Proportional slavery

Are we just slaves?

No really, this is a serious question. A person can be enslaved in various ways due to their own bad choices, and of course by the choices of others. But is it possible that many of us (if not our entire nation) are for all practical purposes enslaved, but too distracted to realize it?

Now before you stop reading, let's frame the question in a slightly different context. Were the African American people in the South prior to the Civil War slaves? You can't seriously be asking that question, you must be thinking. Yes, I am asking it, although I know the answer as well as you do. Perhaps they were just "part slaves" because some of them managed to save up enough money to buy their own freedom (yes, many of them were paid). Thus, some were able to leave through the prescribed means of the system they were under. Maybe that makes them only, say, 90% slaves?

This flies in the face of reason. They were 100% enslaved, pure and simple whether they were paid or not. It is morally repugnant to argue otherwise. They did not have control over their own lives in any meaningful sense, or control over their own decisions, as their opportunities were limited artificially by their masters on purpose. Any of them caught trying to escape were returned to their enslavement and punished or even killed.

Now take a deep breath, forget for just a moment all of your preconceived notions about our own current situation, and hop on this train of thought for a little ride.

What is This Freedom You Speak of?

What does it mean to be free? Not a little bit free, but truly free? And why is freedom so important? The answer lies within the minds and hearts of every human being. While Locke and the Founding Fathers and others have done a wonderful job helping us to understand the answers, we usually need not go further than what our own conscience tells us. The meaning of freedom is strikingly simple: agency, ownership, and responsibility. But those words are too broad left alone, so let's define them further following our intuition.

To have agency is to be able to make choices without coercion. Nobody is to take away that agency from you unless you specifically harmed another's agency. In philosophical parlance, this is called violence against another individual or their natural rights, whether it is physical in nature or not. You have a fundamental, God-given right to live your life the way you see fit, so long as you do not infringe the right of others to do the same. If you do infringe someone else's right to live their life the way they see fit, that person (and society at large, and thus the government by delegation) has a legal opportunity to ensure justice is met and that you are punished accordingly. But that is the only time you may justly be deprived of your right to agency in any way (for justice's sake).

Ownership is the concept of controlling a limited, scarce resource that you have earned or intrinsically have. Among the things you automatically own are your time, your talents, and the fruit of your labor; although the latter may just be a manifestation of your time and talents. You have a right to control what you produce, and a right to control what you already legally own such as land, houses, financial assets, etc. You also have a right to enter into a transaction with anybody else (note, I said anybody) to exchange something you own for something that you want, as long as the other party in the transaction agrees. You cannot force them to agree to any terms, and they cannot force you, but you voluntarily agree together to a set of terms that are favorable to (hopefully) both parties. In such transactions of resources, information in the marketplace from yours or others' previous transactions inform the terms. This exchange forms the core of what is called a free market, and when viewed on a large economic scale it is referred to as capitalism. The free exchange of goods via contracts, and the producing of new goods by those using their rightfully owned resources is all there is to capitalism.(1) If anybody coerces you into not being able to transact the way you and another party wish to, or threatens you with violence of any kind if you do not give up some of what you own (your time, work, talents, property, etc.), then they are infringing your natural(2) right to ownership.

Responsibility at its core is the requirement that you not infringe the two basic rights of agency and ownership, and that you uphold these rights in all of their proper manifestations for others completely. Anything less is essentially advocating a form of slavery! (Let that sink in for a moment.) There are some additional responsibilities, such as a responsibility to accept the consequences of your actions. This includes receiving the application of justice. It includes a responsibility to not retaliate against someone or attempt to curb his or her use of their natural rights when they have not infringed the natural rights of others. It includes providing for any children you have; e.g. you had an opportunity and choice to engage in sexual intercourse with another willing person, but you do not have an inherent right to then avoid the consequences of doing so. As your children grow in their capacity to exercise their agency, you have a responsibility to let them actually do so and allow them to face the consequences of their actions. Of course, you should teach them as much as you can along the way so that they choose to use their agency wisely.

Are We Free Today?

The foregoing principles all make sense, and they form a simple framework against which we can decide what promotes freedom and what does not. But here is where the ears usually get plugged, when we start applying this to our current situation. Let's start with a candidate that people have accepted for far too long: income tax. There isn't a single person I know that would like to have taxes raised, or really be taxed much at all (there are those strange creatures out there who do, but they are rare). We inherently understand that taxes are bad, and we all have this awful helplessness deep down about them that they might just be immoral and not the best way to do things. However, we convince ourselves that our government wouldn't function without them and that they are somehow a necessary evil. But are they really necessary? It has been discovered that if we were to take away all of the federal personal income tax receipts from the government, and reduce government by that size, we would have a federal government about the size it was in...1999. Yes, you read that right. We could have a 1999-sized government, with zero personal income tax. Perchance it is not so necessary after all?

Individual income tax is identifiable as not a necessary evil, but it is even worse than just being unnecessary. It can be easily shown that it is a violation of property rights; it is a form of slavery. It is estimated that we individually work until around March or April every year to cover the taxes we pay that year. For those that claim you can get out of it by dropping below the poverty line, or not having a job, does that seem like much of a choice? In that state we can't live, or else we live on the dole and essentially are advocating the slavery of the rest of society to pay for us. The choice is to accept slavery either way. You may have heard some people in government refer to our tax system as voluntary. But is it really? What happens if you have income but do not pay your income tax? Eventually, you will get a notice from the IRS. If you ignore it for long they will send armed agents to your house, who will kill you if you resist, or throw you in jail if you don't resist but don't pay. So, if you don't agree to an obfuscated form of slavery, they will subject you to overt slavery and a complete loss of freedom. Oh and by the way, if you leave the country but are still a US citizen, you still owe your taxes, and they will still eventually get you. If you do a private transaction and do not pay taxes on any income, it is in the tax code that even barter of that nature is taxable on the dollar value of whatever you transacted. In practical terms there is no escape.

Another example is the use of dollars (Federal Reserve Notes) themselves. The Federal Reserve controls the money supply along with its cohorts the banks as they engage in fractional reserve lending. They have depreciated the value of the dollar by over 95% since the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. While there were financial panics before that (due to banks doing the same thing by overissuing specie!), the overall value of what people owned stayed largely stable, if not being subject to a slightly deflationary environment. Slow deflation actually rewards savers modestly, and is not to be feared. Nowadays if you save your money the Fed essentially will tax it via inflation of the money supply. What's worse is that due to the mechanics of monetary velocity, the rich and politically well-connected get the newly printed dollars first and can spend it before prices rise, and you get stuck with the bill indirectly. Your property is stolen.

No problem, let's use a different currency, you say? By law, you cannot. You are expressly forbidden to create a new currency, even one backed by gold (thus not being nearly so subject to the problem of inflation), or else the Secret Service will raid your operation and throw you in jail. Nope, only the Federal Reserve and their friends the bankers are allowed to counterfeit money, and you must accept the damage they do to your own savings and asset values.

But otherwise we still have a lot of freedom, right? It can't go too far beyond that, we might surmise. Well, let's take something seemingly very disconnected with any of this and see. You go out and buy a bottle of Sprite. You got paid yesterday, so inflation isn't an issue, and you're a poor college student who doesn't make enough money to pay taxes. (Scratch that, make it Coke because you have a project due and need to stay up working on it.) You do a quick, arms-length transaction that benefits the store owner and yourself, with no taxes involved besides sales tax, but that was voluntary on your part to purchase the soda, so that's relatively better. No problem.

Or is there no problem? Take a look at the label, and you'll notice on the ingredient list (ha! that list is there mandated by law, increasing the cost of production!) that there is no cane sugar, but instead it contains high fructose corn syrup. What has that got to do with anything? The question is why do they use the real sugar in Coke in other countries (even in Europe) but not the US? It is due to stifling regulation on the price of sugar, presumably to protect american sugar producers. All it has really done is give us Coke that doesn't taste as good, and high sugar prices, not to mention other knock-on effects of price fixing. Price fixing is inherently anti-freedom, because it ties the hands of other parties in transactions such that they can't transact the way that is in their own best interest. It inserts a third party by force of law into every transaction, who has the power to dictate terms to one or both parties. It is a form of coercion, in an area that the coercive party has no business sticking their nose.

We can find thousands upon thousands of such examples. It permeates our lives, even though it appears largely hidden from view at first. Just because we cannot see them easily does not mean the problems do not exist, or that they are not going to destroy our freedom entirely in the end. An undiscovered cancer often does not manifest any symptoms until it is too late, or nearly so. These distortions and reductions of freedom benefit a powerful few at the expense of the many.

The Curse of Collectivism

There are certain ideologies promoting the common good or doing our part, but in reality the common good is far and away best achieved in the freest society. Are there poor among us? Set up a charity, and take voluntary donations. Is there lying and fraud? Investigate, punish, and apply justice for those who have had their rights violated, but never punish a crime before it is committed.(3)

Every form of collectivism (be it corporatism/fascism, socialism, communism, chrony capitalism, and any number of other -isms) is just an immoral justification for the reduction of individual freedom; their tantalizing promise of everyone being equal in unjustifiable ways is really just a pretty face on a maggot-infested ideology that has proven to provide misery for those subject to it, time and again. Don't fall for the siren call of wealth redistribution or of giving up a little liberty for a little security. In all cases, you will effectively lose your wealth, your liberty, and your security, and be left to beg at the hands of those who you thought would be your saviors.

Proportional Slavery

Are we slaves? Maybe just 10% slaves? Maybe 30% slaves? Are we enslaved at all? If so, and we do nothing about it, are we not truly 100% slaves? Do our masters just hide that reality nicely behind a facade of conventional wisdom and public demonization of anyone who would dare contravene the status quo?(4)

Take a moment to stop and ponder this the next time you see your taxes taken out of your paycheck, or hear about government regulation and intervention either here or abroad, or about bankers and elites getting bailed out while you are still paying your taxes, or any number of other indicators that something is not quite right in the Land of the Free. If you listen closely enough, you might just hear the crack of a whip, the cocking of an oppressor's gun, or the clatter of the chains around your ankles.

And finally you will smell a hint of true freedom, coming from just past the edge of the plantation. It is within reach, if we are principled enough to obtain it.

Notes:

1 - The recent attacks on capitalism as the culprit for the current great recession completely dumbfound me. We do not have true capitalism, for starters; we have limited capitalism occuring in segments of the market despite the intervention by the government and distortions from what is now been documented as rampant fraud. Greed is not the fundamental unit of capitalism; hard work and freedom are the fundamental units. A person may be completely driven by the desire to do good and collect money to give to charity and flourish under capitalism, just like the next guy who is driven to collect money to buy a mansion. Those drives have nothing to do with capitalism.

2 - Note the word natural here; for religious folks, this is synonymous with God-given. The implication here is that these rights predate and supersede government authority. This was well understood by the Founding Fathers, who sought to codify a big giant check against the government in favor of these rights in the US Constitution in the form of the Bill of Rights.

3 - This is not to suggest you shouldn't try to stop a crime in progress. However, if someone has not committed a crime, regulations that purport to prevent crime or other "bad things" generally really are just used to provide barriers to entry in a market or cause other distortions, and they don't actually prevent the crimes very well anyway.

4 - Someone remarked the other day that they had really been bothered by President Obama's handling of dissenting views against his policies. They noted that his response is to make fun of and demean (usually subtly) any who oppose the policies he is pushing for. He is by no means alone in this behavior.

Analysis of HR 3200, the national health care bill

A few of the statements in this analysis could be construed as unneeded alarmism, but if even half of their assessment is true, this is very scary material indeed:

http://www.liberty.edu/media/9980/attachments/healthcare_overview_obama_072909.pdf

If you take a look at my last post, you'd realize that a government-sponsored health care system is fundamentally immoral due to the theft factor, and the chilling effect it has on individual liberty. However, the extent of this bill catapults it deep into the territory of medical tyranny. There is nothing positive in this bill, and a cursory reading should be enough to convince any rational human being that the total cost of medical care will not be better under this scheme. In addition, the loss of individual liberty to determine medical care decisions unfettered given the rightful resources the individual has access to will be destroyed to a very large degree.

The solution to our high cost of medical care is not more government. It is less. People think that our current medical insurance system and HMO setup is a free-market construct; it is not. Legislation in the 70's helped create HMOs, and legislation earlier than that created Medicare/Medicaid, which have had a detrimental effect on medical care costs, and have been abject failures by any cost measure.

Our insurance system is broken, because it is not insurance: does your auto insurance policy pay for oil changes, or replacing your brakes? Why not? Because then it wouldn't be insurance! There is a way to reduce the cost of medical care. Bear with me, and I'll put forward a tax-less, efficient, fair, and ultimately low-cost system that has much less bureaucracy to boot.

This goes back to simple economics. How do you get the best price for a service in the marketplace? Honest price discovery. Do we currently know how much medical services should cost (ergo do we have real price discovery)? No, we obviously don't under our current system. Normal economic transactions take place between two individual entities, with no intermediary that has the authority to tell them what they can buy or sell for. Naturally the two parties will try to maximize their end of the deal, and there is nothing immoral about that. Their backdrop is the published prices that others are paying for the same exchange, and that informs the parameters of what is acceptable. In addition, as there is more demand for the service or good, it affects the price as there is more or less competition for the same resources (services, goods). All of this helps to rapidly facilitate the discovery of what the real price for the service or good is, if left unfettered by others (third parties), such as the government (via regulation and/or price fixing) or insurance companies (attempting to do the same thing), or fraud by one of the parties. Hunting down and punishing fraud is one of the only legitimate functions of the government, and it directly helps with proper price discovery.

What we have in our health care today are two external parties inhibiting price discovery: the government, and insurance companies. For the government's part, via Medicare and Medicaid they are engaging in price fixing; and, via regulation of HMOs and insurance plans (always "for our own good, and for the consumer!") the parties' hands are tied to some extent on one side or other of medical service transactions. For the insurance companies part, aside from dealing with government regulation, they form a third party in nearly all medical transactions that inhibit price discovery by patient and doctor.

Think about it: does the average Joe really know how much he pays for medical services? He knows what his co-pays are if he has insurance. If he has no insurance, he either gets no services or goes to the ER, and may not end up paying anyway, so he doesn't know what the costs truly are there either. Because the insurance company is the intermediary, and they have the power to set the price, neither the patient nor the doctor know how much they can get for the transaction. The insurance company has a (possibly regulated) maximum they will pay for any service, and they don't necessarily publish it. The doctor has no idea what that is, but he/she knows that if they charge less than the maximum, the insurance plan will happily pay out the lesser amount. So, they charge really high rates, and the insurance company says "nope!" and gives them their internal maximum payout instead. The patient, meanwhile, has no idea what was paid, and really has no say even if they did know. They only see what their co-pays are, and what the insurance company charges in premiums that come out of their paycheck, which ultimately has nearly nothing to do with what their medical care actually costs.

Some say that supply/demand and price discovery don't apply to medical care. They argue that there will always be infinite demand for medical services. This is complete hogwash, and anyone who says it either has ulterior motives or doesn't understand economics or psychology. If the patient does not have access to the prices for their medical treatment beforehand, how can they decide whether to seek the treatment or not? The patient will always default to the maximum care, because their insurance plan costs will stay largely fixed if they do. If the doctor has no access to prices beforehand, and the patient appears to just say yes to everything, they're going to perform the maximum number of services they can justify, and charge the maximum amount for each. There is nothing immoral about this; it is just the natural result of the signals everyone is sending each other, but obviously it is horribly inefficient. The infinite demand that people argue exists only appears to exist as a distortion in the market due to a lack of price discovery. The result of inhibited price discovery is that costs automatically and naturally go to the highest amount that is affordable. That means literally that the costs would go to infinity if there was an infinite supply of money. Since there is not, it caps out when people are tapped out financially and reach their economic pain threshold.

In understanding the problem properly, the solution immediately jumps out of the page at you. The problem is not greedy doctors, or even greedy businessmen, or even illegal immigrants going into ERs and getting expensive (for us down the line) free (for them) medical care. The problem is threefold:

• Patients do not pay directly for their medical care, so they never see what they paid.
• Prices for medical care are not published beforehand; you can't know what it will cost you until after you get the service. (By the way, isn't this fraudulent?)
• There is an intermediary with nearly sole authority to set prices; the patient literally has almost no say in the matter.

The solution is simple, and we'll hit the obvious benefits afterward:

• Patients must pay directly for their medical care. They may contract with an insurance company to cover unanticipated and rare care (such as emergencies or unexpected problems like cancer), but that must be all that such a policy can cover. If they cannot afford the care, the provider has no obligation to provide the care to them, even if they will die as a result. That sounds harsh, but that is the price of freedom.
  
• Every service must have a pre-published price by the care provider (so that even emergency work is still performed in a market-controlled environment that can be contested in court), or the patient must be notified fully of costs individually before a service is rendered. As much as doctors might hate dealing with the business aspect of their practice, they must.
• Regulation must be removed that is inhibiting the use of more generics, or drugs produced in other countries, or holistic healing strategies (I'm not much for them, but people should be free to use them if they want). E.g. real competition in the drug space needs to be opened up.
  

That's it. A true free market in medical care, and catastrophic insurance only for the rare occurrences. The benefits are, again, many:

• People will begin to take care of themselves better and act like hypochondriacs less when they have to foot the bill. The demand for services will naturally be reduced to a sustainable level (and that pesky infinite demand goes out the window).
• Doctors will be forced to compete with each other, and will be forced to establish reasonable prices for their services. Doctors who are worth the money, or cost less, will be favored, bring up quality and bringing down cost overall.
• People will have the freedom to get their medication from other countries or sources, if they so choose. More competition, less fat cats on pharma street.
• If a person goes to the ER unnecessarily, and suddenly they get told what it's going to cost or are forced to foot the bill or go bankrupt, they won't come back for trivial things. Voila, fewer economic externalities.
• Doctors and patients will generate better relationships, and will tend to observe medical care from a more objective, cost-effective viewpoint. They will make better decisions, and there will be no need for government-mandated end-of-life decision management, which is incredibly scary. Instead, we will have informed decisions and people taking responsibility for their own choices. Less blame, fewer lawsuits, more efficiency, more personal health care.
• Vastly reduced bureaucracy: fewer in-network/out-of-network problems, more choices, less paperwork (other than price agreements), and less government, which means fewer taxes as well.
• More charity. When somebody really needs help, and they can't pay for it, and there is no government backstop, it is amazing how much the american people step up to the plate and help take care of it. When there is government intervention, people tend to say, "I pay my taxes, so I've already done my part." Or doctors say, "I deal with medicare and medicaid, I don't need to do anything pro-bono, the government is covering it." If they knew those things weren't there, they would, where it is at all economically viable, perform services pro-bono, or charity groups would spring up to raise money where doctors cannot afford it.

It's so simple, yet I am continually amazed at how many people do not realize that a true non-government, free-market solution will solve all of the same problems as nationalized health care, but with vastly less cost and overhead, and it retains individual liberty perfectly at the same time.

HR 3200 is and will be a complete disaster. It is not the way to fix our medical care; simple, proper economics is the way.

Vetting Political Decisions via a Framework of Liberty

How did Satan become the devil? His final mistake was that he placed a desire to have everyone do what is right above a desire to have them choose for themselves to do what is right. When they all would all be funneled through doing the right thing, he would get all of the glory. (See here for some additional detail, from the LDS book The Pearl of Great Price.)

We often can figure out what is right and wrong; we inherently know, given a sick child who requires a simple $20 medication to get on the road to recovery, that we ought to be personally ready to donate the $20 if we can. But it also really tugs at our heart strings when there are millions of these situations all across the country and we can't solve them all. We are aware of that construct called the government that could seemingly allow us to make sure the problems are rectified, by getting all of our fellow citizens on board to solve the problem together. Surely if everyone donates some, we could cover it, right?

Agency and Liberty

Agency and its sisters liberty and freedom, are among the greatest gifts that we possess as inhabitants of this planet. That we have the ability to choose our actions is perhaps the one attribute that separates us from all other beings. Agency gives us the ability to learn, to experience life, and to mold and direct our experiences. Liberty bequeaths to us personal growth, knowledge, and ultimately the ability to express love, hate, fear, faith, and true charity.

Without agency, we are nothing. There would be no point to our existence, and indeed our very existence simply wouldn't matter. Not to put too fine a point on it, but our agency is a gift that is to be defended to the point of losing our lives, even if we die only in an effort to secure or guard agency for others to exercise. There is no limit to the good that can be done with the gift of agency.

If you will hear it, we all chose agency before we started our mortal existence on our little planet. All of us have cherished it at some point in our lives; even the most insidious murderers and tyrants that have lived thrilled with the discovery that they could control their actions, and produce desired consequences from those actions when they were children. That some of us choose to do evil things with our liberty does not diminish from the goodness and wonder of liberty itself; it only shows the power it engenders.

Liberty carries with it certain conditions. You can choose your actions, but you cannot always choose the consequences of your actions (except by acting or not). If a young girl becomes sexually active, chances are she will eventually end up pregnant. If a boy decides to smoke a cigarette, he may become addicted and have a very hard time breaking the habit later.

Another condition is that we are ultimately responsible for our decisions. Often there are powerful forces that make it very hard to choose alternate actions (sometimes due to our previous choices), but nevertheless we are responsible in great measure for what we choose to do. An obvious corollary of this screams loud and clear:

We ultimately have nobody to blame but ourselves, and the sooner we accept that the sooner we can begin fixing our actions.

We've all heard the excuse, "the devil made me do it." The truth is, Satan lost the battle and he was not given the ability to coerce our every action. He is a powerful influence, but we cannot blame him. We must be prepared to take the bull by the horns, and own up to our actions. We are the masters of our own fate. This understanding allows us to find our own limits, and at what point we must begin to rely on the goodness of others to accomplish what we desire. True liberty engenders humility, and a higher likelihood of people leaning on each other in a sincere and synergistic fashion to accomplish goals for the greater good of society and the individual, without compromising individual liberty. Collectivists should be ashamed of themselves for thinking coercion via government can do better.

Finally, we must note that our agency does affect others. Our right to do something ends when we limit the agency of others where it is not justified. In other words, when we act we must consider carefully the effects that our actions have on others. We are only to act in a way that limits the agency of others when it is strictly justified (and the 'just' part of the word is key): if our neighbor murders someone else, we as a society have the responsibility to enforce consequences on our neighbor, even if that means depriving them of their liberty (as they just did the their victim). But we cannot do so until they commit the crime, and we must only do so commensurately with the crime. There is more to this simplistic view, but nonetheless the principles are true.

Government

Herein lies the great dilemma of every good person on the earth. By passing a law to get everyone to do the right thing (whatever it is we think that may be), is it really the same as if we were to try to educate everyone and convince them via the evidence and proper emotional appeal that it's a good idea? To get them to act of their own free will given the facts? These suffering people need our help, do they not, so is any degree of coercion justified?

I wish to introduce a concept that has made a deep impression on me. I will let a better man than I teach it:

Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. Government is force; like fire it is a dangerous servant -- and a fearful master.

—George Washington, 1797

So, suppose we pass a law that guarantees all the little children are taken care of by everyone contributing a little via a system of taxation. Is it the same as if they chose to help, just as you would spring to help that one little child who needed the $20 medication? The answer is a resounding no. Government is force, and it cannot be thought of rationally in any other terms. It is to be used only when force is truly justified, and the criteria for this should be very restrictive for obvious reasons.

Let's illustrate this in a small microcosm to shed some light on the issue. Suppose we have a child who is very sick, and needs the $20 of medication. You are in the room, your neighbor is in the room, and a police officer (representing the government) is also there. You don't have all $20, but you and your neighbor combined could scrounge up the cash without too much trouble. So you turn to the police officer, and instruct him (with his trusty gun at his side) to go through your wallet and your neighbor's wallet and find $10 each, and go get the medicine for the child. You and your neighbor both are not bankrupted by this, and the child is cured.

There's only one problem. Curing the child by reaching into your neighbor's wallet is theft. If you had stolen money directly from your neighbor to buy the medication with the proclamation, "it is for the greater good!" would that be okay? Note that I didn't state whether the neighbor wanted to volunteer the $10 or not. It doesn't matter. You (and the officer) have violated your neighbor's individual liberty and effectively committed theft against his will to do something seemingly benevolent. You saved a child, isn't that worth it? If you think that is worth it, then at what point do you draw the line?

The line must be drawn as soon as the choice goes beyond your own. If your neighbor murdered the child in cold blood, then the officer should arrest him and he loses his freedom as a direct consequence for doing so. But if the neighbor is otherwise not involved with the child, then he has no requirement to pay the $10. He has a moral obligation to help where he can; but the government cannot and should not enforce that, or else the original motivation (charity and love) is lost.

Consider a few of the unanticipated consequences of forcing people to help others in this manner.

1. Those who are helped become dependent on the government, and may assume that they will always be helped. They may develop an entitlement problem, and begin to demand the government solve other problems for them at the expense of others. They are less likely to find a way to fix their situation for the long run, because they know that due to the 'benevolence' of the people via the government they'll be taken care of.
2. Those who are forced to hand over money to the government may then not go out of their way to help anyone individually, even when they can, because they are "doing their part" already as, say, a taxpayer. (Yes, our income taxation system in the US is definitely forced because if you don't pay, armed officers eventually arrest you and you face still penalties and/or prison time.)
3. The helper and the helped become disconnected, and people over time lose a sense of what it means to help, who they are helping, and whether what they are doing is helping at all. Those who are helped lose a sense of gratitude, and in fact begin to view the nameless masses helping them as if they are not hurt at all by any of this.

Negative knock-on effects from government intervention always show up in the long term, especially when it boils down to a question of agency.

How to Save the World

We all have an innate desire to provide relief from pain and suffering. There is nothing wrong with this desire; in fact, it is definitely a good quality to nurture. But how we choose to do the helping is a seminal question. The right question to ask is not just, "how do we save the world?" but rather, "how do we save the world, the right way?"

Think of the US invasion of Iraq in the 2003-2010 time frame. The US invaded, toppled the government, and established a regime that is based on democratic elections and a constitution (the latter being the more important aspect, but that's a discussion for later). Our soldiers fought insurgents and others, being told and believing that they were giving freedom to the Iraqi people. Those soldiers had the best of intentions, and their hearts were not in the wrong place. However, was it right for the leaders of the US to invade Iraq, even if the only purpose was to give the Iraqi people freedom (which it certainly was not)?

You guessed it: given the principles of agency the answer is no. You cannot force liberty on other people, just like you can't force them to do good things and expect the outcome to be the same as if they chose good willingly. If all of the Iraqi people rose up in rebellion against Saddam Hussein to establish liberty, they would have won. However, if they weren't willing to fight for it themselves then we have no business forcing it on them. Forced liberty is no liberty at all. Again, a quote from the founding fathers is appropriate. The whole speech is longer, so please digest it in its entirety:

Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her [America's] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.

But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.

She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.

She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

--John Quincy Adams, July 4 1821

You very well could have the word 'she' above be replaced with 'liberty' and it would still fit perfectly because America and liberty should be synonymous. We should provide a good example, provide a convincing argument, and preach (yes, preach) liberty to all nations with a clear, unmistakable voice. We should be friends with all who will let us. But we should never coerce, we should not preemptively punish those who oppose even liberty, and we should not force our worldview on others, without violating even the core principle of liberty itself. Defending liberty means we fight for our own liberty and the liberty of anyone else who also fights for it. But those who do not value it enough to fight or work to secure it for themselves do not deserve it until they muster the desire to defend it to the death, as many of us have.

Now you know the way to save the world the right way. It is to be a good example, to be friends with all, to educate and persuade all that liberty and agency are worth living and dying for. It is to donate your own $20 to the child in need, and encourage your neighbor to do the same through all non-coercive means; but it never means to compel. It is to not shield others from the negative consequences of their actions, and it is to insist that people take as much responsibility for their actions as possible. It is to realize and teach others that liberty must be cared for and guarded vigilantly. It is to understand that our actions affect others and that our right to act unilaterally stops the moment we seriously affect the liberty of others. Saving the world even requires that we defend to the death the right of our neighbor to disagree with us, and the right of our neighbor to keep his money from that child who is sick and needs it.

It is heart-wrenching to know that some people do not choose the good with their liberty, but it is the very essence of humanity that allows us to choose the good, and along with it to be able to choose evil.

To force anyone to choose good is to destroy it. I, for one, will choose liberty even if it means that I die trying.

A Family Update

I have failed miserably at my New Year's resolution to update this blog weekly. Ah, well, with moving and being a mom and not sleeping I guess I can't blame myself.

Our family is settling in to the house we moved into. It's a month to month lease so we really don't know how long we are going to stay so we still have a lot of boxes that will stay sealed. We hope that we will be able to buy a house relatively soon, but we have to save some more money.

Miriam has enjoyed having a yard and a playground in the back. Isaac likes having plenty of space to crawl and practicing walking. Both Miriam and Isaac get into everything, which makes it very difficult for me to keep things clean or organized.

One thing I have enjoyed lately is having a double jogging stroller and a nice long walking path close by. I take the kids for a jog several times a week and I get some fresh air and exercise. Mike has been trying to get me to go to a Krav Maga class with him for some exercise. I would love to, but that means finding a babysitter. Maybe I can get the Bishop's daughter to babysit for me this summer.

Mike is always busy at work. He really likes his job and we're really glad that he has a job. I still can't convince myself to like the Bay Area. Maybe if/when the economy recovers Mike will be able to find a job in an area I actually like.

Next week is Isaac's first birthday. It's hard to believe how fast kids grow. Isaac is walking and babbling. Miriam is learning her numbers, letters, colors, etc. Hopefully I can get some more pictures and videos up. Miriam says the funniest things and Isaac is just so active.

Ron Paul Revolution

I'll write sometime soon why I like Ron Paul more and more all the time. I didn't "discover" him until after the 2008 election primaries, and I'm kicking myself for not having done so sooner.

Here are a few videos to get you started learning what kind of a guy he is. If you are curious, follow the banner on the side to the Campaign for Liberty where there is a lot more.

Rain, rain and potty training

It's been raining a lot lately here in the Bay Area the past week. It's been raining all day today. I really like the rain and if I didn't have kids I would probably be out dancing in the rain. Miriam might like dancing in the rain, but Isaac would scream bloody murder.

I figured that rain would prevent me from taking Miriam outside much I would try to do something productive with her indoors. . . . . potty training. I helped to potty train an autistic preschooler when I was in college so I figured this would be a snap. Miriam has actually done pretty well, but I think all the books that claim you can potty train your child in just one day are full of it. Miriam has no problem going "pee pee" in the potty, especially since she gets M&Ms when she goes. She just doesn't always tell me when she needs to go. Good thing Huggies invented pull-ups.

Today we had regional conference. It was broadcast to our building. There were a lot of good messages. One that stuck out in my mind (probably because it was "meant" for me) was what Elder Wickman said about living in California. He talked about how bad things have happened or are happening here in California, but that doesn't mean the saints should just pick up and leave. That seemed to be the theme of the conference. Building Zion where one is. My husband had to kind of poke me about this. I reminded him that living somewhere and trying to make the most of it doesn't mean I have to like the place I'm living.

I have to be honest, California has some really cool places to visit. Key word here: VISIT. I really don't like a lot of aspects of living here. I don't want to raise my family in the Bay Area. I've heard a lot of people talk about how wonderful San Francisco is. I've visited San Fran twice. It's a pretty city and a good place to visit. What most people don't understand is that San Francisco isn't all of the Bay Area. There are a lot of nice places to live here, but they are really expensive and most of the schools here are gang infested so even if we were to find a nice place to live the chances of us being near really good schools is slim.

I've realized how lucky I was to grow up in Centerville. I know that Utah has it's issues, but when I was growing up Utah was a really nice place. People here in California have such low standards sometimes. I thought that maybe I was really picky when it came to housing, schools, quality service, etc. I think it's more that I grew up in an area where people took care of their houses, I had good teachers in public schools, and most of the people I interacted with when it came to service were pretty happy, which is defnitely not the case here.

This week I need to start de-junking my house. We will be moving in about a month and I'm determined to only box up and take what we use, will use, and have used in the past 2 years. It's too bad any time I start de-junking things Miriam finds some object to get attached to. Two-year-olds are so funny sometimes.

Bailouts: Recursive Loop Spending

This post is inspired by a challenge from Stewart Feil, who gave me simply the title and wanted to see what I would write when I looked at it.

Bailouts are more like the inadvertent governmental way of cornering markets, making the government the 'only' market for something. This happens because once the government starts buying something (shares in a company above price, long end of the treasury curve, etc.), everyone will essentially hold out to sell to the government, so as to get the "screw the taxpayer" price. Bailouts also have the effect on the receivers of holding risky behavior in esteem, and the effect on the rest of the market of increasing mistrust.

One bailout begets another; or, at least it does if you don't realize your philosophy completely sucks, and that you can't out-maneuver mathematics. It softens, widens and deepens the collapse of debt default into a down-trending, see-saw shape. The default has to happen to relieve the exponential growth in debt, but bailouts distort and prolong the process. They introduce mistrust in the market environment, destroying the meaning of prices. Many groups (from the porn industry, to autos, to homebuilders, to banks) demand a bailout, and everyone else waits to buy because they don't know who is going to get favored next. Bailouts ultimately drag out the eventual re-establishment of a solid bottom, which is necessary for true, proper linear economic growth from real production.

The other problem with bailouts is that, to be blunt, it's like trying to treat a burn victim with a blowtorch. We have a huge debt problem. Debt is defaulting, causing total money/credit to contract (read: deflation) back to sustainable levels. This *must* happen, because banks and the Fed serially blew bubbles in the market to just kick the can down the road, and the can was getting bigger, and bigger. Bailouts of necessity require an increase in debt or a decrease in savings, which is precisely the problem that got us here in the first place. And, once you have a few patrons addicted to debt, they don't get broken of the habit without some really bad hangovers, and have to fall on their face a few times before they realize you are serious about cutting them loose. This is as true of corporations as it is of individual people. The longer you go giving out bailouts, the harder it will be to cut off the freeloaders later, and so it goes until your hand is forced. In the meantime, you will have done yourself likely serious harm in terms of solvency. There is no "right amount" of capital to give out that will turn a recession around; companies, and people, are black holes when it comes to money. Those who manage it well don't need bailouts, even when they are bankrupt, and those who don't will never manage it well even if they get bailed out. What's even worse, is the government is bailing firms out with *our* money, not theirs. See the following for a funny, but accurate depiction of what is going on:

http://patrick.net/housing/contrib/Fannie.jpg

Recursive bailouts are predicated on the people who have the power to give the money out either ignoring, or not understanding these simple truths. The average person, and thus the average company, is not so unlike a homeless guy that you give $4 million. Generally speaking, he'll blow it in no time and not be better off in the long run. If you think that means you just didn't give him enough, then you are throwing good money after bad and are a complete fool.

The parallels to what our government is doing are quite obvious.

Sick of sickness

This week our whole family has had to deal with sickness. First Miriam came down with a cold, then I got it, then Isaac, and yesterday Mike succumb to the nasty virus. Being home sick with two sick kids has been a pain. I barely get enough sleep as it is and then to be getting up in the night made it really hard. Poor Mike has had to deal with a very grumpy wife.

I usually don't let Miriam watch much TV, but this past week we probably watched The Little Mermaid and Curious George like 3 times each. I'm hoping the weather is good this week so we can get out and about. I'm really sick of being inside for days at a time. I was glad to go to church today with Miriam because that meant I got to leave the house! :)

Since we've been sick this week we haven't done anything really interesting. Valentine's Day is coming up and so is my birthday. We'll see if Mike remembers to get me anything for either of those days.

Maybe I'll have something interesting to write later this week. I'm posting a little video clip of Miriam and Isaac having fun despite being sick.

States' Rights

Over the last 100 years or so, we have seen a steady slide away from Constitutional principles in the United States toward a huge, bloated, powerful central government. I need to write up a post some day on the government's handling (and complicity) in the Great Depression as an example of what groundwork was laid, but suffice it to say most government programs and legislation we have these days have no basis in the US Constitution whatsoever.

But, we have some legislators that are starting to get brave. This is a wonderful sign that the pressure buildup is finally starting to make people motivated. Consider this house resolution in New Hampshire, to be voted on in a couple of days in committee:

New Hampshire to Vote on putting the federal government in its place

Please, please read this in its entirety. It is a wonder to behold. I really, really hope this is passed, and that other states follow suit as soon as possible. Here is a small snippet to get your toes wet with excitement:

That the Constitution of the United States, having delegated to Congress a power to punish treason, counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States, piracies, and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations, slavery, and no other crimes whatsoever; and it being true as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the Constitution having also declared, that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people,” therefore all acts of Congress which assume to create, define, or punish crimes, other than those so enumerated in the Constitution are altogether void, and of no force; and that the power to create, define, and punish such other crimes is reserved, and, of right, appertains solely and exclusively to the respective States, each within its own territory...

And another:

That any Act by the Congress of the United States, Executive Order of the President of the United States of America or Judicial Order by the Judicatories of the United States of America which assumes a power not delegated to the government of United States of America by the Constitution for the United States of America and which serves to diminish the liberty of the any of the several States or their citizens shall constitute a nullification of the Constitution for the United States of America by the government of the United States of America. Acts which would cause such a nullification include, but are not limited to:

I. Establishing martial law or a state of emergency within one of the States comprising the United States of America without the consent of the legislature of that State.

II. Requiring involuntary servitude, or governmental service other than a draft during a declared war, or pursuant to, or as an alternative to, incarceration after due process of law.

III. Requiring involuntary servitude or governmental service of persons under the age of 18 other than pursuant to, or as an alternative to, incarceration after due process of law.

IV. Surrendering any power delegated or not delegated to any corporation or foreign government.

V. Any act regarding religion; further limitations on freedom of political speech; or further limitations on freedom of the press.

VI. Further infringements on the right to keep and bear arms including prohibitions of type or quantity of arms or ammunition

A return to smaller, Constitutional government and less meddling in our markets would restore confidence, freedom, reduce debt, relieve the tax burden on individuals and businesses, and probably pull us out of our current recession (or, should I say, depression?) very quickly. More on that later. But the above resolution is rather self-explanatory, and stands on its own two feet. It takes a bold stance, even talking about nullification of the federal government if they overstep their bounds again. I think the last time our country talked about nullification was before the Civil War.

Update: Arizona seems to be following suit.

Update 2: Oklahoma has also already done this, despite a media blackout.

Update 3: And, at least one more brewing. This one is from Missouri, and is more limited, stating Constitutional limits urging the federal government to reject FOCA legislation (and FOCA is a horrid bill). There are also rumblings of similar happenings in Montana, and news from the last decade of Kansas and Texas making similar declarations.

Update 4: Now they're rolling in! Washington State is joining the fray, as is Montana, and Michigan (see House concurrent resolution 4).

New Year's Resolution

Since many of my family and friends have blogs I decided to try doing this whole blog thing. I actually had a New Year's resolution to blog regularly. Well, I'm a month late, but better late than never eh?

I'm usually pretty good at journal writing, but I'm pretty bad at emailing people and giving updates on my life. I'm sure some of my family and friends will like reading this blog because I will eventually post pictures. Since my husband and I share this blog there will probably be quite a mix of posts.

I guess I'll start by giving a brief update on events in our family. Mike and I currently live in Hercules, CA and are going to have to move because our landlord wants to unload the house. Luckily we're just moving across town. The house is bigger and has a yard, but it's going to cost quite a bit more. It's owned by a woman who used to be in our ward. One advantage of renting the house is that the contract is month-to-month (also a reason the rent is higher).

The lease on the house we're currently in ends in March and we were planning on going month-to-month in order to take our time and find a house to buy. House prices here are still pretty high, but still dropping so we don't really want to buy now because 1) I doubt we'd get approved for a loan 2) We don't want to be losing value in a house we buy now because prices are still dropping and 3) We haven't found a place that we really like. I personally don't want to buy a house in the Bay Area because I don't want to stay here for an extended period of time. I've met a lot of really good people here, but I really don't want to raise my children here. Lucky for me my children are still pretty young.

Miriam is almost 2 1/2. We've half-heartedly started potty training. She was doing well for a while and then all of a sudden decided she didn't want to do what we want her to. She's really funny though. She talks all of the time and is always insisting that she do everything. She's usually pretty good with Isaac, although she thinks that all of her toys are hers and all of Isaac's toys are hers.

Isaac is about 8 1/2 months old. He's crawling really well. He pulls himself up to a stand and walks next to the couch. The other day we had him hold on to a train that Miriam inherited. It's one of those Thomas the Tank engines that children can scoot around on and it has all sorts of buttons to push that make train sounds. Anyway, we had Isaac hold on to the train and he started pushing it and walking with it. He tips the train over sometimes, but it might end up being a good thing for him to use to practice walking.

Mike is really busy at work. His company hit a rough patch a few weeks ago, but there are other projects that they are getting awarded, so things are looking good. We think Mike's job is pretty safe, but we're still going to save money just in case.

I have been busy with the kids and trying to de-junk the house. I'm trying to get into an exercise routine and a routine with the kids so I can have some time to myself. I'm thinking about signing up for a class so that my brain doesn't go to mush.

Last week was Mike's birthday. His parents came down to babysit so we could go to dinner. They ended up getting here a little late so all we got to do was go to dinner. It was nice to go somewhere without kids. It had been a long time since we had been on a date. Hopefully after we move we'll be able to find a babysitter and go on more dates.

Anyway, I have realized that this is a very long winded entry. Hopefully I will get in the habit of doing this and post some pictures.