Month: October 2009

Categories
culture

Liberty is . . .


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If I am pursuing liberty it seems reasonable to try defining what “liberty” is. Let me start off by saying that I chose the name very carefully and in the years since then I have confirmed many times that I chose correctly – liberty is what I am pursuing, and nothing short of liberty will satisfy me.

The primary (top) dictionary definition of liberty is:

a. The condition of being free from restriction or control.

b. The right and power to act, believe, or express oneself in a manner of one’s own choosing.

c. The condition of being physically and legally free from confinement, servitude, or forced labor.

I would like to add my own working definition of what liberty is. Let me preface that list of what liberty is with a couple of statements of what liberty is not:

Now for what liberty is:

  • Liberty is hard work
  • Liberty is personal responsibility
  • Liberty is the freedom to make choices
  • Liberty is attainable only on an individual level
  • Liberty is compatible with all universal laws (laws of physics, laws of human nature, laws of economics, etc.)
  • Liberty is the highest goal a person could achieve

Finally I would like to state that there is no such thing as purely political liberty except in the sense that it is possible to live in a society that promotes/provides political liberty while personally making choices that curtail ones own personal liberty. This means that in order to achieve political liberty we must be willing and able to attain personal liberty in other areas of life through our use of personal choice and accountability – anything less than that is simply freedom.

Categories
General

Legislator as Fundraiser


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When it comes to raising money to run a campaign an ideal legislator needs to understand the real value of money in politics. They need to accept that a serious campaign will require more money than they can personally supply (unless they have significant personal wealth). They need to be comfortable asking people to support them financially – that requires not only being comfortable making the request, but also confident in the message they are promoting in their campaign. On the other hand, an ideal legislator should never fall into the trap of thinking that money can overcome the absolute necessity for them to be putting in hard work on the ground making their case among the people who will be casting their votes.

Here is where I know some people will disagree with me. I contend that a campaign even for federal offices can be financed entirely through personal donations by people residing within the jurisdiction of the office being sought. Contributions from businesses should be refused. Businesses and industries that are part of the district for the office being sought should make any desired contributions through the individuals within those companies. Money from Political Action Committees should not be given to specific candidates. Committees that wish to help a candidate should spend their own money in whatever way they feel will best help the candidate without the candidate ever receiving any money from them. “Abc PAC” can endorse a candidate, can buy booths saying they support that candidate, can make and distribute literature and other advertising materials for the candidate, but should not write a check to the candidate. Anything they produce should never have the candidate saying that they approved the message – in other words, the PAC and the candidate should be independent of each other with full right to voice their support of the efforts of the other.

Personally I would prefer that a candidate never run a campaign on debt although I am not ready to say that I could never support a candidate that uses debt to help finance their campaign. I would say that no good candidate should ever carry debt from one campaign to another. If they have not paid off their expenses from a previous campaign (for the same office or another office) they should not be running a new campaign.

I know that there are people who would argue that this ideal is not feasible in our current political environment and I am open to thoughts on what can and should be done, but please don’t just shoot down my ideal without explaining why we should not desire it.

Categories
National

Under-Informed Health Care Debate


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Considering how widely discussed the health care issue is and how long running that discussion has been it is easy for people to think they have all the available and relevant information on the subject. The fact is that despite the appearance of coverage you can only scratch the surface of available information unless you search beyond mainstream news sources. Here’s a letter in the  Salt Lake Tribune yesterday as a case in point:

To President Barack Obama and Congress, I say: Negotiate the various health care reform bills — soon. Get the Blue Dog Democrats on board, and pass a bill — soon, before your public becomes so weary of partisan infighting that we oppose anything you pass.

The Republicans, for all their bluster, have not offered any alternative, except our Sen. Bob Bennett with Oregon Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden, and that bill has received only token Republican support. . .

The author is right that the Health Americans Act by Wyden and Bennett has received only token Republican support – largely because it is only fleetingly different from the various Democrat only bills in circulation. On the other hand, he is far from right that Republicans have offered no alternatives – that’s just the line that Congressional leaders and the administration have been feeding to the media. Just browse the sites of Rep. Ron Paul and Sen. Jim DeMint to get an idea of some of the Republican counter-proposals that have been offered. Then consider that for every idea presented by those two members of Congress there must be dozens of ideas that were offered in negotiations before the Republicans left the tables that never received even token consideration by leaders of the various committees.

On the very day the letter was being published Rep. John Shadegg (AZ-03) was talking about one of those non-existent Republican plans that was apparently introduced back in July and cosponsored by Rep. Rob Bishop (UT-01) among others. (h/t Right Truth) As always in the health care debate, each bill should be measured against the findings of David Goldhill to see if it actually addresses the real problems in the health care system. (Shadegg’s bill appears to do better than the bills actually acknowledged by the media from what I’ve seen.)

Although I maintain that being truly informed requires that we look at more information sources than the mainstream media that also means that we have to be discerning about the accuracy of each information source. I think it’s safe to doubt the accuracy of anyone (especially an MD) that believes that our current health care system suffers from a “lack of government regulation.” I’m amazed that someone could seriously argue that the current proposals under consideration represent free market solutions and that solutions based on free market principles would be a good thing while also arguing that the free market is the cause of our health care woes.