Category Archives: Libertarianism

Government is you. Act like it!

December 4, 2012 Gary Nolan Leave a comment

One of the things that I find most troubling with the public’s attitude towards government is the misunderstanding of what the government is, what it is for, and how it was designed to be used.

We elect representatives to protect our rights, as enumerated in the Constitution, but that are deemed innate among each of us, simply be virtue of being alive. If we strictly adhered to the Constitution, that’s pretty much all government would do.

Then, for reasons I can find little logic to justify, we let them do other things like carry the mail, administer health care, manage our retirement, and even study the effect of pot on a man’s most prized appendage.

With that in mind, I’d like to remind people what our forefathers intended for government: it is essentially an extension of you. We pay our government officials to do things that we can’t be bothered to do ourselves because we don’t have the individual resources, money, time, or expertise. Everything the government does, is literally done at your behest.

Below are a few glaring examples of where government has overstepped its Constitutionally-defined bounds. But using these examples, I’m sure you can think of many more; which is why I have a “comments” section below this post. Please, spout off at your leisure.

For those of you, like me, that do not use recreational drugs such as marijuana, I have a bit of information that may surprise you: I solemnly swear to you that you have several acquaintances that smoke marijuana. If you’re a realist, you already know this. But if you’re a prude, you’re saying, “I would never be friends with someone like that.” I promise if you are the latter, you are indeed friends with someone like that—they just know you’re a prude and bite their tongue to avoid your reaction.

So imagine that this person happens to be your favorite neighbor, which it probably is, because trust me when I tell you that marijuana users can be quite entertaining. Now imagine if you knew they were smoking it next door. Would you go over, barge in, put a gun to their head, and demand they stop immediately or you’ll use deadly force?

I’m guessing your answer is no.

Conversely, if you knew your favorite neighbor were over there molesting a child or murdering their spouse, unless you’re the most depraved of individuals among us, you would not hesitate to intervene and potentially stop them with deadly force.

So the difference is obvious. One is a personal choice without a victim. One is a blatant infringement on someone’s right to life and liberty.

So if you insist on making something illegal, at least hold yourself to a standard that says you would intervene yourself if there were no such thing as government to do it for you. Because in both the above scenarios, if you call 911, people with guns will shop and potentially use lethal force on your behalf.

The other issue is a little more subtle, yet equally troubling; tolerating things you wouldn’t dream of tolerating if it were done to you personally.

Imagine you had a nice house with an unused extra bedroom. A friend of yours is down on their luck, lost their job, and can’t afford the apartment they’re currently in. So you offer to let them stay at your place rent free because you’re a good person, and you believe that it will be a short-term cohabitation.

The days turn into weeks, then months. You even tell your friend about some job leads you’ve heard of that you know he could do, but your friend’s answer is always the same.

While I’m living here off of you and not paying anything, I’m going to ride it out for my ideal job. I could take a lesser job for now in order to earn something while looking for a better job during my off time, but I’d rather not.

Is there anyone among you that wouldn’t grab that freeloader by the scruff of their neck, bury your foot in their salad shooter, and tell them never to come back? I’d be furious! Yet we all allow this to happen every single day with unemployment insurance. That’s your money they’re living off of! Many could work and take a less optimal job, but they choose not to while there’s “free money” just lying around.

If you read my previous post about privatizing everything, and you think I’m onto something, then maybe it’s time to do some serious blue sky thinking and look at getting rid of government subsidized unemployment insurance in favor of a private version.

You may point out that no one offers private unemployment insurance. Ss far as I know, you’re likely be right. But that’s only because the government has a monopoly on it; and therefore private insurers aren’t bothering to even try. You’re being pilfered for the government’s unemployment insurance, so why would anyone pay additionally for a private option on top of that since opting out of Uncle Sam’s isn’t allowed?

I propose that we demand the government give people their money back and let them use that money to buy private insurance if they want, or live with the consequences of that risk if they choose not to. Liberty doesn’t just mean you have the right to have fun and enjoy life, it also means you have the right to gamble and fail. I will never acknowledge someone was successful if there was no risk of failure to begin with.

One thing I know about the private sector is this. If there’s a market for something, there’s an entrepreneur willing to provide it for a fee. If you get rid of the government monopoly on such things, private insurers would surely offer unemployment insurance for a nominal fee. Likely for less than the government does, and with far less waste and abuse.

So remember, if you wouldn’t do it yourself if you could, don’t ask government to do it for you.

Capitalism, Libertarianism, Social Issues

The Insurance Mandate. What’s your paradigm?

December 1, 2012 Gary Nolan Leave a comment

I had a debate with a friend of mine about the insurance mandate. He professes to be a limited government guy that supported Reagan, yet he recently voted Democrat twice, is a proud union employee of the state, and supports socialized medicine. You know—a traitor. (I am kidding; he is a friend, just a misguided one from where I sit.) Needless to say, he and I don’t agree on much these days politically.

My work history includes years in the insurance business, so I have to say that the argument for the health insurance mandate makes mathematical sense—sort of. We pay at an early age into insurance we will rarely use while we’re young and healthy, so that later in life when we start to need it more, that money is there waiting for us. Think of it as health savings and insurance.

By doing so, we increase the insurance company’s revenue now—and thus reduce their losses which results in lower rates for everyone later. In an odd sort of way, it’s the same as the argument that lowering taxes increases revenue because the economy grows; it’s just that the cause and effect are swapped.

But the argument is only logical because it is based on an assumption I cannot agree with—the assumption that everyone has a right to health care. If we as a country feel that people have a basic right to health care, then the insurance mandate is necessary and mathematically sound.

I however, am quite annoyed with the idea that health care is a substance like air and water, that we should all have access to. I instead know that health care is a service provided by people who spent a lot of time and money in order to earn a living. And, you don’t have a right to that service if you cannot pay for it.

Our Constitution gives you the right to life, not the right to health care. A right to the life that genetics, nature, and dumb luck provides you.

Health care is a service that can extend that life, provided by professionals that offer that service, in order to earn a living. If you want a better and longer life, you have to pay them for it. Otherwise, when your time comes, that’s your time to go. It may seem heartless, but the circle of life is that all living things feed off of other living things and then eventually die themselves. Nothing gets out alive.

Let’s imagine a scenario where lives aren’t on the line for a minute. Your car breaks down, and you really need your car to get to work. So you take it to the mechanic. They advise you that you need a $500 repair, but you don’t have that kind of cash. Do you get to demand they help you and you’ll pay them later if you can?

Well, doctors are ultimately mechanics for humans. If they are willing to help for free, for a lesser fee than they’d charge medicare (Which is currently prohibited by law, believe it or not), or for a promise to pay in the future, then that’s great. Otherwise, the person needing care needs to find another doctor or accept the consequences of the life they chose and/or the bad fortune that befell them.

We have been taught that caring for others is just the right thing to do, and I agree, entirely. But, I don’t believe that doctors are heartless people who would never help anyone, and history shows this to be true. While some patient-dumping was common practice, it certainly wasn’t a unilateral action. Remember that many of them joined that profession because they love helping people.

But all free people should have the right to choose who we wish to help, who we can afford to help, and who doesn’t deserve our help. And the chronic meth head, alcoholic, and serial moocher are not on my list of acceptable benefactors.

Socialized medicine proponents often paint the picture that everyone who needs health care and can’t afford it are victims of society. But this is a false argument. Often, society is a victim of them, since we’re forced to pay for their care through higher prices, benefit fraud, and tax subsidies.

I think we all know people who can’t keep a good job because they drink too much, abuse their body, voluntarily miss work, don’t apply to begin with, and aren’t motivated to be successful—the type of people who work the hardest at how to afford work.

So then the abuse on their body catches up with them, and because they don’t have a job, they don’t have insurance. Now they need care because of their life choices, and they can’t afford that help. They are responsible for the life they’ve led, and they either need to find a way out of their troubles, or they will die as a martyred good example for others to not to be like them. Yet, under our current system, the rest of us become financially liable for them.

I’ve had a few people like this in my life because I don’t always hang out in the ritziest circles. I like some of these people dearly, but I also know that they are their own worst enemy, and the idea that society should take care of them is nonsense.

There is a phenomenon called the Peltzman Effect which says that the more safety you provide someone, the more risky behavior they will engage in. If you’ve seen someone driving like an idiot in the snow because they have a 4wd, you’ve seen the Peltzman Effect in action. If we want everyone to be self sufficient, we need to stop allowing people to so easily be dependent on others.

I believe that the only way to truly reduce health care expenses is to take away that safety net of guaranteed health care, take away government regulations that hinder competition, give doctors rights to work for a reduced rate if they choose to help the poor, introduce loser pays legislation and other legal reforms, and generally get the government out of the way of the health and insurance industry, letting the free market do what it does best; drive down costs.

Libertarianism

What now?

December 1, 2012 Gary Nolan Leave a comment

There are a couple ways we can interpret this last election. Some feel this was the entitlement society voting for free stuff, but that’s an ignorant view in my opinion. While that was a percentage of the defeating vote, it’s not the majority of it. Most people want to earn their keep, but they want personal liberty more than anything.

Some say Gary Johnson defeated Mitt Romney, but even if Romney had gotten the Libertarian vote, he still wouldn’t have won. Polls of Gary Johnson voters showed that only about 2/3’s would have voted Romney had they only been given the two choices.

So let’s be honest about what really happened here. The RNC excluded Gary Johnson from the debates after the first one, even though he was polling similar to Herman Cain, John Huntsman, and others who were allowed to carry on. Then to make matters worse, they didn’t let Ron Paul speak at the RNC convention without getting a transcript of what he expected to say first for their approval.

The fact is, folks like Ron and Rand Paul, Gary Johnson, Justin Amash, the Tea Party, etc., care about liberty and limited government more than anything. We also believe that the Libertarian Party should not be separate from the RNC, but instead the future of it.

If we look back at the election, the Republicans that won were the Tea Party limited government candidates while social conservative such as Akin and Mourdock lost in largely Republican states. The lessons are there to learn, but will the RNC learn them?

People on the religious right might think I’m asking them to abandon their religious views, but I’m not. I’m asking them to simply understand that they should say something like this:

While I personally don’t support gay marriage, marijuana legalization, right to choose an abortion, etc., liberty is my number one value as a legislator. I will always encourage everyone in my circle of friends and family not to do these things, but I will never believe it is the government’s business, right, role, nor its duty to be involved in them.

When I talk to the majority of people who are either apolitical, or generally not that interested, most of them say they are socially liberal but fiscally conservative. I have news for you. If this describes you, you’re basically a Libertarian.

While both parties have done well to brand Libertarians as fringe anarchists and pot smokers, those of us who actually consider ourselves Libertarian/Republicans find that view of us misleading and insulting.

I wish that the DNC voters understood what Reagan understood and taught us. That taxing the rich has never helped the poor. That trickle-down economics actually works. And, that assured destruction via the world’s strongest military is the best insurance against someone attacking us. (In case you didn’t notice, while Reagan was often criticized for military spending, every president who has succeeded him has put more troops in harm’s way, either through war, or conflicts such as Somalia. Which do you prefer? Spending money on a military we don’t use, or cutting their budget and making us vulnerable to attack? As long as there are irrational people who hate America, you can’t have both and remain safe.) But sadly, the masses don’t often understand these points. However they do get the concept of personal liberty.

For two years, we have to hope that USHOR will throttle the Senate and White House’s tax and spend agenda. If the RNC embraces the Tea Party’s limited government ideas, it can promote religious views as long as it vows not to legislate them. Then it will be quite possible to pick up the Senate in 2014, and if they choose someone like Rand Paul in 2016, I have no doubt they would take back the White House also.

Some say Rand could not beat Hillary, the odds on favorite for the DNC in 2016, but let’s be honest. I don’t believe there are Romney voters this cycle that would vote Hillary over Rand, but I think there can be no doubt Rand would steal a lot of votes from the DNC’s not-so-faithful.

Social conservatism must remain a personal choice within those who choose to follow that dogma, but polls have shown that people are far less religious than they used to be, while the desire for personal liberty continues to grow. Conservatives must get to work changing the RNC mantra, and fast. Leave the Akins and Mourdocks behind and start pushing Rand Pauls, Gary Johnsons, and Justin Amashes for the future.

JFK’s most famous quote is “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” Does that sound like the message coming from DNC leaders now? Of course not. Socialism is slowly infecting the party on the left, and we can defeat that nonsense.

Ronald Reagan once said, “I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.” He won 44 out of 50 states one election, won 49 out of 50 the next. Including states like California and New York which haven’t even thought about a Republican since. He did it by championing limited government, not by getting in bed with the religious right.

We can win back our government, but we need another Reaganesque libertarianish Republican, not the religious zealots that the RNC continues to field. Our current president claims to be a Christian, but he’s never tried to legislate those beliefs, and he won. It wasn’t about entitlements; it was about personal liberty, a narrative that is supposed to be the RNC’s domain, but that we let the DNC steal from us by allowing the left to define us as ignorant flat-earthers.

So what can defeat the new socialist party that is the DNC? The new libertarian party that the RNC can become; that’s what!

Capitalism, Libertarianism

The Beetle is Dead and Government Killed It

December 1, 2012 Gary Nolan 1 Comment

Any time new technology comes out, it is expensive. Completely new machines are often the folly of the affluent; the masses won’t get to enjoy them until decades later. ENIAC, the world’s first computer was debuted in 1947, but it wasn’t until 1981 that IBM brought us the PC and made the computer something we all could enjoy.

Cell phones were clunky boxes that only successful businessmen carried, and they were far too expensive for the proletariat to buy until science and the free market cut them down to size; both physically and financially.

So let’s talk about cars. 100+ years ago, the price of a car was significantly greater than the price of a horse. Plus, if you wanted a new car, you had to buy one. If you wanted a new horse, all you had to do was get your male horse together with a female horse, throw a little Barry White on the record player, and voilà! A new horse emerges months later, free of charge.

Cars were initially met with skepticism, disdain, and envy because they were loud, unreliable, and expensive. Here’s the thing though, horses have a relatively slow top speed, and even giving them the Lance Armstrong treatment isn’t going to get them up to a point where they can do 60+ mph for hours on end. So the value in cars is unmistakable. Although the technology was new, the dreamers saw that cars were the future and got to work building them, even if at the time, only the top 1% need apply.

Fast forward to the 30’s. Adolf Hitler was certainly a murderous %$@#$, but even violent psychopaths on occasion display some sort of twisted goodness, and this was his. He felt that cars shouldn’t just be for the rich and Ferdinand Porsche was commissioned to build the “people’s car” (Volkswagen) for the average Joe to buy, and the 911’s not-so-hot older sister was born. beetle

The history of the Beetle is legendary. But let’s look at what it was—a cheap car. It looked good, had character, four wheels, an engine, and occasionally brakes. That was pretty much it. The car sold millions around the world, not because it was fast, had all the options, or was an exclusive ride, but because it was affordable.

A drivetrain, wheels, seat, and steering wheel wrapped in a steel overcoat, by itself, has tremendous value to anyone needing to get from points A to B. All the other options that have been added through the years add value, but they also add price which some people simply can’t afford.

A bare bones car appeals to two types of people. Those of us who are broke but need to go to work, and those of us who race and consider Colin Chapman’s “Weight is evil” philosophy to be that which was handed down from the gods. People who are broke and people who like to race aren’t a small demographic. We’re out there, and we’re in the millions. We want a cheap, bare bones, nothing is there that doesn’t need to be, kind of car.

Colin Chapman's Brainchild, the Lotus Seven — Colin Chapman’s Brainchild, the Lotus Seven

So what am I whining about? The same thing everyone whines about; our well-meaning, yet ever meddling and oppressive government of course!

Any car you buy in America must be equipped with OBD2, air bags, anti-lock brakes, tire pressure monitoring systems, seat belts, windshields, achieve a certain MPG, meet government specified crash standards, and a whole host of other requirements our governmental overlords have legislated.

All of these gizmos and gadgets add two things; weight and cost. They have one thing in common as well; they’re not uniquely necessary on an automobile. So the ability to buy a modern-day Beetle is dead, and government killed it.

Our constitution was designed so that “we the people” would always be free to make our own decisions by limiting the powers of government to infringe upon our rights. So how does forcing me to buy an air bag that I can then legally turn off do an ounce of good? Riddle me that Batman!

A free market should allow us to buy whatever we want as long as we aren’t harming someone else by using that product, but none of these safety features actually accomplishes that goal. Instead they merely serve to infringe upon our rights to make decisions about how safe we choose to live our lives. As a libertarian, that infuriates me. That is not, nor was ever, the role of our government as laid out by our founding fathers.

I’m not one of those libertarians who float conspiracies like air biscuits; freely and aromatically-challenged. I truly believe that our politicians mean well. But let me give you an analogy. If we were going full-blown Bear Grylls in the wilderness, no cell phones, transportation, or means of getting help, and you fell and impaled your brain with something, it would be obvious you need emergency surgery. So armed with my hunting knife, I go to work. I’m no Dr. House however, so what is going to happen? You’re going to die; that’s what.

Were my intentions evil in performing surgery on you? Of course not, I was trying to save your life! So why did you die? Because while my intentions were good, I don’t know what the heck I’m doing.

This is our government in a nutshell. They do their best to protect us from harm, but many of them have never worked in the auto industry and know little about it. So they make decisions every day without having the slightest comprehension of the ramifications of them.

In a proper free market society where our government does what it is supposed to do, what would happen is that government would insist we the people had information. We don’t need cars that meet certain crash standards, we only need to know what crash standards a car meets, and then we can make our decision as an informed consumer.

It is time we the people tell our government that we choose what we want and you don’t get to dictate that to us. If I want to buy an Ariel Atom and drive it to work every day, then I shouldn’t have to buy it with “some assembly required.” Give me the information I need to be an informed consumer, and then get the hell out of my way.

Labor Unions, Libertarianism, Social Issues

Two Great Life Lessons and a Cautionary Tale

August 9, 2012 Gary Nolan Leave a comment

I went to a local public school with a legendary band program. Our director had been there for decades, and as a result of his diligence, the school was constantly being invited to perform outside our state and even outside the country. Each year we competed, we performed an “A” rated piece, which are often the most difficult for high school programs, and we always received a “1” rating—the best possible score.

By the time I entered high school, this stellar band program with its aging director, was on educational cruise control. I was an OK trombonist, but I needed someone to give me a swift kick in the petoot. Not only did that not happen my first year there, I didn’t even qualify for the advanced band, and I hated it.

This great director was in his final year before retirement, and taking an interest in my musical future seemed of little interest to him. He wasn’t mean, but I was neither inspired, nor motivated by him either.

The following year, however, brought a new director named Don Nathan – a man who was young, full of steam, and knew he was filling some big shoes. He was also a man who would have been the first victim of last-in-first-out cuts if teachers’ unions had their way in their desire to protect veteran teachers. His first order of business went something like this.

This band program has been going to contests, playing an “A” level piece, and getting a “1” rating for decades. Clearly you’re capable of more, and we’re going to do more.

This young teacher decided that, instead of filling legendary shoes, he’d one up them. Some saw it as arrogant, but I saw it as ambitious, and I loved it. He picked a majestic piece called Lincolnshire Posy by Percy Grainger. It was a beautiful work that I encourage any classical music buff to seek out. It was also an “AA” rated piece, which is often reserved for college level musicians and something we had never attempted before.

The piece was the most difficult challenge I had ever endeavored to play as a musician. For those of you who are musicians, you’ll understand the difficulty put forth by a piece with time signatures including 5/8, 13/16, and even instances with no time signature where we simply followed the conductor’s baton for each beat.

As I struggled to learn this piece, there was one section where I was the featured instrument, but, because I was still struggling to learn it, I played very quietly in fear of someone hearing how badly I was butchering this inspiring verse. In front of everyone, Mr. Nathan stops the rehearsal, looks over at me and asks, “Where are you? I can’t hear you.”

I explained I didn’t want my errors to be heard, and I’ll never forget his response: “It’s OK if you screw up, but at least screw up with feeling.”

This was 20 years ago, but I still remember this like it was yesterday. I advanced to the premier band–thanks to him pushing me—and I remember, most of all, doing something our great program had never before attempted to achieve. We went to contest, played an “AA” rated piece, and still got our “1.” I also remember our sense of accomplishment when we actually did what we feared we may not be able to do.

There are two lessons to be learned here, and I carry them with me always.

First, what you’ve done isn’t what matters; it is what you do in your future that will define you. Until you are dead, your legacy is not complete. One need only look at Joe Paterno to understand how a legacy can be destroyed in an instant.

If you look at some of the greatest successes in life, whether it be athletes like Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan or entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, all their interviews have a common theme. They don’t brag about what they’ve done nor rest on their laurels. They talk about what their weaknesses are and what they need to work on so that they can improve and be better.

Second, don’t be afraid to fail. If you’re going to do something, do it proudly, errors and all. Every business you see today started out as the financial risk of a dreamer, and they each could have failed. If you look at all they’ve done, they probably erred often along the way.

Steve Jobs got fired from Apple at one point, and Tiger Woods thrice reinvented his swing, playing horribly by his standards until he learned to trust his work and live with the results. But both achieved greater success as a result of forging ahead and facing their fears.

My cautionary tale is this. I have made no bones about my disdain for unions, and Mr. Nathan is one reason why. These are the two most valuable lessons I personally learned from high school. I owe Mr. Nathan for a lot of who I am as a person, and I can directly point to those lessons when I look at my successes in life. He was one of my favorite and certainly one of my best teachers.

However, he was one of our school’s newest teachers at the time. If there had been cuts, he would have been the first to go in favor of more tenured seat warmers that I sadly learned almost nothing from. I’d be a lesser man because of it. Lucky for me, I was in school during the Reagan years, and the economy was strong enough that didn’t happen.

I believe these lessons will help anyone, and I wanted to share them. I also hope you’ll fight to rid our schools of policies that would eschew great teachers in favor of the ones biding their time until retirement. It’s yours and your children’s future. Teach them well, and fight to be sure they are taught well by others.

Capitalism, Libertarianism, Social Issues

Why Pre-Existing Conditions Matter

June 29, 2012 Gary Nolan 2 Comments

In the Affordable Care Act, AKA Obamacare, there is a provision that requires health insurance companies cover pre-existing conditions. While the majority has condemned the insurance mandate of the ACA, most are in favor of pre-existing condition coverage being forced onto health insurers.

However, I feel that this is unwitting hypocrisy. How can someone oppose the government forcing them to pay for something but be OK with the government forcing someone else to? We oppose the mandate because we empathize with those who feel they don’t need to buy health insurance right now. But with pre-existing conditions, we then imagine situations where we lose our job and insurance and then are unable to get coverage because of pre-existing conditions, and lose our wonderful powers of empathy we had a moment ago and decide “f*** the insurance companies.”

This is what happens when people don’t care where money is coming from or who the loss hurts, as long as it benefits them personally.

It seems cruel to people that insurance companies would deny pre-existing conditions, but quite frankly, it’s wrong for us to expect them to cover them. I’d like to think it is because people don’t fully understand the issues with this, so having an insurance background, I’ll try to explain.

Imagine you decide to trade in your car which happens to have a irreparably damaged engine—now only serving the function of an industrial-sized paperweight. The car should be worth $5,000, but it needs $3,000 worth of repairs. The dealer takes the car in on trade for $2,000, and then resells it without fixing the engine. Instead, they sell the new buyer a $1,000 warranty. The new owner takes the car to a repair shop to address the blown engine, submits the claim, and now the $1,000 policy is supposed to pay for a $3,000 engine repair everyone knew it needed before all of this started?

Engine Which Has Suffered a Connecting Rod Failure

The insurance company would immediately take a $2,000 loss that it would have no way to recover since the policy was paid in full up front for $1,000. While the consumer and dealer might think this is awesome, the insurance company and all its employees who are about to go out of business because they’re repeatedly taking unrecoverable loss, won’t be as pleased.

The ultimate truth is that covering a pre-existing condition is not insurance, it’s a grant.

Insurance is designed so that the insured pays a premium up front, and in return, the insurer takes a financial risk that the insured can’t afford to take themselves. What’s the risk you ask?

Imagine you open a collision policy, and then pay your first premium of $200. On the way home from the agent’s office, you plow into someone and send them to the hospital with a quarter-million dollar medical bill. Guess what? The insurance company just lost $249,800 on you, and there is nothing to stop you from canceling your policy immediately after, leaving them with a massive loss. That’s a legitimate risk they take every single day.

The way they make a profit is by employing actuaries who calculate the insurance company’s anticipated claims using mathematical models, then the insurer charges a percentage above that in hopes the actuaries are have nailed their projected losses. You the consumer benefit because you passed that risk of a $250,000 settlement you might have incurred and can’t afford onto the insurance company, in favor of a monthly payment you can afford.

Here’s the reason I say that covering pre-existing conditions is a grant. What is to stop you from dropping your insurance company after you’ve had a massive claim like that? The answer is nothing. In the accident situation I explained, it is the risk the insurance companies take. While they lost, risk is the business they are in after all.

But in the pre-existing condition situation, there is absolutely no risk. You already have the condition, and they are going to be expected to pay for it. The word risk implies they may or may not incur damages, but with pre-existing conditions, risk is replaced with certainty because now they are liable for something you knew existed—because it was PRE-EXISTING.

Imagine you owned an insurance company and someone drove up with their car on a tow truck smashed to bits, requesting to start a full coverage policy with you. Are you really going to agree to that deal knowing that the claimant is going to give you $200 only to file a $10,000 claim tomorrow? If you’re answer is yes, you may want to avoid starting your own company. So, using the “Golden Rule” as a standard, why are we doing unto them, what we wouldn’t want done unto us?

I am not a heartless person who thinks people should be left to die. But, aside from the obvious personal responsibility issues of people who can buy insurance but opt not to, I believe we should not be treating insurance companies as if they’re Satan in business form, and that taking advantage of them should be considered an acceptable or even honorable practice. They employ a lot of people and help keep our economy strong by assuming those risks most of us can’t afford for a nominal fee we can. If you don’t like it, feel free to take that risk yourself if you can afford to.

Contrary to left-wing beliefs, insurance companies do not have a bottomless wallet. They can, and often do, go out of business if their losses become excessive, just like any other business. Which hurts all the people who work for them.

So while this law doesn’t pass the costs onto the taxpayer per se, insurance companies will pass it to the consumer in the form of raised rates, lest they go out of business. Many of you have no doubt noticed the rate increases already. And while we’re at it, taxpayer and consumer are generally the same people; it’s just the former implies the government pilfered a few bucks first.

There is a better way to improve the health care system through deregulation and tort reform which would lower costs. Taking advantage of legitimate businesses that are then forced to pass those damages onto us is not the answer.

Blue Sky Thinking, Libertarianism

The “Government-Is-Not-For-Profit” Act

June 25, 2012 Gary Nolan Leave a comment

Years ago, there existed a town near me called New Rome, Ohio. It was a small town of about 60 people, but they had a police force of 14 officers. That’s right, one policeman for approximately every four citizens!

You may think that sounds really good at first, if you’re no a libertarian like me, but if you do some simple math, a police officer making $40k a year would have cost each New Rome citizen $10,000 a year. Imagine that debit to your checking account for a minute.

So how did they pay for this? New Rome police had a lucrative business via a stretch of US Route 40 that went from 45 mph to 35 mph, even though the conditions of the road changed in no way to warrant the decrease. Many unwitting travelers got caught up in their highly effective trap, and New Rome raked in the cash.

Eventually, this corruption was discovered, and New Rome was disbanded and absorbed by a nearby township.

I highly doubt New Rome is the only example of this kind of corrupt greed in government. There are likely hundreds of towns scattered throughout the country who thrive by their ticket-writing dexterity, and it’s shameful.

Government is not a business. The purpose of a government by the people and for the people is simple. “We the people” appoint representatives to protect our rights from others who threaten them, and we pay them a modest salary to do so. Aside from protecting our rights, they should make every attempt to stay out of our life because THEY work for US. Just as you wouldn’t impede your bosses at work unless you felt one was stealing from the company, so you reported them to another, police should leave you alone in the same way. Police Officer

The government was never designed to be profitable nor generate income. Government is to collect the taxes needed to do the people’s business, and not a penny more.

I know my left wing friends are not supportive of the idea of limited government, but I think even they’d agree that unless the people are asking for something to be done, government officials should not take it upon themselves to do it.

As such, the government should never have a financial incentive to govern, but instead only a constitutional or lawful incentive to protect our aforementioned rights.

I believe most Americans would be upset that a government agency was in business like New Rome, and some people might propose a standard on how many policemen per citizen are allowed, but I think that’s the wrong approach for fear it would become a standard, not a limit.

So being the audacious guy I am; I have a unique proposal that I’d love to see get a little traction in order to insure the government doesn’t wrongly feed itself. If it does gain traction, you can say you saw it here first! We’ll call it the “Government-Is-Not-For-Profit” act.

• The government shall only collect revenue from taxes based on either the taxpayer’s income or product consumption. Other means of revenue such as, but not limited to penalties and fines, are strictly prohibited from being directed to government agencies.

• If fines are used as a method of penalization and dissuasion, those fines should only be payable to a legitimate charity, and the receipt from that charitable donation which is to be greater than or equal to the fine and paid between the period of the judgment and the due date shall be furnished to the government as the only allowable means of restitution.

• The government shall not use any action by a machine or device as the impetus for prosecution. Such devices shall only be used as investigative tools after a crime or misdemeanor has occurred and/or been witnessed and reported, or for scientific study without possibility of prosecution.

To explain the purpose of this better, the first provision would ensure that the government only collects revenue from all citizens in an equal and fair measure and prohibit any concept of incentivizing revenue.

The second provision would give the government a method for financially penalizing offenders, but instead of collecting the money themselves, the money would be directed toward a charity of the offender’s choice. For instance, if I get cited $100 for speeding, I would then donate that $100+ to the Red Cross, for instance, and send my receipt to the government to show I paid the fine to a legal charity. That way I still get penalized, but the government had no financial incentive to penalize me, only an incentive born out of safety, as it should be. As an added bonus, charitable donations are significantly increased.

The last one is about the growing “Big Brother” traffic cameras that dole out tickets purely for revenue, which have little to do with public safety. This provision would ensure that at no point are we being governed by machines. I understand the argument that a police officer must first review it, but I don’t care. It’s the dawning of Big Brother, and it needs to stop. big_brother_obama_parody_poster-p228489253510086489tdcp_400[1]

The point of all of this is simple. We the people decide how we are to be governed, and while we want the government to protect our rights, we also want them to understand that they work at our behest, and that feeding themselves at our expense so that they may grow their own agenda, which may be contradictory to our own, is strictly prohibited. They should be likened to referees in a sports event. You need them there to make sure we all play by the rules, but they should never be seen as the stars of the show.

The spirit of legislation is to protect the public. For instance, if a driver, alone in his car, is lightly speeding, and he’s the only one on the road, then it shouldn’t matter as he’s only a danger to himself. As soon as he goes zipping past another motorist, then it’s a problem.

Police understand this, which is why many just give warnings and generally honor the 5-10 mph grace speed in favor of nabbing the person who was truly driving dangerously. We just need to make sure all government officials think that way and taking away their incentive to fine and penalize is a perfect means to that end.

log·i·cal: capable of reasoning or of using reason in an orderly cogent fashion lib·er·tar·i·an: an advocate of the doctrine of free will; a person who upholds the principles of individual liberty especially of thought and action

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log·i·cal: capable of reasoning or of using reason in an orderly cogent fashion lib·er·tar·i·an: an advocate of the doctrine of free will; a person who upholds the principles of individual liberty especially of thought and action