Luke, I Am Your Founding Father (Liberty and Healthcare)

The founding fathers of the United States were an amazing group of people. Many of them were wealthy, yet were willing to lay all on the line to extricate themselves from the tyranny of the British crown. (In many ways they are like Luke, Han, Leia, and others trying to rid themselves of the empire.) As they said in the Declaration of Independence: "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

These men had a love of liberty and a deep distrust of government. This distrust came about from personal experience. But they still understood that some level of government was necessary in order to insure freedom. Without a proper level of government oversight, society would descend into chaos and anarchy. They believed there had to be an ultimate authority to protect the country as a whole, create law, try and punish criminals, and act as a final arbiter for settling disputes.

The founders did three major things in an attempt to prevent government from growing too powerful. First, they set in place the idea that the country ultimately belonged to all citizens and that the government only operated at their behest. They backed up this idea by creating a Constitution starting with the words "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." The Articles following these words describe and delimit the powers of the Federal Government.

Second, still being distrustful, they created the Bill of Rights to further define the rights of individuals that could not be taken away by government. The Bill of Rights preamble says, "The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added." And to put a stop to the notion that somehow all of the rights of man had been thought of and included in the Bill of Rights, they said this in the ninth amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Third, they left it for the states and the people themselves to handle any issues that the Federal Government was not authorized to handle. This was stated clearly in the tenth amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

All of these safeguards took foresight. But, after all, it was Thomas Jefferson himself that said in 1788, "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yeild, and government to gain ground." Yet, the Constitution served the citizens well for many years. But somewhere along the line the politicians came to understand the words of Alexis de Tocqueville, "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money." In other words, until the day Congress discovers that it can take money away from its citizens by force and then buy their votes by offering some of that money back to them in the form of giveaways and programs.

Today, de Tocqueville's words line the walls of Congress. Not as a reminder of the impending loss of our Republic, but as a reminder of how to get reelected. For many years now, Congress has violated its trust with the public by taking the public's money via taxes, levies, fees, or whatever, and giving it back to certain people in order to assure their votes. This is what I call the politicization of America. But this has happened with the approval of the White House, the Supreme Court, and the citizens themselves in direct opposition to the Constitution. Why? Because we citizens as a whole have bought into the politicians' bribes.

Today, the elephant in the room is national healthcare. It is presently being implemented in the form of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). This is better know as ObamaCare. Bear in mind that PPACA is not a government run healthcare system. It is rather a mandated healthcare system. Private insurers still sell the insurance, but with certain mandates associated with it. Yet, it is still a government controlled healthcare system. So, why be concerned? Two reasons. One is philosophical, the other practical.

Philosophically, we should be concerned with the government controlling anything that is not permitted under the Constitution because that means we the citizens did not authorize it. But didn't the Supreme Court rule that PPACA was Constitutional? Indeed they did. But, I believe they did so using tortured logic, just as they have done with many other government programs over the years. There is no clause in the Constitution or its Amendments that authorizes the Federal Government to be involved in healthcare in any way. The only way you can get that out of it is to greatly stretch the meaning of other clauses. Three commonly stretched clauses are the "general welfare", "regulate commerce", and "lay and collect taxes" clauses. But it seems clear to me that if those clauses can be stretched as far as they have, then there is essentially no need for the Constitution. Just let Congress do what they want. But, as you may have observed, politicians still like having that ole Constitution around. They like to use it to hammer opponents wanting something opposed to it and conveniently ignore it when they want something opposed to it.

Practically, I am skeptical of the long term success of the PPACA. Why? Because of how other government controlled systems have fared over the years. Look at Social Security and Medicare. Both are on the brink of failure. Why? Because, as usual, politicians have overpromised, expanding these programs in order to get elected. In other words, the programs have become politicized. Social Security was put into place at a time when most people didn't even live to see any money out of the system. Yet, even as lifespans increased and the number of children being born decreased, more benefits were added to the Social Security program. Medicare suffers from something similar. As people live longer and new technology keeps adding more medical costs to an aging person's life, fewer children are coming along to pay for it.

So, unless some radical changes are made to SS and Medicare, they will become unsustainable in a few years. Yet, the politicians keep talking about how successful these programs have been. Well, yes, perhaps for a while. But the politicians' meddling and unwillingness to change these systems in crisis will ultimately lead to their failure. What makes us think that the government will handle national healthcare any differently, whether it be government run or just government controlled?

On the other hand, perhaps there is no reason for concern. If we can just jury rig all these government programs so they last until after we die, who cares? We can benefit from these programs during our life and let our children worry about the fallout. Yeah, that's the ticket. Stick it to the younger generation! Well, that's tempting, but I don't roll that way. I believe that each generation should live within its own means and pass on a country that is better than the one it inherited. Call me old fashioned, but that's me.

So, based on the wisdom of the founding fathers and my knowledge of history and how governments operate, I believe that, over the long haul, liberty and charity work much better than all inclusive government programs.

What’s So Curious About Ayn Rand?

In the August 18, 2012, issue of the TimesDaily newspaper was a commentary by Cynthia Tucker entitled “Rand is curious choice for veneration.” In this article, Ms. Tucker wonders how Rep. Paul Ryan, VP nominee for the Republican Party, could be a fan of Ayn Rand. After all, Rand was an atheist and a big proponent of using reason rather than faith to obtain truth. Ryan is a Catholic. How do these two jive? Well, I believe it is just as Ryan claims: he rejects Rand’s atheism, but embraces her view of government.

I personally became a fan of Ayn Rand when I read her book The Voice of Reason back in the 1980’s. When I read this book I suddenly realized that Rand was saying the things I believed but had not been able to express verbally. It was an epiphany. I went on to read many more of Rand’s writings, including some of her novels. I eventually began calling myself an Objectivist, although I have backed off that to some degree. There are a number of aspects of Rand’s philosophy that I disagree with, such as her inexplicable belief that a woman should never serve as the President of the United States. But if you think about it, it is very rare that any two people have EXACTLY the same beliefs about EVERY single topic. Everyone has his own ISM running about in his own mind.

Rand predicted many years ago that if the country kept following the path of governmental altruism and cronyism, the country would eventually reach a crisis point. She even predicted that the people in power would not even realize that it was their policies that brought on the crisis. Well, that is exactly what has happened. Is it possible for an atheist to be a prophet? In this instance, apparently so. The USA has attempted to provide everyone with anything that they want and at the same time regulate until they strangulate. This is a recipe for fiscal disaster. Why wouldn’t Rep. Ryan be a fan of Ayn Rand’s ideas on these matters?

While I agree with Ms. Tucker that Ayn Rand was not a perfect person—who is?—she gets one thing wrong about her philosophy. It’s a point that many people get wrong. In her commentary she says, “What’s more, Rand was an atheist and libertine whose private life was testament to her fierce belief that individuals should be free to do whatever they please, no matter the consequences to others.” Uh, WRONG! Here is what Rand really believed about how individuals should live their lives.

“Man—every man—is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life.”

The essence of this quote is that no person is another person’s slave. Don’t expect me to sacrifice for you, and I will not expect you to sacrifice for me. We will live our lives by voluntary exchange. So, was Rand opposed to charity? No, not when it came to individuals supporting causes they deemed worthy of support. What Rand did find anathema was the idea of governmental charity. Why? Because that requires our leaders to extract by force the wealth of some citizens to give to others. This can work both ways. It can be the forced extraction of money from the wealthy to give to the poor, which is called welfare. Or it can be the forced extraction of money from the poor to give to the rich, which is called corporate welfare. Rand believed both types of welfare to be immoral since it required the force of government, thus making some people the slaves of others. However, she would have no problem with an individual voluntarily turning his money over to another person or organization. As Thomas Sowell once said, “I have never understood why it is ‘greed’ to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.”

So, it is true that Ayn Rand was a flawed human being. I do not believe that she even followed her own philosophy 100% of the time. Yet, her core beliefs remain sound. Everyone should be free to pursue his or her own interests and not be made a slave, even to a small degree, of others. Can anyone really argue against that?

GREED

I recently posted a one-sentence thought about greed on several social media sites. I decided to expand on this thought with a blog post. Here is what the original post said.


“Greed can be found more in the poor who demand the goods of others than in the wealthy who earn their own.”


I have found that a number of people balk at such comments and may think I have something against poor people. But just the opposite is true. I want all of us to live in a society where it is possible for poor people to become wealthy. I have nothing against poor people, but I do have something against being poor. Therefore, to better understand my one-sentence thought, let’s take a look at a typical definition of the word greed.


“An excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth.” -- The Free Dictionary


Most people tend to concentrate on the first part of this definition, “…more than one needs”, rather than the second part, “…more than one deserves”. I tend to think of the former as a good type of greed and the latter as a bad type of greed. Why? Because of the consequences of each. Let’s take a closer look.

When someone says that another person is greedy because they have a great desire to have more than they need, a number of questions need to be asked. How much does a person truly need? Does need end at the point of survival? Or does need mean having enough to live comfortably? What do you consider to be an excessive desire as opposed to a moderate desire? Does a person’s actions in pursuit of more possessions play into the equation at all?

Here in the United States as well as other developed nations, the free enterprise system has provided its citizens with the means to become wealthy beyond our wildest imaginations. In countries where free enterprise is non-existent, the populace tend to live in poverty. Sure, the leaders may live a life of opulence, but the average person does not, and has very little chance of getting out of his situation apart from leaving for a freer nation. Most countries today have mixed economies, meaning that the economy is free to some degree, but controlled by the government to some degree also. In general, the wealth of a nation increases with the degree to which it is free.

So, what happens when a greedy entrepreneur decides he wants more than he needs. WEALTH! That entrepreneur, in order to gain what he so desires, must develop a product or service that other people want and are willing to pay him more than he put into creating it. That provides the entrepreneur profit. But it also benefits the buyer because they needed or wanted the product or service more than the money they paid for it. It also benefits all those people the entrepreneur had to hire to design, develop, and produce his product. Most people understand this. When people think of greedy people, most are probably thinking of the ones that are willing to cheat or steal to get their wealth. Yes, those actions are wrong. But one must keep in mind that it is not the greed that is wrong, but rather the means by which they went about satisfying their greed. Let’s simplify. There is nothing wrong with my desiring to have a new flat screen TV, and there is nothing wrong with me working at a job to earn the money to buy the TV. However, if I just went down to Best Buy and took it without paying, that’s stealing, and it is wrong. Yet, my desire for the TV was still not wrong, just the means I chose to satisfy my desire.

This leads to the second definition of greed: an excessive desire for more than one deserves. What does one deserve? This should be easy. A person deserves whatever they can obtain honestly. If a person has skills that only earns them $10,000 per year, then $10,000 in goods and services is what they deserve. If a person has skills where they can honestly earn $6,000,000 per year, then they deserve $6,000,000 in goods and services. To say otherwise is to create artificial boundaries. Yes, it sometimes appears that there are a large number of people who become wealthy by cheating and stealing. I personally believe this is mostly perception rather than reality. The press writes a lot about rich crooks, but very little about rich honest people. So, in our minds, we tend to think that a large proportion of rich people got that way by cheating. But even if I am wrong, my point is still valid. It’s the actions one takes to satisfy his greed that determines right and wrong, not the greed itself.

So, can poor people be greedy in the sense of having an excessive desire for more than they deserve. Well, of course they can. And they can cheat and steal just like rich people can. They may not steal as much as the rich, but the principle is still the same. It is wrong to cheat and steal to obtain that which we did not earn. Acting on this type of greed almost always requires one to do wrong. Why? Because how else can one obtain more than they deserve? I can only think of one moral way. Charity. This is where people voluntarily donate time, goods, and money to help those who got a bad break in life though no fault of their own. Yet, there are quite a few people who believe they are due more than they can obtain honestly or through charity and are willing to commit a crime to obtain it. Or, and this is a big OR, they get government to obtain their largesse for them.

Unfortunately, what we are seeing more and more of these days are able-bodied people mooching off the working public via a state-sanctioned welfare program. If one were to suggest that these particular people should be removed from the rolls, many protests would arise because this charity is now thought of as something deserved.

So, let’s summarize. Desiring more wealth is not wrong in and of itself regardless of your status in life. Call it greed if you want, but don’t call it wrong. I call it wanting to improve your lot in life. Even if you consider it wrong for the super wealthy to desire more, surely you can’t believe that it is wrong for a person to desire more, even strongly desire more, if they live at subsistence level (meaning they have just what they need and no more). Would you be willing to walk up to a frail person in a third world country who is surviving, but not thriving, and tell him he is greedy for desiring more out of life? If so, then shame on you. All people should be free to pursue whatever status they so desire. And therein lies the problem. The countries where the people do not thrive are the ones where the leaders are oppressive. Most of these nations’ citizens probably desire a better life, meaning more wealth. What they need are new leaders that allow them to be free.

Now, back to my one-liner. “Greed can be found more in the poor who demand the goods of others than in the wealthy who earn their own.” Here I am using the word “greed” in the sense of desiring more than one deserves. As such, I believe my statement to be true.

On Wealth and Giving

This morning I heard David Jeremiah on the radio talking about tithes and offerings. He talked about how he and his wife had recently discussed what they felt like the Lord was leading them to do in the way of giving. He said that the older he gets the more he realizes how little a person really needs to live. Although he didn’t state it explicitly, Jeremiah seemed to be implying that Christians needed to scale back obtaining things they simply want and give more to the Lord instead. I would like to express my view on this matter.

First, one has to be clear about what is meant by needs and wants. Do needs only include those things required to survive at a subsistence level or can they also include things that elevate us some degree above subsistence level. If the former, then it really is true that very little is needed. These would consist of: a small shelter to protect us from the elements, a minimal amount of basic foods for nourishment, and very basic clothing to protect us from the winter cold and the summer sun. Multi-roomed brick houses with fine decorations are not needed. Twenty-dollar steaks and other high end culinary delights are not required. Designer clothes are not essential. Throw out those TVs, radios, game machines, phones, computers, fine furniture, dish washers, clothes washers and dryers, plush mattresses, etc. None of those things are necessary to maintain a subsistence level existence.

But I doubt seriously that Jeremiah was talking about scaling our lives back this much. He hasn’t done it and I don’t see a mass movement amongst believers to leap into a poverty level existence. So, if God’s people are allowed to live above the poverty line, how far above it can they go? Once one steps above that line, I can see no logical stopping point. At every step along the way, one can question his own actions. You want to sleep on a nice $500 mattress rather than the floor so your back won’t hurt. But is preventing your hurting back more important than preventing a destitute person from starving to death? Is the convenience of having a machine wash your dishes more important than providing shelter to a person exposed to the elements? And on and on the questions can be asked. At what point should the answer be that my comforts are less important than another’s survival?

Rather than questioning his spending habits, a person could choose to go the route that Jesus told the rich ruler in Luke 18 he must follow to inherit eternal life: sell everything and give to the poor. This Biblical story has been repeated so much that we sort of gloss over how incredibly radical this command is. Sell everything and give to the poor! I have often wondered how this would play out in real life should a person actually do this. First, the rich man would himself immediately become poor and need the assistance of others who are selling everything and giving to the poor. That is unless the rich man had a source of income to sustain him in the future. Assuming he does, is he required to continually sell all new possessions that come his way or is this just a onetime event leaving him free to accumulate wealth in the future with impunity? It would seem that the answer to this is that he would have to continually turn over his wealth to the poor lest his new possessions take control of his life as the old possessions had.

I personally think that as long as a person has earned his possessions honestly, then he is free to live at any standard of living he can afford. In countries where this has been allowed, wealth beyond what even a king could have imagined 500 years ago has been created. Look at society today here in the US as well as in other relatively free nations around the world. It is absolutely phenomenal! Now think with me about what would happen if everyone decided to quit buying things not necessary to simply exist. The world economy would be decimated. If people quit buying TVs, iPods, appliances, large houses, fancy clothes, and so on, worldwide unemployment would probably top 50% or higher. This is due to the efficiency in the current production of necessary items. It does not take the entire working population to produce these things. So, for there to be work available for everyone else, they of necessity must produce wanted items rather than needed items. Just look at what has happened in the last couple of years with the economic downturn. Just a small number of people withholding spending on luxury items has caused unemployment in the US to top 10%. That is nothing compared to what would happen if there was a mass exodus from high-on-the-hog living.

So, is it better to stop living an affluent life, thus putting billions of people out of work; or is it better to continue to acquire more and more unnecessary stuff, thus keeping billions of people employed. It seems to me that it is much, much better for everybody to live as affluently as possible and keep people employed than live modestly and cause many to go on welfare, assuming there’s any welfare money available under such conditions. In addition, it is affluence that allows us to provide an abundance of emergency help to people in dire straits like the people of Haiti. If those who are able to live abundantly fail to do so, then they can cause as much devastation and suffering for the poor of the world as can a natural disaster.