'What You're Left With Is Libertarianism'

Red Eye host Greg Gutfeld on what guys like to read, what meth addicts do to toasters, and why liberals and conservatives are so annoying

Katherine Mangu-Ward

Insomniacs who channel surf to Fox News at 3 a.m. may think they have drifted off into a dirty, hilarious febrile dream. Instead of perky anchors and partisan shouters working over the headlines of the day, a pug-faced ne’er-do-well named Greg Gutfeld leads a motley crew of comics, C-list celebrities, and occasional reason editors through a running news-of-the-weird joke fest covering (in no particular order) free markets, unicorns, drug legalization, very attractive women, and very gay sex. Airing since February 2007, Red Eye w/Greg Gutfeld is just the latest stop in Gutfeld’s checkered career.

In 1987 Gutfeld took his first journalistic job, somewhat unconventionally for a Berkeley graduate, at the conservative American Spectator, running errands for the magazine’s famously erratic editor in chief, R. Emmett Tyrell. After a failed stint as a screenwriter, Gutfeld got a job at the health-oriented lifestyle magazine Prevention, where he started drinking and drugging at a prodigious rate. Gutfeld went on to edit the lads-and-abs magazines Men’s Health (where he was fired for making fun of Girl Scouts, cat lovers, and his boss), Stuff (where he was fired for an incident involving several midgets for hire at a publishers’ conference), and finally the British edition of Maxim, where he hung his hat while writing Lessons From the Land of Pork Scratchings: A Miserable Yank Discovers the Secret of Happiness in Britain (Simon & Schuster). Gutfeld has written “traitor” columns for women’s magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and Mademoiselle, telling women what men really think. He claims to have been rejected for a job at reason in 1988.

In 2005 Gutfeld gained a new audience by writing satirical, liberal-mocking posts at The Huffington Post (sample line: “Is Al Franken patenting the pubic hair and Elmer’s glue cure for baldness, or is he just keeping the idea to himself?”). This helped lead him to his current gig, where in addition to hosting the hour-long Red Eye, he writes the Daily Gut blog. The unifying theme throughout his career has been boobs, as in both breasts and morons. Another theme to his jobs: Gutfeld was fired or forced to resign in disgrace from virtually all of them.

Associate Editor Katherine Mangu-Ward spoke with Gutfeld on stage at Reason Weekend in Orlando, Florida, in April.

reason: Describe the evolution of your political outlook.

Greg Gutfeld: As a teenager, I was a liberal. It helped me in school. Where I went to school, if you collected signatures for the nuclear freeze, you got extra credit. I realized the more you seemed to care about something, the more the teachers cared about you and your friends. If you share the liberal assumptions, you don’t have to think too much about it.

I thought that was great because it really helped me with grades, but after a few debates in school where I actually had to think about things, I realized I was a complete fraud. I started to re-examine myself when I went to Berkeley. It was a really bad idea. It was just walking around with a target on your back.

I became a conservative by being around liberals and I became a libertarian by being around conservatives. You realize that there’s something distinctly in common between the two groups, the left and the right; the worst part of each of them is the moralizing. On the left, you have people who want to dictate your behavior under the guise of tolerance. Unless you disagree with them. Then the tolerance goes out the window. Which kind of negates the whole idea of tolerance. That’s the politically correct moralizing. Then when you become a conservative, the other kind of moralizing comes from religion. But if you remove both of those from the equation, what you’re left with is libertarianism.

From the right, you’ve got free markets. From the left, you have free minds. To me, that’s the only sensible direction. As you grow older, you kind of end up there. Especially if you drink and do a lot of drugs.

reason: Speaking of which, let’s talk about your editorship of Men’s Health.

Gutfeld: I was the only editor of any health magazine that did a feature on how smoking is good for you.

Actually, one of my primary interviewees was Jacob Sullum from reason. He turned me on to all these tobacco companies that were actually doing amazing research on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. But nobody in the media would cover it because smoking is bad. I would get all these amazing medical journals at Men’s Health, and I loved them mainly for the weird pictures that I would copy and send out to my friends, enlarged arms and weird faces. I believe I was the original Internet.

I read a lot of this passive-smoking stuff, and I realized it was just bullshit. What they’re trying to do is create science to legislate. I wanted to write about this, and I’d just become editor of Men’s Health. When you get a job like that, you’re supposed to do the right thing. I did the wrong thing.

The article I wrote was called “I Smoke and I Work at Men’s Health.” We recreated a Parliament ad with me in the middle smoking. It was really cool and wonderful. I interviewed every satanic person in the tobacco industry and cited their science. It was a fantastic article, and it dropped like a stone in journalism. People just hated it. But I couldn’t help it, because this is real health journalism. Once they stop demonizing substances, they’re going to find out that these things can actually help people.

Health editors are generally very miserable people. They constantly think there’s something wrong with themselves. Meanwhile, they hate pharmaceutical companies.

Here are companies that have to bend over backwards to tell you what’s wrong with their product. Those commercials, 90 percent of the commercials are them telling you not to buy it. Meanwhile, health editors are lying to you. They’re telling you that New Age practices work. So you have these people that are making fun of drug companies who are liars, and the drugs companies that can’t afford to lie. I realized that the pharmaceutical companies to me were bigger than the space program. They spend billions of dollars on tiny little things that change your life, and no one gives them credit for it.

Men’s Health is where I started to get very pro-business. Like, you know what? Corporations are not these evil monoliths that they depicted in Michael Clayton. They’re just groups of people who work really hard to create good things that make our lives better, and they’re treated like crap by editors who are paranoid weirdos.

reason: When I was on Red Eye, we talked about some findings about marijuana and life extension. It’s not just the big pharma drugs that can help people, right?

Gutfeld: Yeah. And I won’t just say marijuana. I’ll say Ecstasy, acid, cocaine. People take these things for the sake of oblivion, but they also work. If you treat them like any other substance, you can actually derive what makes them work and turn them into things that help you. Pot helps people who are in pain. There are studies that show that Ecstasy helps heal problem marriages.

READ MORE AT REASON

Ben Franklin's Speech to the Constitutional Convention - September 17, 1787

As recorded by James Madison, the following is Ben Franklin's speech to the Constitutional Convention. Ben Franklin was to weak to give the speech so he had fellow Pennsylvanian James Wilson deliver the speech for him.

Mr. President

I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them: For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. Most men indeed as well as most sects in Religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them it is so far error. Steele a Protestant in a Dedication tells the Pope, that the only difference between our Churches in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrines is, the Church of Rome is infallible and the Church of England is never in the wrong. But though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as of that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain french lady, who in a dispute with her sister, said "I don't know how it happens, Sister but I meet with no body but myself, that's always in the right — Il n'y a que moi qui a toujours raison."

In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other. I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution. For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the Builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best. The opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the public good. I have never whispered a syllable of them abroad. Within these walls they were born, and here they shall die. If every one of us in returning to our Constituents were to report the objections he has had to it, and endeavor to gain partizans in support of them, we might prevent its being generally received, and thereby lose all the salutary effects & great advantages resulting naturally in our favor among foreign Nations as well as among ourselves, from our real or apparent unanimity. Much of the strength & efficiency of any Government in procuring and securing happiness to the people, depends, on opinion, on the general opinion of the goodness of the Government, as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its Governors. I hope therefore that for our own sakes as a part of the people, and for the sake of posterity, we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this Constitution (if approved by Congress & confirmed by the Conventions) wherever our influence may extend, and turn our future thoughts & endeavors to the means of having it well administred.

On the whole, Sir, I can not help expressing a wish that every member of the Convention who may still have objections to it, would with me, on this occasion doubt a little of his own infallibility, and to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument.

Let The Individual Live Free

September 12, 2009

Dear Editor:

As we continue to face a difficult economy, I feel there are a number of things all Americans should be asking themselves: as an individual, are YOUR family, job, healthcare, and retirement truly matters of national importance?

If so, then our present system and our present course may well be appropriate. However, in this case, if our economy is to survive, there will need to be greatly increased federal influence and control in all these areas.

If not then we ALL need to be taking back more control in these areas of our lives. In this case we must greatly reduce many areas where the federal government influences the economy, as it is nearly impossible for an individual to plan in these areas when faced with frequent, numerous, and sudden changes in tax policies and regulations combined with the prolonged periods of inflation and deflation that we have seen over the last hundred years.

Most of all, the fluctuating inflation resulting from a currency with no stable backing, where it is possible to simply print more “dollars” as policy or “need” indicate (known as “counterfeiting” if done privately) make it difficult to make long term investment plans, whether for business, retirement, or home purchase.

If you believe this, then it is time to return the focus of the federal government to national defense/security, foreign relations, and interstate commerce. Let it focus on getting these things right and let us live our individual lives as we see fit.

Sincerely,

Richard J. Davis

Libertarian for Congress

www.davis4congress.com

rjdavislp@gmail.com

Bill Buzzell's Sunday Opinion

by Bill Buzzell

The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775 - they've had 234 years to get it right; it is broke, and even though heavily subsidized, it is not able to compete with private sector FedEx and UPS services.

Social Security was established in 1935 - they've had 74 years to get it right; it is broke.

Fannie Mae was established in 1938 - they've had 71years to get it right; it is broke.

Freddie Mac was established in 1970 - they've had 39 years to get it right; it is broke.

Together Fannie and Freddie have now led the entire world into the worst economic collapse in 80 years.

The War on Poverty was started in 1964 - they've had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our hard earned money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor"; it hasn't worked.

Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965 - they've had 44 years to get it right;they are both broke; and now our government dares to mention them as models for all US health care.

AMTRAK was established in 1970 - they've had 39 years to get it right; last year they bailed it out as it continues to run at a loss!

This year, a trillion dollars was committed in the massive political payoff called the Stimulus Bill of 2009; it shows NO sign of working; it's been used to increase the size of governments across America , and raise government salaries while the rest of us suffer from economic hardships. It has yet to create a single new private sector job.

Our national debt projections (approaching $10 trillion) have increased 400% in the last six months.

Cash for Clunkers" was established in 2009 and went broke in 2009 - - after 80% of the cars purchased turned out to be produced by foreign companies, and dealers nationwide are buried under bureaucratic paperwork demanded by a government that is not yet paying them what was promised.

So with a perfect 100% failure rate and a record that proves that each and every "service" shoved down our throats by an over-reaching government turns into disaster, how could any informed American trust our government to run or even set policies for America's health care system - - 17% of our economy?

Maybe each of us has a personal responsibility to let others in on this brilliant record before 2010, and then help remove from office those who are voting to destroy capitalism and destroy our grandchildren's future.

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people under the pretence of taking care of them." Thomas Jefferson


"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong ... somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises ... I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... And an enormous debt to boot!"
Henry Morganthau, FDR's Treasury Secretary In a speech to Congress in May, 1939
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When Compassion is Cruel

Justice demands that killers serve out their full sentences

Steve Chapman

People don't always get what they deserve in this world, so it is gratifying to see when someone does. It happened Wednesday when a California parole board insisted that Susan Atkins, a 61-year-old amputee with incurable brain cancer, live her few remaining months in prison rather than the embrace of her loved ones.

This may sound like pointless excess inflicted on someone whose crime, committed 40 years ago, is ancient history. But even to mention Atkins without first mentioning her victims is an affront. In 1969, she repeatedly thrust a knife into an innocent woman who was eight and a half months pregnant, killing her and her unborn child.

It's a crime that might be forgotten except that Atkins was a member of Charles Manson's murderous cult. Her victim, actress Sharon Tate, stabbed 16 times, was one of seven people slaughtered in Los Angeles in a two-night spree that Manson, insanely, thought would ignite a massive race war.

Atkins and her co-defendants were convicted and sentenced to die, but her sentence was reduced to life in prison when the state supreme court abolished capital punishment in 1972. Her illness served as grounds to ask the parole board for "compassionate release" so she could peacefully expire outside of prison.

Even her prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi, endorsed the idea. "She's already paid substantially for her crime, close to 40 years behind bars," he told The Los Angeles Times. "She has terminal cancer. The mercy she was asking for is so minuscule."

But the parole board unanimously refused. No doubt the board members recalled that in a 1993 parole hearing, Atkins acknowledged that when she had her own opportunity to grant clemency, she chose not to. Tate begged Atkins to spare her baby, to no avail.

"Compassionate release" already has a bad name in this country because it was the basis for Scotland's decision to free the only person convicted in the 1988 airline bombing over Lockerbie, which killed 270 people. Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was serving a life sentence but, afflicted with terminal prostate cancer, was sent home to Libya to live out his remaining time on Earth.
READ MORE REASON

Gun Owners' Next Victory in D.C.

by Robert A. Levy

The Supreme Court, in District of Columbia v. Heller, declared that Washington's 32-year ban on all functional firearms violated the Second Amendment. Justice Antonin Scalia's majority opinion, however, applied only to possession of guns in the home. The court did not address, and was not asked to address, firearms carried outside the home. That's the issue posed in a new lawsuit against the District by Tom Palmer (disclosure: my colleague at the Cato Institute) and four other plaintiffs — represented by Alan Gura, the lawyer who successfully argued Heller before the court.

After Heller, the District relaxed its ban on residents seeking "to register a pistol for use in self-defense within that person's home." But D.C. law still states that "[n]o person shall carry within the District of Columbia either openly or concealed on or about their person, a pistol, without a license." Currently, the city affords no process by which to issue such a license. A first violation of the carry ban is punishable by a fine of up to $5,000 and imprisonment for up to five years.

Does the Constitution mandate that the nation's capital allow firearms to be carried outside the home? The right to bear arms, the court said in Heller, is an "individual right unconnected to militia service." To "bear" means to "carry." More specifically, when used with "arms," the opinion said, "bear" means "carrying for a particular purpose — confrontation." Nothing in that formulation implies a right that can be exercised only within one's home.

ndeed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, although she dissented in Heller, cited Black's Law Dictionary to suggest in a prior opinion that the Second Amendment entails a right to "wear, bear, or carry ..... upon the person or in the clothing or in a pocket, ..... armed and ready ..... in a case of conflict with another person." That language, says Michael O'Shea in the West Virginia Law Review, "reads like a literal description of the practice of lawful concealed carry, as engaged in by millions of Americans in the forty-eight states that authorize the carrying of concealed handguns." Read More

THE NEXT GREAT LEAP BACKWARDS FOR CONSUMER "RIGHTS"

George Will is Right

It's time for the U.S. to leave Afghanistan

David Harsanyi | September 2, 2009

This week, prominent conservative pundit George Will wrote a column advocating the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. His piece, not surprisingly, was met with instantaneous anger, disdain, and derision from most of the right.

"But let's be honest," wrote noted neoconservative William Kristol on The Washington Post's blog. "Will is not calling on the United States to accept a moderate degree of success in Afghanistan, and simply to stop short of some overly ambitious goal. Will is urging retreat, and accepting defeat."

Tossing around the words "retreat" and "defeat"—or, as one critic more creatively asserted, Will's column "could have been written in Japanese aboard the USS Missouri"—is the rhetorical equivalent of the vacuous "chicken hawk" charge leveled at any civilian who supports military action. It's emotive and hyperbolic, and I probably have used it myself, but it's not an effective argument.

Judging from their harsh reaction to Will, it's not clear when, if ever, some conservatives believe the U.S. should withdraw from Afghanistan. Even less clear is how the victory narrative is supposed to play out. Does this triumphant day arrive when every Islamic radical in the region has met his virgins? If so, after eight years of American lives lost, the goal seems farther away than ever.

Or is victory achieved when we finally usher this primitive tribal culture, with its violent warlords and religious extremism, from the eighth century all the way to modernity? If so, we're on course for a centuries-long enterprise of nation building and baby-sitting, not a war. The war was won in 2002.

If the goal is to establish a stable government to fill the vacuum created by our ousting of the Taliban and al-Qaida, we've done quite a job. Most Americans can accept a Marine's risking life and limb to safeguard our freedoms. But when that Marine is protector of a corrupt and depraved foreign parliament—one that recently legalized marital rape and demands women ask permission from male relatives to leave their homes—it is not a victory worth celebrating. READ MORE REASON

Reason.tv: "Gallo Be Thy Name"—Ernest & Julio as thugs, winemaking entrepreneurs, and great Americans

Rethinking the Good War

by Laurence M. Vance

"Rarely in history has a war seemed so just to so many." ~ Michael Bess

"Participation in the war against Hitler remains almost wholly sacrosanct, nearly in the realm of theology." ~ Bruce Russett

On September 1, 1939 – 70 years ago – Germany attacked Poland and officially began World War II. Although over 50 million people died in the war – including 405,000 Americans – it is considered to be the Good War. The fact that most of deaths were on the Allied side (the "good" side), the majority of those killed were civilians, hundreds of millions were wounded – including 671,000 Americans – and/or made refugees, homeless, widows, or orphans, hundreds of billions of dollars worth of property was destroyed, hundreds of billions of dollars more were wasted on armaments, and untold millions underwent an incomprehensible amount of suffering, misery, and loss doesn’t seem to matter either. World War II is still universally recognized as the Good War.

How is it possible to make such a description of such carnage on a grand scale?

As John V. Denson explains in his essay "Franklin D. Roosevelt and the First Shot" in his book A Century of War: Lincoln, Wilson, and Roosevelt:

Part of the mythology that surrounds this war is that it was the "last good war." It was a "just" war because it was defensive. Despite President Roosevelt’s supreme efforts to keep America neutral regarding controversies in Europe and Asia, the Japanese launched an unprovoked surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, thereby "forcing" America into the fray. It was also a "noble" war because America fought evil tyrannies known as Nazism in Germany and fascism in Italy and Japan.

From the American point of view, World War II is basically considered to be the Good War for two reasons: Pearl Harbor and Hitler.

But setting aside for a moment the facts of Roosevelt’s duplicity and culpability, as well as the U.S. provocation of Japan: Was it necessary for 405,000 American soldiers to die to avenge the 2,400 (1,177 were from one ship, the USS Arizona) who were killed at Pearl Harbor? Was it moral to incinerate hundreds of thousands of civilians in Japanese cities because Japan bombed the Pearl Harbor Naval Base, a military target? And setting aside for another moment the folly of U.S. intervention in World War I, which prevented a dictated peace settlement and paved the way for the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles, thus facilitating the rise of Hitler: Was it necessary that tens of millions were slaughtered to prevent Hitler from slaughtering millions? Was it wise to join forces with a brutal dictator like Stalin, who had already killed millions, with the result that he enslaved half of Europe under communism?

It is time to rethink the Good War. READ MORE AT LEW ROCKWELL

Circumcision for All; Free Choice for None

by Stephanie R. Murphy

I was shocked, surprised, and flabbergasted to hear it. I’m sure that you'll never believe it, either. The federal government is – get this, readers – butting into your most personal and private business.

OK, you’ve caught me in a rare moment of sarcasm. Maybe I wasn't really that surprised. After all, government bureaucrats attempt to control what types of substances you put into your body, what kind of work you do with your body, and even how you can legally dispose of your body after death; it makes perfect sense that they would also scramble for power over what parts of your body should remain attached. Yes, that’s right. The CDC is now considering a campaign for universal circumcision in the US.

The reason for pushing this one-size-fits-all policy stems from the results of several studies, all done in Africa, which have demonstrated the benefits of male circumcision for reducing the transmission of HIV.

The studies on circumcision and HIV transmission are very interesting. They are large, randomized, controlled trials; the methodology is solid. They show, on average, a 40–60% reduction in the risk of a circumcised, HIV negative man contracting the virus from an HIV positive woman, as compared to an uncircumcised man. The precise mechanism of circumcision’s protective effect is unknown. There are many potential explanations, none of which are mutually exclusive. First, the foreskin has a relatively high population of cells that are receptive to being infected by HIV. Second, it acts as a reservoir which may trap infected secretions. Third, the foreskin has a higher propensity to ulcerate (become scraped) and become infected with other sexually transmitted infections that cause open sores. It seems that removing the foreskin also removes several potential avenues for HIV entry into the body.

However, when considering the benefits of circumcision, there are some significant caveats. For one, circumcision is not a panacea; it does not completely prevent transmission of HIV, it just lowers the probability that a man will contract the virus during any given sexual encounter with an HIV positive woman. It should be noted that these studies only examined the effect of circumcision on transmission of the virus from an HIV positive woman to an HIV negative man. While this is a relatively common scenario in Sub-Saharan Africa, HIV epidemiology in the US is different. Overall rates of infection are lower. Also, HIV in the US is relatively more common among men who have sex with men (MSM). There is no evidence that circumcision protects against HIV acquisition in MSM. Circumcision also does nothing to protect anyone against acquiring HIV via bloodborne routes, such as sharing needles with an HIV positive person. It should go without saying that men can protect themselves from acquiring HIV in other ways besides getting circumcised, such as practicing safe(r) sex and avoiding intravenous drug use. These methods are much more reliable than the 40 – 60% risk reduction conferred by circumcision.

READ MORE AT LEW ROCKWELL

RON PAUL AUGUST 26, 2009 TED KENNEDY'S DEATH MAY BE USED TO PUSH HEALTHCARE

Government Destruction Tour: Detroit

Missouri LP to testify at MIAC hearing

From the Missouri LP:

Missouri Libertarian Party Vice Chair Cisse Spragins will be testifying at a Missouri House of Representatives Interim Committee on State Intelligence Analysis Oversight public hearing August 31st in Grandview, MO.

In March, a "Strategic Report" on "The Modern Militia Movement" written by the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) was leaked to the press.

The memo claimed that membership in, among other groups, the Libertarian Party and/or the display of what it calls “political paraphernalia” in support of the party or its 2008 presidential nominee (former US Congressman Bob Barr) could be an indicator that someone is involved in a “militant militia”.

The memo was retracted in late March and Department of Public Safety (DPS) Director John Britt issued apologies for the report’s reference to specific Presidential candidates, including Libertarian Bob Barr and Republican Ron Paul, and for the references to specific political organizations, including the Libertarian Party and the Campaign for Liberty. Van Godsey, the Director of MIAC who signed off on the report was reassigned.

By working closely with key lawmakers and continuing to apply pressure, the Missouri LP along with other freedom groups ultimately succeeded in getting the Legislature to create a special interim committee to investigate the report. Hearings are being held around the State. The first hearing was held in Jefferson City in June and the second in St. Louis in July. Hearings in Kansas City and Springfield are planned for later in August or September.

The successful media campaign resulted in a great deal of media coverage in Missouri, including TV interviews. Even some national coverage with the Missouri LP quoted in an article published by CNN and an appearance on Fox Freedom Watch with Judge Napolitano.

Missouri LP Chair Glenn Nielsen testified at the St. Louis hearing.

For more information and video please see:

http://www.showmefreedom.org/2009/July/MIACHearing.shtml

Missouri LP Vice Chair Cisse Spragins is considering a run for the US Senate in 2010 to replace retiring Missouri US Senator Chritopher "Kit" Bond.

Glenn Nielsen
State Chair
Missouri Libertarian Party
http://lpmo.org

LP Monday Message: Voters want more options

posted by Staff on Aug 31, 2009

August 31, 2009

Dear Friend of Liberty,

Like you, most Americans are unhappy with the Republican and Democratic parties. Earlier this month, a Zogby poll found that 58% of people think the U.S. needs more than two major political parties.

People are also unhappy with Congress. (No surprise there.) In fact, according to a Rasmussen poll released yesterday, 57% of people would like to throw out the ENTIRE CONGRESS and start over.

Many of these dissatisfied voters are libertarians -- but a lot of them don't know it. Past polls have shown that only about 2% of people identify themselves as libertarians, even though a much higher percentage have libertarian opinions on political issues.

The Libertarian Party is working to change that. We are out there, showing that there's more to politics than "Democrat or Republican," and more than "liberal or conservative." We are bringing the desperately needed libertarian option to American voters.

The Democrats and Republicans are working hard to take away our liberties, but with your help, the Libertarian Party can become a major political force and restore those liberties.

Sincerely,

Wes Benedict
Executive Director
Libertarian National Committee

P.S. If you have not yet become a member of the Libertarian Party and wish to do so, please click here and join the only political party dedicated completely to cutting taxes and maximizing liberty. If you need to renew, please do so by clicking here.

A Path to Fiscal Sanity

by Jagadeesh Gokhale

Cut the deficit by spending less? Sounds crazy, but it just might work.

It has been known since the early 1980s that the U.S. federal budget embodies a large structural imbalance — one that persists through the economy's ups and downs. In 1980, Ted Kennedy referred to this during his campaign for the presidency; Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama commented on it during theirs.

Estimates of how large this imbalance is, and of what it would take to solve it, have been available for two decades. These analyses consistently show two things: It would be costly to put off dealing with the problem, and federal debt will surge once the baby-boomers begin to retire during the late 2000s.

They are retiring now.

When questioned on entitlement reforms, legislators dutifully genuflect to the need for policy adjustments. But until now, that budget fix was one for the future. Immediately after being elected, lawmakers adopted a "business as usual" attitude, seeking more benefits for today's voters by appropriating vast sums for their pet projects.

And again, in the aftermath of the 2008 financial meltdown, policymakers on both sides of the aisle scrambled to bail out banks, automakers, insurance companies, traders, consumers, and so on, and the Fed injected huge amounts of cash into the financial markets. The cherry on top of this spending binge is the Obama administration's proposed health-care "reform" — which entails additional trillions of dollars.

The recent announcement that U.S. deficits will total $9 trillion over the next ten years suggests that "business as usual" will rapidly come to an end. That's the problem with long-term budget constraints — they inexorably draw closer, eventually forcing hasty and ill-conceived policies via a budget crisis.

What to do?

Estimates from the Social Security and Medicare trustees and the Congressional Budget Office, academic studies, and other reports suggest that the total federal fiscal imbalance amounts to 8 percent of future U.S. productive capacity. Since only about one-half of the nation's total income is subject to taxes, Americans would have to immediately and permanently devote another 16 percent of their taxable incomes toward resolving it. READ MORE

Kennedy's Big Government Paternalism

Remembering the darker side of the liberal senator's legacy

Cathy Young | August 31, 2009

Ted Kennedy's death of brain cancer at 77 could not have occurred at a more symbolic moment. By the end of his life, the late senator became the lion in winter of old-style American liberalism—and one of his final political acts, at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, was to pass on the mantle to Barack Obama, the prime champion of liberalism's new incarnation.

The praise bestowed on Kennedy today by political allies and rivals alike is testament to his superb political skills, including his capacity for bipartisan legislative work. Yet the grief that accompanies the passing of a public figure of such stature should not obscure the fact that his career also illustrates the darker side of the liberal legacy.

Kennedy championed a plethora of liberal causes that are surrounded by an aura of nobility: the defense of the poor, the disabled and the sick, the rights of women and minorities. Yet many of the measures he supported are prime examples of the discrepancy between idealistic causes and unintended effects. Thus, the vast majority of economists agree that increasing the minimum wage—one of the legislative achievements with which Kennedy is credited—leads to increased unemployment among the most vulnerable portion of the labor force, pricing the least skilled workers out of the labor market. Affirmative action, which Kennedy helped uphold on the federal level, tends to result in race discrimination against working-class whites (and, in many cases, Asians as well) and often backfires against its supposed beneficiaries as well. Some of Kennedy's other noble causes have been largely symbolic: thus, the Violence Against Women Act and hate crimes legislation create federal penalties for offenses that are already criminally prosecuted by the states.

Kennedy's liberalism was rooted in the belief that guidance by the government, especially the federal government, is the most effective way to improve people's lives. Indeed, the bipartisan efforts for which he was often hailed were invariably about collaboration with nanny-state Republicanism—the "No Child Left Behind" Act of 2001 being a prime example. This "Uncle Sam knows best" mentality extended to some sympathy for regulation of the media market for the "common good": Kennedy led an attempt to restrict Rupert Murdoch's ownership of local media in Massachusetts and, in 2007, foiled a Republican effort in the Senate to bar possible reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine (which would cripple the independent media by requiring equal time for different points of view).

Support for interventionist government was hardly a viewpoint unique to Ted Kennedy. What Kennedy brought to this political philosophy, however, was the paternalistic mindset of noblesse oblige: the idea that the aristocracy has a special responsibility to protect and look out for the little people. The Kennedy clan is probably the closest there has ever been to an American aristocracy. READ MORE REASON

2 Trillion Tons......

LFR Card Check 2009 HD Generic

NotSoSure.org: "Restaurant" A Metaphor for Government-run Health Care (Part 1 of 3)

NotSoSure.org: "Testing" Gov't Run Health Care (Part 2 of 3)

NotSoSure.org: Grandma, Meet Politicized Health Care (Part 3 of 3)

Daniel Hannan MEP: The devalued Prime Minister of a devalued Government

Health Care Omerta in the U.K.

It's fine for Brits to talk trash about the National Health Service, but not to Americans.

Michael C. Moynihan | August 25, 2009

A few weeks ago, I sat down with Daniel Hannan, the Milton Friedman-loving member of European Parliament representing South East England, to discuss his infamous showdown with Prime Minister Gordon Brown, his opinion of the British National Health Service (NHS), and what the Republicans could learn from the recent successes of Britain's Conservative Party. When I asked Hannan his opinion of Tory party leader David Cameron—who, I argued, “lurched towards the center” in search of popularity—he demonstrated unswerving party loyalty. Cameron, he admonished, was hardly a Tory wet and is more committed to free-market ideas than his old guard Thatcherite critics were willing to admit.

The following day, Hannan repeated his criticisms of the NHS on the Fox News Channel, warning Americans that his country's health system was a "60-year failure" that he "wouldn't wish on anybody." He delivered a stark verdict:

I find it incredible that a free people living in a country dedicated and founded in the cause of independence and freedom can seriously be thinking about adopting such a system in peacetime and massively expanding the role of the state when there's no need.

Had Hannan muttered dark warnings about the British health service's sustainability on the floor of the European Parliament, the Labour Party would surely have made political hay out of it, arguing as they often do that the Tories, if given power, would speedily dismantle the NHS and replace it with a more American-style system. But this was something else entirely. To go to America, to appear on Fox News, and denounce Nye Bevan's "post-war achievement" was too much for both Labourites and squishy Conservatives. READ MORE REASON

BRITISH MEP DANIEL HANNAN ON YOUTUBE SUPERSTARDOM, THE NHS, AND HIS LIBERTARIAN PLAN FOR BRITAIN

Abolish the DHS

by Gene Healy

Does "time with my family" ever actually mean "time with my family" in Washington? Tom Ridge gave the standard resignation line when he stepped down as Secretary of Homeland Security shortly after the 2004 elections, but last week he revealed that there was much more to the story.

In a forthcoming book, Ridge complains that the weekend before Election Day, Bush administration officials leaned on him to raise the color-coded threat level. Dismayed, Ridge refused the demand, and concluded he needed to resign. "I wondered," Ridge writes, "Is this about security or politics?"

That's a question we ought to ask about DHS as a whole. Since its creation in 2003, the department has done little to provide genuine security and much to encourage a pernicious politics of fear. We'd be better off without it.

The Homeland Security Advisory System is a case in point. Even before Ridge's revelation, two separate studies showed that Bush received a boost to his approval ratings with each escalation of the terror threat level. The warning has been raised above yellow ("elevated") 16 times, but it's never been lowered to blue or green, the bottom rungs on DHS's Ladder of Fear. Yet, with Spinal Tap logic ("this goes to 11!") the department insists on keeping all five levels.

The department itself is a dog's breakfast of 22 federal agencies brought together in the hope of providing better coordination on a common mission. But turf battles left key antiterror agencies like the FBI out of the reorganization, and DHS finished last or next to last on every measure of employee morale in a 2006 Office of Personnel Management study.

The truth, as analyst Jeffrey Rosen points out, is that DHS is 'an institutional money pit that has more to do with symbols than substance." Indeed, a congressional investigation in 2008 documented some $15 billion in failed contracts that have run wildly over budget or been cancelled before completion. READ MORE @ CATO

Cash for Clunkers - The Uncle Sugar Washer & Dryer & Refrigerator Extravaganza Remix!

Betting Against the Fed

by Steve H. Hanke

Added to cato.org on August 21, 2009

This article appeared in the September 7, 2009 issue of Forbes.

The Federal Reserve is scrambling to convince the public that it is not a secretive institution that acts at the behest of Wall Street, but the public isn't buying the Fed's line. According to a Gallup Poll conducted in mid-July, the Fed received the lowest approval rating of the nine government agencies and departments evaluated — even lower than the Internal Revenue Service.

Trying to show the softer side of the central bank, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke took us on a tour of his hometown of Dillon, S.C. on a 60 Minutes segment in March, and in July he fielded questions from newsman Jim Lehrer and an auditorium full of people for more than an hour in a televised town hall meeting.

Both events were carefully choreographed — and unprecedented. During his face time Bernanke explained many things, including the Fed's strategy for shrinking its balance sheet and withdrawing the ocean of excess reserves from the banking system. Unfortunately, he did not address my main beef with the bank: that it clings to a flawed inflation-targeting regime with a horrible history of monetary policy failures. READ MORE

What Would Jesus Do? Ask Obama

The president's troubling use of religion to sell health care reform

David Harsanyi | August 21, 2009

"For with thee is the fountain of life; in thy light shall we see the public option."

Yes, it's finally come to this. We've dragged the Almighty Lord into the debate. It's Yahweh or the highway.

This week, President Barack Obama claimed his version of health care reform is "a core ethical and moral obligation," beseeching religious leaders to promote his government-run scheme. Questioning the patriotism of opponents, apparently, wasn't gaining the type of traction advocates of "reform" had hoped.

"I know there's been a lot of misinformation in this debate, and there are some folks out there who are frankly bearing false witness," Obama said, invoking the frightening specter of the Ten Commandments.

On Team Righteous, we have those who meet their moral obligations; on the other squad, we must have the minions of Beelzebub—by which, of course, we mean profit-driven, child-killing, mob-inciting insurance companies.

Why wasn't this multidenominational group of pastors, rabbis, and other religious leaders offended that a mere earthly servant was summoning the good Lord in an effort to pass legislation? Certainly, one of the most grating habits of the Bush administration was how it framed policy positions in moral absolutes.

As CBS News recently reported, Obama has thrown around the name of God even more often than George W. Bush. Then again, no group couches policy as a moral obligation more than the left. On nearly every question of legislation, there is a pious straw man tugging at the sleeves of the wicked.

What isn't a moral imperative these days? As if they were chiseling commandments into stone tablets, Democrats refer to budgets as "moral documents." Thou shalt compost, or climate change will descend upon the lands and smite the wicked and innocent alike. Extend alms to the downtrodden moneylenders and carmakers, for it is just, and the president commandeth thee.

READ MORE

Transparency Chic

Someday your government may have as little privacy as you do.

Katherine Mangu-Ward | August 24, 2009

Newborn babies have their own blogs and grandmothers are on Facebook. We Google potential dates. Privacy is dead. But one kind of information is still cozily locked away, safe from prying eyes: the law. President Obama may have come to Washington promising greater transparency, but progress has been less than impressive.

While the feds stumble toward openness, geeks and developers who made oversharing a way of life are bringing their can-do attitude to government transparency. Can't find what you're looking for on Regulation.gov? Try the new, user-friendlier OpenRegs.com. Frustrated by the terrible interface of Obama's Recovery.gov? Check out the easily-searchable Recovery.org.

But with the possible exception of the ever-leaky CIA, no aspect of government remains more locked down than the secretive, hierarchical judicial branch. Digital records of court filings, briefs and transcripts sit behind paywalls like Lexis and Westlaw. Legal codes and judicial documents aren't copyrighted, but governments often cut exclusive distribution deals, rendering other access methods a bit legally questionable. Supreme Court decisions are easy to get, but the briefs and decisions of lower courts can be hard to come by. Last week, a team from Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy took a pot shot at legal secrecy, setting in motion a scheme to filch protected judicial records and make them available for free online. One of the developers, Harvard's Stephen Schultze, says he went digging for some First Amendment precedent last fall and was shocked by the outdated technology he found. Knowing that "there's a certain geek cache to openness projects these days," Mr. Schultze and Princeton computer science grad students Tim Lee and Harlan Yu went straight to work.

Their almost-definitely-probably lawful system works like this: Right now, lawyers, nonprofits and researchers who use PACER, the clunky database maintained by the federal court system, must hand over their credit-card numbers and pay eight cents a page for records. Eight cents a page might not seem like much until you realize that the system isn't keyword searchable.

That's right: In 2009, judicial records in the U.S. are essentially unsearchable. Digital records—with confidential personal information (theoretically) redacted by attorneys—must be downloaded in unwieldy, badly labeled chunks. This is incomprehensible to anyone under 30. But it's a sad fact of life for those who pay lawyers hundreds of dollars an hour to dig up what would could be Googled in any other field. READ MORE

The Appendix: Useful and in Fact Promising

Charles Q. Choi

The body's appendix has long been thought of as nothing more than a worthless evolutionary artifact, good for nothing save a potentially lethal case of inflammation.

Now researchers suggest the appendix is a lot more than a useless remnant. Not only was it recently proposed to actually possess a critical function, but scientists now find it appears in nature a lot more often than before thought. And it's possible some of this organ's ancient uses could be recruited by physicians to help the human body fight disease more effectively.

In a way, the idea that the appendix is an organ whose time has passed has itself become a concept whose time is over.

"Maybe it's time to correct the textbooks," said researcher William Parker, an immunologist at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. "Many biology texts today still refer to the appendix as a 'vestigial organ.'"

Slimy sac

The vermiform appendix is a slimy dead-end sac that hangs between the small and large intestines. No less than Charles Darwin first suggested that the appendix was a vestigial organ from an ancestor that ate leaves, theorizing that it was the evolutionary remains of a larger structure, called a cecum, which once was used by now-extinct predecessors for digesting food.

"Everybody likely knows at least one person who had to get their appendix taken out - slightly more than 1 in 20 people do - and they see there are no ill effects, and this suggests that you don't need it," Parker said.

However, Parker and his colleagues recently suggested that the appendix still served as a vital safehouse where good bacteria could lie in wait until they were needed to repopulate the gut after a nasty case of diarrhea. Past studies had also found the appendix can help make, direct and train white blood cells.

Now, in the first investigation of the appendix over the ages, Parker explained they discovered that it has been around much longer than anyone had suspected, hinting that it plays a critical function.

"The appendix has been around for at least 80 million years, much longer than we would estimate if Darwin's ideas about the appendix were correct," Parker said. READ MORE

GunPowder Chronicle Sets Forth Some Truth

Tim Patterson at Gunpowder Chronicle has post about furlough days and some under-handed tactics going on.

Good Post on Monoblogue

Michael Swartz has a good post on his site summarizing the local blog scene. He is mainly focusing on the situation a couple of weeks ago when Dr. Jose Alvarado passed away. Unfortunately, a rush to judgement caused so much confusion then a back and forth between two bloggers must have gotten ugly.

At the time Dr. Alvarado passed away I was in Peru on a mission trip with 18 other people. It was a difficult time for many on our team who knew and worked with him. He and Randy Odom have been very helpful to us at ORBC over the years when planning mission trips to Peru. Not having consistent internet access was very troublesome for many who wanted up to date information.

In the future we hope that those dispensing information will act in a positive and responsible manner. It is not always important to be first, it is more important to be respectful and accurate when reporting information. Hopefully all have learned a lesson.

ECONOMIST RICHARD VEDDER ON WHY COLLEGE COSTS TOO MUCH

The Going Broke By Degree author does the appalling higher education math

Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine

From the 1961 Operation Coffee Cup Campaign against Socialized Medicine as proposed by the Democrats, then a private citizen Ronald Reagan Speaks out against socialized medicine.

Chuck DeVore discusses the hypocrisy of the Obama administration on offshore drilling

The Free Market as Regulator

by Ron Paul

Since the bailouts last fall, lawmakers have been behaving as quasi-owners of the bailed-out banks and businesses, leading to calls for increased regulation of executive compensation and other wasteful expenditures. We have heard much about bonuses and executive pay packages that sound more like lottery winnings than an honest salary.

Many lawmakers voted in favor of these unconstitutional bailouts, believing that these corporations were too big to fail, and allowing them to go under would precipitate widespread economic disaster. This second wave of citizen outrage at the bailouts has left these lawmakers with a bit of egg on their face, and once again, they feel the need to "do something" to "fix" it. Shouldn't there be a regulatory structure in place governing executive compensation? Politically, it seems quite feasible. People are outraged that the system has once again gutted the many to make a few at the top fantastically wealthy. But they are incorrectly demonizing the free market.

What we need to realize is that there WAS a regulatory structure in place that was attempting to stop bad management, including overpaying executives. That regulatory structure is the free market, and when poor management brought these companies to the point of bankruptcy, Congress circumvented the wisdom of the free market, and inserted its own judgment at our expense. And now because of that intervention, we will be burdened with massive new regulations. We can be certain this effort will fail.

The free market is a naturally occurring phenomenon that can't be eliminated by governments, not even totalitarian ones like the former Soviet Union. It can be regulated, over-taxed and manipulated until it is driven underground. Lately it has been wrongly accused of doing so many things it just doesn't do, that are really the fault of crony corporatism and convoluted government policies that brought on the crisis. Too many people equate the free market with big business doing whatever it wants, but that is not the free market. Unconstitutional taxpayer-funded bailouts are what allow giant corporations to run roughshod over the economy. The free market is what puts them out of business when they misbehave.

The free market is you and your neighbors working hard to produce what you produce, and exchanging goods and services voluntarily, in mutually agreeable arrangements. The free market is about respecting property rights and contracts. It is not about building up oligarchs and monopolies and confiscatory tax theft – these are creatures of government.

We must watch out when government comes up with interventionist solutions to interventionist problems. The root of our problems lies in interventionism. Trusting the free market is the solution.

The LP interviews Alexander McCobin of Students for Liberty.

Afghanistan's Democratic Debacle

by Patrick Basham

This article appeared on Cato.org on August 20, 2009.

Afghanistan's presidential campaign confirms that Western leaders cannot push Afghan political culture where it doesn't want to go. Today, Afghan democrats could hold a convention in a phone booth.

Although Afghanistan's first presidential (2004) and parliamentary elections (2005) were held in an atmosphere of widespread fear and massive voter intimidation, the international community characterized these elections as watershed moments for Afghan democracy. Events on the ground continue to suggest otherwise. According to the UN, Afghan civilian deaths soared by 24 percent during the first half of 2009. Fears for voter safety on Election Day will shut 10 percent of nearly 7,000 polling stations nationwide.

The country's security situation requires 63,000 U.S. troops and 40,500 non-U.S. NATO forces to protect what many consider a rigged election. The UN and the Afghan human rights commission have repeatedly complained about interference in the election by President Hamid Karzai's government.

The most obvious institutional problem is that the election commission is stacked with Karzai's supporters. It's also an open secret that Karzai's campaign has registered three million 'new' voters — swelling the electorate by 17 percent — by allowing males to obtain registration cards for non-existent female relatives.

In Afghan-style elections, campaigning politicians are permitted to broadcast threats against their opponents. On the campaign trail, moderate presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani, a former finance minister popular with Afghans in America, is literally a marked man whose advertisements are mysteriously destroyed as soon as they appear on billboards.

READ MORE

WAYNE ALLYN ROOT WANTS TO EMPOWER "THE CITIZEN REVOLUTION WITH GOD, GUNS, GAMBLING, & TAX CUTS"

The LP vice-presidential candidate has a new book and a new roadmap for American politics.

Libertarian gives her health care perspective to CNN

posted by Donny Ferguson on Aug 18, 2009

Debbie Schum, Delta County, Colorado Libertarian Party chair, gave her perspective on health care reform on CNN after attending the White House's press event in Grand Junction. Schum, a small businessperson, shares with CNN's host the concerns of millions of Americans about the rising costs, plummeting quality, restrictions on access and rationing that are hallmarks of government-controlled health care.

Click here for the video, or go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyHYVizifhA&feature=player_embedded

Libertarians press Congress on DOMA, ‘don’t’ ask, don’t tell’

Hate crimes bill opposed, cast as attempt by marriage opponents to buy LBGT votes

WASHINGTON -- America’s third largest party challenged House and Senate Democrats Monday to fully commit to the equal justice for gay and lesbian Americans by rejecting a proposed hate crimes law and repealing the Defense of Marriage Act and the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy barring military service by “out” gays and lesbians.

“Libertarians are the only party committed to equal justice under the law, whether it is protection from violence, marriage equality or the ability of a qualified person to serve in the military,” said Cat Sumner, Libertarian National Committee gay and lesbian policy advisor. “So-called ‘hate crimes’ bills further divide America by creating different classes of victims for the same crime. Instead of dividing the gay and straight communities, we should be treating everyone equally.”

“This so-called ‘hate crimes’ bill is just an attempt by Democrat opponents of marriage equality to hold on to gay and lesbian support without actually fighting for them,” said Sumner. “The Libertarian Party is the only party in America not afraid to engage in a no-compromise fight for a country where gays and lesbians can live their lives without government-sponsored harassment. Libertarians challenge Congress to prove they are truly committed to equal justice for gays and lesbians by dropping so-called hate crimes legislation and instead repealing DOMA and ‘don't ask, don't tell.’”

Libertarians consider the hate crimes bill not just a violation of equal justice under the law, but an attempt by legislators to buy gay and lesbian support while still opposing gay marriage and military service. The original sponsor of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, then-Republican Congressman Bob Barr (GA,) has recanted his support of the bill and is seeking its repeal. He was the Libertarian presidential nominee in 2008, winning the party’s second-highest presidential vote total in its 38-year history.

The House passed a hate crimes bill, H.R. 1913, on Apr. 29. On Jul 16. the Senate attached a hate crimes amendment to a military spending bill, both of which were approved. The House bill and Senate amendment must be reconciled in committee before being sent to President Obama for his signature.

For more information on this issue, or to arrange an interview with the Libertarian Party, please call Director of Communications Donny Ferguson at 703-200-3669 (BlackBerry) or 202-333-0008, x. 225 (office,) or emailDonny.Ferguson@lp.org.

The Libertarian Party is America's third-largest political party, founded in 1971 as an alternative to the two main political parties. You can find more information on the Libertarian Party by visiting http://www.LP.org. The Libertarian Party proudly stands for smaller government, lower taxes and more personal freedom.

Government health care in action: Vancouver to begin denying surgeries

posted by Donny Ferguson on Aug 18, 2009

Today's Vancouver Sun reports on one reason Libertarians, joined by most Americans, oppose Obama's proposed government takeover of health care. Government control of health care has always led to rationing and denial of medically necessary surgery:

VANCOUVER — Vancouver patients needing neurosurgery, treatment for vascular diseases and other medically necessary procedures can expect to wait longer for care, NDP health critic Adrian Dix said Monday.

Dix said a Vancouver Coastal Health Authority document shows it is considering chopping more than 6,000 surgeries in an effort to make up for a dramatic budgetary shortfall that could reach $200 million.

“This hasn’t been announced by the health authority … but these cuts are coming,” Dix said, citing figures gleaned from a leaked executive summary of “proposed VCH surgical reductions.”

The health authority confirmed the document is genuine, but said it represents ideas only.

“It is a planning document. It has not been approved or implemented,” said spokeswoman Anna Marie D’Angelo.

Dr. Brian Brodie, president of the BC Medical Association, called the proposed surgical cuts “a nightmare.”

“Why would you begin your cost-cutting measures on medically necessary surgery? I just can’t think of a worse place,” Brodie said.

According to the leaked document, Vancouver Coastal — which oversees the budget for Vancouver General and St. Paul’s hospitals, among other health-care facilities — is looking to close nearly a quarter of its operating rooms starting in September and to cut 6,250 surgeries, including 24 per cent of cases scheduled from September to March and 10 per cent of all medically necessary elective procedures this fiscal year...

...Further reductions in surgeries are scheduled during the Olympics, when the health authority plans to close approximately a third of its operating rooms.

Two weeks ago, Dix released a Fraser Health Authority draft communications plan listing proposed clinical care cuts, including a 10-per-cent cut in elective surgeries and longer waits for MRI scans.

The move comes after the province acknowledged all health authorities together will be forced to cut staff, limit some services and increase fees to find $360 million in savings during the current fiscal year.

LP Monday Message: Dems not backing down on public option, but stepping up the fight

posted by Donny Ferguson on Aug 17, 2009

Dear friend,

Faced with withering criticism from the independent voters who elected Obama, as well as polls showing majorities of Americans oppose their health care reform plans and would prefer government inaction to the current system, the media reported this weekend Democrats may consider removing a provision for government-run health insurance from a massive bill outlining a government takeover of the nation’s health care system.

Don’t be fooled. The so-called “public option” isn’t about to be taken off the table. The eradication of your private health insurance plans is at the very core of the entire so-called “reform” movement.

Just listen to official White House health care spokesperson Linda Douglass. “Nothing has changed. The president has always said that what is essential is that health insurance reform must lower costs, ensure that there are affordable options for all Americans and it must increase choice and competition in the health insurance market. He believes the public option is the best way to achieve those goals.”

House Democrats also tell the Capitol Hill newspaper Politico government-run health insurance will stay in their bill. It’s their goal for the legislation.

Not only will Democrats never relent on their plans for government-run insurance, they are instead doubling down in their attacks on advocates of free market reforms.

It already began today at The Washington Post. There, the official Democrat Party playbook turned the page to its typical Hail Mary play – broad-brush accusations of racism.

The Post’s Susan Jacoby, opening an online discussion with readers this morning, asked if opposition to government-run health care was A) the “unwillingness of an unreconciled minority to accept the legitimacy of an African-American president,” or B) “right-wing populism (which has always included a strong element of racism).”

At no time did she ever suggest opposition to government-run health care was the product of anything other than hate.

Why would advocates of government-run health care accelerate their assaults on millions of everyday Americans if they were truly giving up their fight for government-run health insurance?

Because they’re not. They have already declared they will pass government-run health care regardless of whether or not the eventual government-run insurance plan is in the first draft.

In a 2007 exchange with union officials, Barack Obama openly stated his style of health care “reform” will lead to the eventual eradication of private health insurance, regardless of whether the so-called “public option” is in the final draft of the bill – or quietly slipped in later.

His Chicago confidante, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, gleefully cheered on a crowd of radical activists, claiming the bill, which didn’t even include a public option in the draft at the time, will end all private insurance in America.

Don’t be fooled. Democrats aren’t giving up their drive to make your private medical decisions the business of government. Their goal is nothing less than an America where “my opponent will cut off your government-provided health care” is all you need to campaign for re-election. They already do it to those on Medicare, which may be why those very seniors so adamantly oppose the proposed government takeover.

Democrats are stepping up their assaults on the majority of Americans who oppose them because they know they simply need to pass something to guarantee the eventual eradication of private health care.

Don’t be fooled. They’re not giving up. Even if the so-called “public option” isn’t in the final bill, passing something gives them a government-run health care system, which they can just easily add government-run insurance to.

Now is the time for advocates of free-market health care to fight even harder as those pushing government control resort to nastier attacks and ugly accusations of racism. The only way to keep the waiting lists, rationed care and crippling deficits of government-run care from becoming a reality is to defeat the entire health care bill…and the politicians pushing it.

With optimism,

Donny Ferguson
Director of Communications
Libertarian National Committee

Why Be Libertarian?

by Murray N. Rothbard
by Murray N. Rothbard

This essay is chapter 15 of the book Egalitarianism As a Revolt Against Nature.

Why be libertarian, anyway? By this we mean, what's the point of the whole thing? Why engage in a deep and lifelong commitment to the principle and the goal of individual liberty? For such a commitment, in our largely unfree world, means inevitably a radical disagreement with, and alienation from, the status quo, an alienation which equally inevitably imposes many sacrifices in money and prestige. When life is short and the moment of victory far in the future, why go through all this?

Incredibly, we have found among the increasing number of libertarians in this country many people who come to a libertarian commitment from one or another extremely narrow and personal point of view. Many are irresistibly attracted to liberty as an intellectual system or as an aesthetic goal, but liberty remains for them a purely intellectual parlor game, totally divorced from what they consider the "real" activities of their daily lives. Others are motivated to remain libertarians solely from their anticipation of their own personal financial profit. Realizing that a free market would provide far greater opportunities for able, independent men to reap entrepreneurial profits, they become and remain libertarians solely to find larger opportunities for business profit. While it is true that opportunities for profit will be far greater and more widespread in a free market and a free society, placing one's primary emphasis on this motivation for being a libertarian can only be considered grotesque. For in the often tortuous, difficult and grueling path that must be trod before liberty can be achieved, the libertarian's opportunities for personal profit will far more often be negative than abundant.

The consequence of the narrow and myopic vision of both the gamester and the would-be profit maker is that neither group has the slightest interest in the work of building a libertarian movement. And yet it is only through building such a movement that liberty may ultimately be achieved. Ideas, and especially radical ideas, do not advance in the world in and by themselves, as it were in a vacuum; they can only be advanced by people and, therefore, the development and advancement of such people – and therefore of a "movement" – becomes a prime task for the libertarian who is really serious about advancing his goals.

Turning from these men of narrow vision, we must also see that utilitarianism – the common ground of free-market economists – is unsatisfactory for developing a flourishing libertarian movement. While it is true and valuable to know that a free market would bring far greater abundance and a healthier economy to everyone, rich and poor alike, a critical problem is whether this knowledge is enough to bring many people to a lifelong dedication to liberty.

In short, how many people will man the barricades and endure the many sacrifices that a consistent devotion to liberty entails, merely so that umpteen percent more people will have better bathtubs? Will they not rather set up for an easy life and forget the umpteen percent bathtubs? Ultimately, then, utilitarian economics, while indispensable in the developed structure of libertarian thought and action, is almost as unsatisfactory a basic groundwork for the movement as those opportunists who simply seek a short-range profit.

It is our view that a flourishing libertarian movement, a lifelong dedication to liberty can only be grounded on a passion for justice. Here must be the mainspring of our drive, the armor that will sustain us in all the storms ahead, not the search for a quick buck, the playing of intellectual games or the cool calculation of general economic gains. And, to have a passion for justice, one must have a theory of what justice and injustice are – in short, a set of ethical principles of justice and injustice, which cannot be provided by utilitarian economics. READ MORE

Obama Kills Health Competition

by Michael D. Tanner

President Obama has repeatedly said that one of his "reform" goals is to increase "competition and choice" in the US health-care system -- but the policies he's pursuing would actually reduce competition and give consumers fewer choices. Meanwhile, he's ignoring reforms that would bring more choices and competition.

The nation now has some 1,300 insurance companies, but most consumers actually have far fewer choices. An American Medical Association survey found that in 299 of 313 largest metro areas, one insurer controls at least 30 percent of the market.

In New York, just two insurers, GHI and Empire Blue Cross, represent 47 percent of the market. In New Jersey, a single insurer, Horizon Blue Cross and Blue Shield, controls 43 percent of the market. And in Connecticut, Wellpoint holds an astounding 55 percent.

There's nothing inherently wrong with one company earning a large market share, but the lack of significant competition helps contribute to higher insurance costs and poorer service. Moreover, this market concentration hasn't necessarily flowed from consumer preference in a free market, but results in good part from barriers to entry erected by state insurance regulation.

Obama's answer to this problem is to set up a new government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers. But such a plan will ultimately result in less competition, not more.

A government-run plan would have an inherent advantage in the marketplace, because it ultimately would be subsidized by taxpayers. The government plan could keep its premiums artificially low or offer extra benefits, because it could turn to taxpayers to cover any shortfalls.

READ MORE.......

Michael Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and coauthor of Healthy Competition: What's Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It.

Added to cato.org on August 13, 2009

This article appeared in the New York Post on August 13, 2009.

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO 1 OF 3 SPEECH AUGUST 15, 2009 AT RON PAUL BBQ

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO 2 OF 3 SPEECH AUGUST 15, 2009 AT RON PAUL BBQ

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO 3 OF 3 SPEECH AUGUST 15, 2009 AT RON PAUL BBQ

"The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax imposed by this chapter. ..."

posted by Donny Ferguson on Aug 13, 2009

Yes, the proposed government takeover of health care actually contains that language, which The Washington Times editorializes as "Orwellian."

Click here to read the editorial, which goes on to debunk the Obama claim he isn't raising taxes:

...The bill does contain new taxes -- plenty of them. Pages 167 and 168 impose an income tax of 2.5 percent on any individual who chooses not to buy government-approved health insurance. Pages 149-150 impose a tax of between 2 percent and 8 percent on the payrolls of all companies whose payrolls exceed $250,000. Pages 197 and 198 outline income tax surcharges to be imposed on individuals with incomes over $350,000, rising to a highest surcharge of 5.4 percent.

Meanwhile, as the bill specifically acknowledges imposing a tax without counting it as a tax, it also imposes all sorts of requirements that act as indirect taxes under names such as "mandates" and "requirements." Page 146 requires employers to provide insurance even for part-time workers. Page 280 begins to outline a penalty for hospitals that are adjudged to have "excess readmissions." Federal bureaucrats, of course, will determine which patient readmissions are reasonable and which are excessive. The bureaucrats will do this by following the simple rules for such determinations laid out on pages 281 and 282 ... and 283 ... and 284, 285, 286, and ... oh, forget it; we got lost...

Libertarians: Obama promises of postal system-style health care fail to deliver

President seeks to assure voters by promising health care will be run like the mail

WASHINGTON -- America’s third largest party Wednesday took aim at comments made by President Barack Obama in a New Hampshire press event Tuesday, in which he took questions from a pre-selected audience. Obama compared his proposed government-run health care system to the nation’s postal system, which he admitted is “always having problems.”

“My answer is that if the private insurance companies are providing a good bargain, and if the public option has to be self-sustaining…then I think private insurers should be able to compete. They do it all the time. I mean, if you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? No, they are. It's the Post Office that's always having problems," said Obama.

“For once, President Obama is right. His proposal for government-run health care is exactly like the current government-run postal system,” said William Redpath, Libertarian National Committee Chairman.

“Like the postal system, which is cutting post offices, delivering less often and runs multi-billion dollar deficits, government-run health care always leads to fewer facilities, rationed care and crippling deficits,” said Redpath. “Obama admitted the postal system he wants to model health care on is ‘always having problems.’ It’s one thing to have ‘problems’ when delivering a Christmas card on time. It’s a matter of life or death when the government-run health care system is ‘always having problems.’”

Libertarians urge Democrats and the White House to make health care accessible and affordable by dropping massively unpopular plans for government-run care and to instead repeal laws restricting competition in the health insurance industry.

“Like most Americans, Libertarians oppose government mandates that force you to pay for coverage you don’t need, driving up costs. Libertarians also believe you should be able to pool together freely to buy group plans and should be able to shop across state lines,” said Redpath.

For more information on this issue, or to arrange an interview with the Libertarian Party, please call Director of Communications Donny Ferguson at 703-200-3669 (BlackBerry) or 202-333-0008, x. 225 (office,) or email Donny.Ferguson@lp.org.

The Libertarian Party is America's third-largest political party, founded in 1971 as an alternative to the two main political parties. You can find more information on the Libertarian Party by visiting http://www.LP.org. The Libertarian Party proudly stands for smaller government, lower taxes and more freedom.

Dr. Richard Davis' August Letter to the Editor

I have read and heard a number of comments from people who feel my candidacy for Congress has helped or will help the candidate of one or the other major parties. This misses my point. If you are happy with what either major party has accomplished in the last twenty years, your choice must already be clear.

I believe that a vote for either of those major parties encourages that party’s leadership to continue what they have been doing in that time. In the last election, my impression was that both of my opponents were decent men who were much more conservative than their party leaderships. I believe the election of either could have (at most) minimal influence on those leaderships.

Refusing to vote sends little or no message, as those leaders appear to count winning or losing vote totals. I believe only a significant number of votes for another party altogether will send a message that voters want a REAL change of direction – electing a number of third party candidates would obviously send an even stronger message.

Believing we need a major change in the way this is done, I am running this campaign accepting NO monetary contributions. I hope to begin by providing more content in these editorials with 250 words per month than can be conveyed in a 60-second radio or TV commercial, much less a sign or bumper sticker.

They will go on my website at davis4congress.com, possibly occasionally in somewhat expanded form.