen television”, then the issue becomes less clouded by by emotion. The facts illustrate that five years ago, indeed a large percentage of individuals couldn’t afford a 42″ television. However, the market (a relatively free one) has responded to demand and now a 42″ television is much more affordable. These principles work regardless if the market is for widgets, televisions, mobile phone service, wellness physicals or CT scans. Where the conversation veers drastically off course is when egalitarian politics come into play. If authentic rights are to be subsumed by artificial privileges, some external force must attempt to usurp economic reality. For every ‘yin’ of Government intervention, there’s a corresponding ‘yang’ of market disturbance. These ‘yangs’ reverberate through the system and their effects continue to amplify until very serious results surface. The system we have now is a result of 50+ years of intense ‘yin’ing. What, other than a tremendously distorted market, could we expect? And, exactly why would we propose more intervention as the solution?

So long as consumers are left free to consume (by their own means) and producers are left free to offer services (as they see fit), the market will perform and innovate like any other.

The government depriving people of opportunities and choice regarding their livelihood is not the solution to the problem of the government stifling competition with distorted economic forces. The solution is to get the government out of health care altogether.

Supplemental Ammunition:
I highly recommend Paul Hsieh’s work demolishing the case for socialized medicine:

FAQ On Free Market Health Insurance

Health Care Reform vs. Universal Health Care

Moral Health Care vs. Universal Health Care

Mandatory Health Insurance: Wrong for Massachusetts, Wrong for America

“A system predicated upon fraud isn’t sustainable. A clearing and settlement system that facilitates counterfeiting and fraud, and is accountable to nobody, isn’t a clearing and settlement system. A media that only touts the party line isn’t a free press. A private cartel of banks, writing trillions of dollars of taxpayer-funded checks while refusing to tell anyone who is receiving the loot isn’t a sustainable banking system. A government that allows all the above to become the status quo, and which twists statistics in order to lie to its own citizenry as well as the rest of the world, isn’t a sustainable government.” - Neo-Feudal Casino-Gulag Plantation-Economy Minion #43G_02101976_73

A parable depicting the rise of tyranny being cloaked in supposed benevolence - should sound very familiar. Source unknown.

A chemistry professor at a large college had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab the Professor noticed one young man (exchange student) who kept rubbing his back, and stretching as if his back hurt. The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country’s government and install a new communist government.

In the midst of his story he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked, ‘Do you know how to catch wild pigs?’ The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said this was no joke. ‘You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come every day to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again.

You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat; you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught.

Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. While we continually lose our freedoms — just a little at a time.

All taxation is theft. Taking the property of one individual by initiated force, regardless of purpose, contradicts the fundamental role of Government by violating individual rights to property. Any and every tax expenditure is immoral and unjust.

That being said, some expenditures, however, are so blatantly inappropriate that they stand out as especially vile amongst a sea of evil. Below are only a few that demand our attention and were found in a matter of seconds @ Grants.gov.

You can search for hundreds of terms that will score an abundance of “opportunities”. Keep in mind that for each “opportunity” there are larges wads of looted wealth waiting to be handed out - most in the tens or hundreds of thousands, many in the tens or hundreds of millions. Keep these in mind as you, friends and family face the financial hurdles in the coming years - hurdles caused by Government intervention in the economy. The purpose of the intervention is to tap into your productivity precisely for the purposes of handing out money in order to buy votes and satiate altruistic political ambitions. Enjoy.

• We need the toads…

- A crumbling nation must maintain its priorities.

• 10 Million for Cambodian Education

- Since we’ve essentially given up on our own, $10,000,000 to another country…

• 30 Million for Tanzanian AIDS Counseling

- I’m so glad I could help out….

• 40 Million for Uganda’s ‘Right‘ to Essential Medicine

- I didn’t realize any supposed right of a Ugandan citizen (or any citizen to any thing for that matter) granted them access to a portion of my income…

These examples represent the filthy ends of the tentacles strangling America. How long can it go on like this?

• Seeking Alpha - Wall Street Breakfast
• Another $363 Million… (Remember who earns it…)
• More Income Redistribution Stupidity: Refi’s on upside-down mortgages??? Why not!

• The Gold Bull Market and the Fed It Rode In On -
  “I thought that as part of the new Mogambo Program To Stop Freaking Out (MPTSFO) and maybe get some sleep that is not disturbed by screaming at nightmares of the horrors of inflation and economic ruin that are the just desserts of an America that has now embraced ignorance, stupidity and sloth as virtues, I had turned off the alarms in the Mogambo Bunker (the MoBu) that were connected to the circuits monitoring the creation of bank credit by the Federal Reserve.”
• Is Your Portfolio Ready for Hyperinflation?
• The Simple Solution
• Northwestern Mutual Makes First Gold Buy in 152 Years
• IRS Weighs New Rules on Tax Preparers - Yay! Just what a limping economy needs - more rules!

Che’ Hollywood is at it again.

Supporting his apparent penchant for late-night television, Obama charms the masses in a spoof interview segment.

NBC was clearly thrilled to have enough access to President Obama to base a two-part, prime-time special on it all this week (Part II runs Wednesday night.)

Mr. Obama, however, went even one step further for the network – participating in a spoof interview segment for “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” during his formal question-and-answer session with the NBC News anchor Brian Williams at the White House.

In the segment, shown on “Tonight” late Tuesday, Mr. Williams asked Mr. Obama whether he almost canceled his overseas trip this week “to stay and watch” Mr. O’Brien’s “first week as host of ‘The Tonight Show.’’’

Mr. Obama was fully game and, referring to Mr. O’Brien’s succession this week of the former “Tonight” host Jay Leno, joked, “This is something we discussed several times in the Oval Office, how to manage this transition between Leno and Conan. And I think he’s up to the task. But I just want him to know that there is not going to any bailout coming out from Washington if he screws it up.”

How cute. So cunning that our leader discerns such an opportunity where, by making light of an unprecedented feat of ludicrous economic tyranny that will destroy wealth and joy for generations, he can boost his pop-culture appeal and diffuse the angst of the masses.

As Ellsworth Toohey prescribed:

“Kill by laughter. Laughter is an instrument of human joy. Learn to use it as a weapon of destruction. Turn it into a sneer. It’s simple. Tell them to laugh at virtue. Don’t let anything remain sacred in a man’s soul — and his soul won’t be sacred to him. Kill reverence and you’ve killed the hero in man.”

Very seldom do I encounter excellence in-person. It’s rare to meet that individual that leaves you in solemn acknowledgment that some people do strive to summon the best within them; the type that gets so intimately lost in their work that it actually becomes an extension of their existence, under full introspective control.

On Wednesday, I met such an individual. Erin Sage, an obviously prodigenic enthusiast of photography, lent her undivided attention towards the effort of enabling two entranced parents an opportunity to etch their unparalleled era of happiness into memory. She carries an instantly conspicuous manner of warmth and familiarity that becomes insolent once you realize that you’ve just met her.

Her ability to wrangle and seize the essence of the moment demands attention. In a manner that seemed to defy all existential boundaries, she’s bent on finding the right angle, distance and mood to grab a split-second drop of life. Granted, the subject of this engagement offers little in the way of aesthetic obstacles, Erin managed to capture a perception of joy and beauty that must typically evade sensation.

This quote from The Fountainhead comes to mind:

I will indefinitely hold her work not only as a persisted tribute to the love and value that Sam adds to my life, but as a vivid reminder of what talented, driven and passionate individuals are able to achieve.