Daniel Hannan is a wonderfully refreshing voice.

In general, Hannan is absolutely right in that we’ve abandoned the essence of America, in particular, we’ve discarded the notion and sanctity of individual rights. Rights, if revered, facilitate freedom. Freedom enables productivity. Productivity generates wealth. Wealth creates prosperity. Prosperity benefits life. To the extent that the root of this logical sequence is hampered, so each subsequent link suffers the same diminution.

Americans, in general, have never fully understood the source of this country’s greatness. None of the commonly mistaken notions; religion, race, or resources, can explain the unprecedented achievement by America. Only one concept, rights, i.e., freedom from compulsion, did and can ever facilitate the American ideal. Until our culture learns the meaning of that concept, its logical roots and obvious repercussions, the thrust of America is completely neutered - we’re running on the fumes of reason and justice, and time is running out.

Here’s another example, just as in all cases, showing the left is ideologically bankrupt.

As a result of the American economy and culture circling the drain, many citizens are fed up with the collectivist path our country has taken. Oppressive taxation, crippling regulation and the ever-growing statist cloud overcoming the US are taking their toll on individuals trying to live and prosper in the remnants of freedom. Resurrecting a pivotal link to American Revolution, citizens organized tax protests which appropriately took place on April 15th. Concerned individuals are taking an absolutely justified stand of self-preservation against an unprincipled and tyrannical government that shows no signs of letting up.

The result from our leftist media is not sincere consideration, professional discourse or any other objective commentary. Instead, acting precisely like the mouth-breathing idiots they portray all non-leftists to be, the greatest nation in the history of man is being annihilated and these anti-intellectual cheerleaders for death respond in the only way they can - by cracking ignorant wisecracks.

There is a very poignant conclusion to be drawn from this disgusting spectacle. As irrational pragmatists, leftists (altruist-collectivists) have no intellectual opposition to offer. None of their whims stand to reason, thus the ability to respond with any substantial thought is neutered. Emotional ad hominem is their only option. Adding sexual innuendo at least makes them look cool amongst their peers in addition to the primary purpose of diffusing any factually prudent discussion - nothing more than an evasive facade for changing the subject.

My current job lends itself to substantial visibility into any congressional activity pertaining to health care. I see weekly summaries listing all medically related bills. The irrational nonsense they try to pull off is remarkable.

This one is especially evil - Section 3 (a-b):
S. 623

SEC. 3. ELIMINATION OF PRE-EXISTING CONDITION EXCLUSIONS UNDER GROUP HEALTH PLANS.

(a) Application Under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974-

(1) ELIMINATION OF PRE-EXISTING CONDITION EXCLUSIONS- Section 701 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (29 U.S.C. 1181) is amended–

(A) by amending the heading to read as follows: ‘elimination of pre-existing condition exclusions’;

(B) by amending subsection (a) to read as follows:

(a) In General- A group health plan, and a health insurance issuer offering group health insurance coverage, with respect to a participant or beneficiary–

‘(1) may not impose any pre-existing condition exclusion; and

‘(2) in the case of a group health plan that offers medical care through health insurance coverage offered by a health maintenance organization, may not provide for an affiliation period with respect to coverage through the organization.’;

(C) in subsection (b), by striking paragraph (3) and inserting the following:

‘(3) AFFILIATION PERIOD- The term ‘affiliation period’ means a period which, under the terms of the health insurance coverage offered by the health maintenance organization, must expire before the health insurance coverage becomes effective.’;

(D) by striking subsections (c), (d), (e), and (g); and

(E) by redesignating subsection (f) (relating to special enrollment periods) as subsection (c).

(2) CLERICAL AMENDMENT- The item in the table of contents of such Act relating to section 701 is amended to read as follows:

‘Sec. 701. Elimination of pre-existing condition exclusions.’.

How compassionate! They want to to remove pre-existing condition exclusions for group insurance policies. Essentially, insurance companies will be required to cover you regardless of your health. If an insurer is required by force to cover any patient, they are essentially required to provide coverage that might be a guaranteed loss. Of course, they can’t operate at a loss, so they have to recoup the losses from some other avenue. That avenue is the other policy holders.

Just as the result of mandatory ER coverage increases costs, our insurance premiums will skyrocket if this repulsive bill passes. Of course the rise in costs will be attributed to “greedy” insurance companies and used to justify more regulation - typical regulatory recursion, i.e., controls breed controls.

Statists never quit and they’re attacking from every possible angle - a relentless army of irrationality. The attack in the field of medicine is especially deadly. FIRM is the organization offering the only rational mindset that will save American medicine from stagnant rot.

UPDATE: Apparently Insurance companies have see this mandate as inevitable and opted to leverage the statist force as an opportunity to cash-in. Such is the tactic of our valiant mixed-economy barons.

• Insurers offer to start charging healthy people more
• Health Insurance Industry Sells Its Soul to the Devil

Tom Sowell’s random thoughts are always worth reading.

I am so old that I can remember when music was musical.

Now that the federal government says that it will stand behind the warranties on General Motors’ automobiles, does that make you more likely or less likely to buy a car from GM? If you were a rising young executive with a promising future, would you be more likely or less likely to go to work for a company where politicians can fire you?

We have become such suckers for words that politicians can spend our tax money like a drunken sailor, provided they call it “investment.” At least the drunken sailor is spending his own money but people look down on him because he doesn’t call it “investment.”

Barack Obama seems determined to repeat every disastrous mistake of the 1930s, at home and abroad. He has already repeated Herbert Hoover’s policy of raising taxes on high income earners, FDR’s policy of trying to micro-manage the economy and Neville Chamberlain’s policy of seeking dialogues with hostile nations while downplaying the dangers they represent.

We seem to be moving steadily in the direction of a society where no one is responsible for what he himself did but we are all responsible for what somebody else did, either in the present or in the past.

You should read the whole thing.

I intended to mention this pro/con piece as a wonderful example depicting the nature of philosophical debate in this country, but it’s already been mentioned here.

I come across so many good thoughts that need to be read by as many people as possible. I don’t have time to comment on all, so I’m starting a new hit-list of worthy reads.

• Altruism: The Moral Root of the Financial Crisis - Striking at the root. If you only read one article this week, this month or this year, this should be it.
• Two More Massive Laws - More control, less freedom.
• How to Stop an Outrage - Every day I gain further knowledge of the extent to which government has invaded medicine - we’re in trouble.

Government that is…

Congress is working really hard to take government meddling in the economy to the next level.

The bill, which passed on a 247-171 vote, would give the U.S. Treasury broad powers to prohibit “unreasonable and excessive” compensation and bonuses that are not based on performance standards.

The “Pay for Performance Act of 2009″ is among a number of efforts by Congress to claw back bonuses and curb pay in the wake of public anger over recent executive bonuses at insurer American International Group, which has received a bailout worth up to $180 billion.

“The Pay for Performance Act is based on two simple concepts. One, no one has the right to get rich off taxpayer money, and two, no one should get rich off abject failure,” said one of the bill’s authors, Representative Alan Grayson, a Florida Democrat who co-authored the measure. “We should not pay an arsonist to put out his own fire, and we should not be paying an executive to ruin his own bank.”

Congress represents the pure embodiment of that which of both stipulations aim to curb! Why should politicians be exempt from these standards? Don’t worry though, the free-market republicans will stop this madness right?

“There’s no question we need more performance-based pay decisions, but the government deciding and judging the performance of employees in private companies, the secretary of the Treasury deciding whether an employee is performing? I think not,” said Representative Spencer Bachus, an Alabama Republican. “The answer is not a dramatic expansion of government control.“

In other words, “we need more government controls, but only so many new government controls.”

Just another nail in America’s coffin…

Pragmatic economics is bleeding the life out of America. Collectivist politicians have virtually free-reign to unlimited investment backed by our future productivity.

The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have spent, lent or committed $12.8 trillion, an amount that approaches the value of everything produced in the country last year, to stem the longest recession since the 1930s.

New pledges from the Fed, the Treasury Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. include $1 trillion for the Public-Private Investment Program, designed to help investors buy distressed loans and other assets from U.S. banks. The money works out to $42,105 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. and 14 times the $899.8 billion of currency in circulation. The nation’s gross domestic product was $14.2 trillion in 2008.

In their minds, there is no amount of looted wealth that is off the table. There is no political or economic effort for which they lack confidence in the American serf to cover by productive effort. If force is required, so be it.

Man’s nature requires him to think, act and maintain the results of doing so. Our tyrannical government knows too well that we only need a certain range of freedom to act within, and only to keep above a certain threshold of the productive results to ensure our likely compliance to their meddling.

As long as our leash is just long enough and they tactfully throttle or camouflage their looting, the majority of marching ants won’t revolt. So long as the majority complies, their party remains funded. Theirs is a game of control. Control the variables that influence man’s actions so that he’ll either fail to notice the attached IV, or he’ll be too busy gasping for air to remove it. The only thing that matters is that he stays alive and the blood keeps flowing.

The debt that the American government is flagrantly piling on our backs will most definitely require them to push the thresholds of statist regulations and taxation to the point where the rational segment of the population, the segment they need the most, will take reproachful offense.

When that revolt does take place, their only option will be to tighten the screws. The more they tighten, the more their house of cards will crumble. The final scene, as so brilliantly portrayed in the climax of Atlas Shrugged, will place them in a most precarious position. Their only remaining recourse to inspire productivity will be threat of death - with the ironic quagmire being obvious. Either way, the productivity fueling their existence will cease.