Contributed by: filbert Wednesday, March 03 2010 @ 07:16 AM CST
From The Road To Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek, 1944, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, 1994, The University of Chicago Press.
We must here return for a moment to the position which precedes the suppression of democratic institutions and the creation of a totalitarian regime. In this stage it is the general demand for quick and determined government action that is the dominating element in the situation, dissatisfaction with the slow and cumbersome course of democratic procedure which makes action for action’s sake the goal. It is then the man or the party who seems strong and resolute enough “to get things done” who exercises the greatest appeal.
Excerpted under Fair Use for purposes of non-commercial education, discussion and comment. Any transcription or typographical errors are mine.
Your right to health care is exactly the same as your right to a car, or an ice cream cone, or a shirt, or a laptop computer. You certainly have a right to obtain those things–well, for now, anyway you have a right to obtain all of those things. But nobody else has any obligation to give you any of them, and you have no right to demand at the point of a government gun that somebody else hand any of those things over to you because of your “need.” There may be people who feel that it is a moral thing to give to those less fortunate, but there is no obligation to do so–indeed, the virtue inherent in the act of giving is precisely that it is NOT an obligation. There is NO virtue in being generous with somebody else’s money, time, skills, or life. Indeed, being generous with somebody else’s money, time, skills, or life is a pretty good working definition of evil.
In a free market, you can have pretty much anything that you can afford. There is nothing magical about health care. There is nothing special about health care, other than its unique emotional hold on each and every one of us. It is just another economic good, which some people produce and other people consume–like a haircut, an airline ticket, or a meal. It’s not fair that some people can afford $200 haircuts and some people have to do it themselves in front of a mirror. It’s not fair that some people can fly first class, others have to fly on Southwest, and others can’t afford to fly at all. It’s not fair that some people can afford filet mignon and some people can’t even afford McDonald’s. Fairness is not a part of the discussion. Here’s why:
THE DEMAND FOR HEALTH CARE IS INFINITE Everybody will always want more health care, especially if they don’t have to pay for it, or even really know how much it even costs. But that’s the health care system we have built in the United States today. Nobody knows how much their health care costs. Nobody really cares, because we have separated the consumer from the cost of the good being consumed. We have removed the cost control mechanism imposed by a free and open market–which is the only fair, humane cost control mechanism we know of. The ONLY alternative to cost control via the free market is some form of Sarah Palin’s “death panels,” however cleverly and intricately they might be structured. If the free market is not allowed to impose discipline on the individual health care customer, then the only alternative is to have some arbitrary authority do it. Freedom, or control. One or the other. Choose wisely.
Central control of economies does not work. Ever. Central control is ALWAYS less efficient than a free market and central control is ALWAYS more cruel and arbitrary. The extent to which central control appears to work, is the extent to which the free market can absorb the distortions and inequities that central control introduces into the economy. But there comes a time when the free market can absorb no more interference. There comes a time when the goose that lays the golden eggs[*2] becomes too weak to lay any more. Does anybody really want to let things go the way they’re going? No more goose, no more golden eggs. Do we really want to risk killing the goose?
See, here’s the deal, people. The problem with health care is not a supply problem. It’s a demand problem. The demand has been artificially inflated due to the stupidity of government intervention, and the further stupid demogoging of the issue by vicious, cynical power-grubbing people bleating “people having a right to health care” which is utter, complete, unadulterated, evil, cruel, heartless, manipulative bullshit.
The time for choosing is now. The Democrats have chosen control over freedom. The Tea Partiers have chosen freedom over control, and are dragging the Republicans (and some Democrats) kicking and screaming to the pro-liberty position.
The Morning Whip is a (mostly) daily review of what’s out there that caught my attention, sometimes but not always posted before 11 am Central time in the U. S. of A., unless I just don’t feel like it that day, am out doing something more important or more fun, or I’ve been abducted, detained, arrested, or otherwise flummoxed by the agents of blithering idiotry.
I surf the Web, so you don’t have to! (which would be a trademark, but come on, who am I kidding?)
Contributed by: filbert Tuesday, March 02 2010 @ 07:15 AM CST
From The Road To Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek, 1944, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, 1994, The University of Chicago Press.
Just as a democratic statesman who sets out to plan economic life will soon be confronted with the alternative of either assuming dictatorial powers or abandoning his plans, so the totalitarian dictator would soon have to choose between disregard of ordinary morals and failure. It is for this reason that the unscrupulous and uninhibited are likely to be more successful in a society tending towards totalitarianism. Who does not see this has not yet grasped the full width of the gulf which separates totalitarianism from a liberal regime, the utter difference between the whole moral atmosphere under collectivism and the essentially individualist Western civilization.
Excerpted under Fair Use for purposes of non-commercial education, discussion and comment. Any transcription or typographical errors are mine.
Contributed by: filbert Monday, March 01 2010 @ 07:14 AM CST
From The Road To Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek, 1944, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, 1994, The University of Chicago Press.
Some security is essential if freedom is to be preserved, because most men are willing to bear the risk which freedom inevitably involves only so long as that risk is not too great. But while this is a truth of which we must never lose sight, nothing is more fatal than the present fashion among intellectual leaders of extolling security at the expense of freedom. It is essential that we should re-learn frankly to face the fact that freedom can be had only at a price and that as individuals we must be prepared to make severe material sacrifices to preserve our liberty. If we want to retain this, we must regain the conviction on which the rule of liberty in the Anglo-Saxon countries has been based and which Benjamin Franklin expressed in a phrase, applicable to us in our lives as individuals no less than as nations: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Excerpted under Fair Use for purposes of non-commercial education, discussion and comment. Any transcription or typographical errors are mine.
Contributed by: filbert Monday, March 01 2010 @ 05:52 AM CST
SECTION ONE: The Word:
March. The first hints of spring begin to seep into the frozen parts of the inhabited world. The world isn’t quite as cold as it has been. A season of hope. College basketball reaches its crescendo. Spring Training is in full swing. Sure, there are slush ponds and sloppy mud puddles and piles of dirty snow, melting at the sides of the roads and parking lots and sidewalks and driveways. But it’s March. Time to look forward to spring, and on to summer.
My favorite season has always been fall. But March isn’t bad. Sure, it comes in like a lamb and out like a lion–or vice versa, but the point is that there’s a lamb at one end or the other, unlike January, which is just harsh and never really very much fun, and not just because of the post-holiday depression.
So here’s to March, and the hope of better days ahead.
SECTION TWO: Things That Amuse Me: Simians and other aminals*: Polar bear is a ‘new’ species [*1] — “Polar bears may have come into existence only 150,000 years ago, when brown bears were trapped by an ice age and had to adapt quickly to survive, scientists have found.”
*Yes, I know it’s “animals,” it’s just that I always found the childhood mispronunciation really, really cute . . .
SECTION THREE: Politics: The neverending battle against blithering idiocy: People doing potentially good things (including sightings of politicians doing something less than totally idiotic): LA-SF Reality Check [*4] — Wherein lefty magazine Mother Jones suddenly realizes that heavily subsidized high speed rail makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, even as a “jobs” program.
The reality of President Obama and his entire Administration as blithering idiots: Video: Obama doesn’t know what car insurance covers [*5] — And sometimes, “blithering idiot” has meaning beyond its specialized definition here of “thinking that socialism actually works.” Obama has a long history (“I’ve visited . . . 57 states so far . . . “) of saying truly, deeply, moronic things. The guy is not by any stretch of the imagination the sharpest knife in the drawer. He just has a really smooth delivery and a fawning, protective media. Personally, I wouldn’t pick him to run my local school board, let alone the Federal Government. I certainly wouldn’t engage him as a lawyer to try to fight a traffic ticket. Democrats’ Obama bounce in California disappearing [*6]
Opposition Research: because blithering idiocy can be dangerous, especially when organized into idiotic groups with idiotic ideologies: Speech and Spending [*11] What Taxes Will States Turn to Next? [*12] — As Glenn Reynolds notes, “The notion of just spending less doesn’t even occur to them. . . .” Farrakhan Blasts “White Right” For Causing Problems For Obama [*13] — Remind me again which ethnic group voted upwards of 90% for the guy with approximately the same skin color for President? Who’s racist in America today?
The Economy (Can the blithering idiots bring down the most productive economy the world has ever seen? Yes, They Can! Will they?): Fiscal Death by Welfare [*20]
The Morning Whip is a (mostly) daily review of what’s out there that caught my attention, sometimes but not always posted before 11 am Central time in the U. S. of A., unless I just don’t feel like it that day, am out doing something more important or more fun, or I’ve been abducted, detained, arrested, or otherwise flummoxed by the agents of blithering idiotry.
I surf the Web, so you don’t have to! (which would be a trademark, but come on, who am I kidding?)
