Wheat, Weed, and ObamaCare: How the Commerce Clause Made Congress All-Powerful
via youtube.com
Finland perverts law, mocks the concept of Rights
Finland has become the first country in the world to make broadband internet access a legal right for all citizens.
The legislation, which came into effect Thursday, forces telecom operators to provide a reasonably priced broadband connection with a downstream rate of at least one megabit per second (mbs) to every permanent residence and office, the Finnish government said in a statement.
"From now on a reasonably priced broadband connection will be everyone's basic right in Finland," said Finnish communications minister Suvi Linden. "This is absolutely one of the government's most significant achievements in regional policy and I am proud of it.
via edition.cnn.com
"Reasonably priced" ...That sounds like a really solid and objective base for just law...
Think of what is really going on here. Imagine if it were my legal right to force you to provide me a service at whatever price I determine is "reasonable?" You don't have to imagine this if you live in Finland. The Law, better described as the collective force, is being directed by the vast majority of Fins, against a minority group (telecoms). The Law, which is supposed to be an instrument of justice and defense, is perverted into on offensive weapon of plunder.
And the Finnish government is an utter disgrace, promoting this concept as a "significant achievement." It is a digression and perversion of the high concepts of Rule of Law, Individual Rights, and Justice for which generations of men have struggled and died to advance.
What is next? "Reasonably priced" computers? Automobiles and Fuel? Food? Clothing? As soon as the law ceases to be just - where do you draw the line?
But, unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to its proper functions. And when it has exceeded its proper functions, it has not done so merely in some inconsequential and debatable matters. The law has gone further than this; it has acted in direct opposition to its own purpose. The law has been used to destroy its own objective: It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense.[...]
But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.
Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals. If such a law — which may be an isolated case — is not abolished immediately, it will spread, multiply, and develop into a system.
The person who profits from this law will complain bitterly, defending his acquired rights. He will claim that the state is obligated to protect and encourage his particular industry; that this procedure enriches the state because the protected industry is thus able to spend more and to pay higher wages to the poor workingmen.
Do not listen to this sophistry by vested interests. The acceptance of these arguments will build legal plunder into a whole system. In fact, this has already occurred. The present-day delusion is an attempt to enrich everyone at the expense of everyone else; to make plunder universal under the pretense of organizing it.
A couple gems from Krugman's -> Closing Arguments on Health Care - NYTimes
Whenever you read Paul Krugman, it is always helpful to remember that this man won a Nobel Peace Prize in Economics. It might as well have been for Pushing Water Uphill. Here are a couple remarkable statements from his latest New York times column. That's right...THE New York Times - where The Vision of the Anointed is valued above any rational thought:
Beyond that, this is a story that could happen only in America. In every other advanced nation, insurance coverage is available to everyone regardless of medical history. Our system is unique in its cruelty.
[...]
So you end up with a tripartite policy: elimination of medical discrimination, mandated coverage, and premium subsidies.
Above, Krugman is referencing the much lauded "pre-existing conditions" angle. Now, in a tiny way, I actually agree that often insurance companies can be extremely harsh in their restrictions regarding people who have pre-existing conditions. However, the problem here is the screwy way some companies define "pre-existing." That should draw Krugman's ire - not the fact that any pre-existing condition must be ignored. The latter concept is lunacy. What would be the incentive to purchase insurance, if you were guaranteed coverage regardless of any pre-existing conditions? The whole point of insurance being that you are paying someone else to pool the risk that you may or may not require healthcare. It is not "discrimination" to willfully take on exorbitant risk.
So what of Krugman's solution: 1) Force insurance providers not to "discriminate." Coercing and removing the risk for mortgage lenders to make less "discriminatory" loans sure worked out really well for the mortgage industry. 2) Mandate everyone purchase insurance to increase the risk pool. Good idea...except that the poor are immediately and totally screwed. His solution for that - subsidize the poor. His solution to pay for that subsidy - you guessed it - taxing other groups of people. This is a fine strategy, if you endorse using the law to plunder various arbitrary groups of individuals. Since the law's sole purpose is to provide justice by defending a man's life, liberty, and property, you should be able to see the obvious contradiction. In short - Krugman solution is practicing injustice to promote justice.
Also, with regard to his, "every other advanced nation...," statement; massive entitlement programs are exactly why most of these nations are going broke. Apparently, in Krugman's mind, it is considered "advanced" to not only be fiscally irresponsible, but also to proclaim that A is not A.
Next quote:
Can you imagine a better reform? Sure. If Harry Truman had managed to add health care to Social Security back in 1947, we’d have a better, cheaper system than the one whose fate now hangs in the balance.
Yes, nobel laureate Paul Krugman just referenced Social Security in the same sentence with "better" and "cheaper." Anyone who grasps mathematics knows that Social Security is careening at breakneck speed into the abyss of insolvency. Furthermore - it is a textbook Ponzi Scheme,requiring an ever expanding population of people who pay into the system. (For the record - the current population growth in America is 2.1, a number which includes massive latino immigration rates. In order for a population to maintain itself, the absolute lowest-low population growth rate must be 2.11 children per family.) Krugman's statement above relies on demonstratively ludicrous political platitude that Social Security is a trust fund.
The point I am trying to make here is not that I am a better economist than Paul Krugman. I am not. Rather, our basic assumptions about economics and law are fundamentally different. Paul Krugman's flaw, is not a lack of intelligence -- quite the opposite is true. His problems arise from the rather obvious flaws in his foundational assumptions.
For instance, Krugman's appeals to the "cruelty" of our system. Surprise, cruelty exists on earth - but in Paul Krugman's mind, only in our health system, and the only solution to this cruelty - is to reject the most basic principal of economics: scarcity. It may be cruel to view healthcare as a scarce resource, but this is an unalterable fact. Again, it is a fact that cruelty exists in our system, but only in a childish fantasy world can you assume this cruelty will be eliminated through the right government program. There will still be the very same amount of healthcare regardless of any program. The cost of healthcare is in direct relationship to its supply and demand, and some inherent inefficiencies within the current system. There may be things we can do to weed out these inefficiencies, but it is nearly a complete denial of human history to believe that a government system will be more efficient. The real cruelty here is perpetrated by the New York Times, by propping up a man who promotes such a Disney-movie level view of economics.
As much as he might try to hide it, Krugman holds firm to Keynesian economic theory, and is a classic purveyor of The Vision of the Anointed. These ideas aren't directly expressed, but can be easily derived from his writings. Take for instance - his vision of law expressed above. Though he doesn't state it directly, it can be determined by simply extending his arguments to their logical conclusion. It is clear that Krugman does not hold that the law is an instrument of justice alone, but that it may also be employed to correct certain economic inequalities within a society. The concept of "economic justice" is based on the simplistic and clearly false notion that all people have the same wants, needs, and drive.
The Vision of the Anointed is complicated, but can be summed up in the idea that broad and complex decisions are best made by "experts" or "intellectuals", rather than individual persons. It assumes that if the right constraints are removed, human dispositions can be improved. Thus, the real key to societal advancement is to install the very best and brightest people to positions in which they have the power to make these decisions. This idea is really at the heart of Keynesian economic theory; that an empowered group is required to manage and provide direction to the vast economic forces within a nation. In other words - The Vision of the Anointed is the belief that an enlightened group of men can make people or society better.
I reject this vision. I tend to follow the Austrian School of economics which is essentially focused on liberty and understanding Human Action. I define law as Frederick Bastiat did:
The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all.
In that statement, I find the proper definition and function of government - a tool, or an extension of individual rights. I acknowledge the depressing, yet true fact that health insurance and health care are scarce resources, and do not exist purely because of my desire for their existence. In my opinion - Krugman bends or discards these facts to serve his vision. His view of the law perverts the law's only function, by legalizing plunder, and preforming actions which would be unlawful if practiced by any individual. Visions ought to be based on facts of nature, rather than attempts to bend nature to fit a vision. The same can be said for economics.
Be sure to read Krugman's entire column here: nytimes.com
THE LAW by Frédéric Bastiat - 1850
Last night I finished reading Frédéric Bastiat's outstanding treatise, The Law. I highly recommend it to any liberty loving person. I have posted an excerpt from it below - but you can read it in entirety here.
The Complete Perversion of the Law But, unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to its proper functions. And when it has exceeded its proper functions, it has not done so merely in some inconsequential and debatable matters. The law has gone further than this; it has acted in direct opposition to its own purpose. The law has been used to destroy its own objective: It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense.
How has this perversion of the law been accomplished? And what have been the results?
The law has been perverted by the influence of two entirely different causes: stupid greed and false philanthropy. Let us speak of the first.
A Fatal Tendency of Mankind Self-preservation and self-development are common aspirations among all people. And if everyone enjoyed the unrestricted use of his faculties and the free disposition of the fruits of his labor, social progress would be ceaseless, uninterrupted, and unfailing.
But there is also another tendency that is common among people. When they can, they wish to live and prosper at the expense of others. This is no rash accusation. Nor does it come from a gloomy and uncharitable spirit. The annals of history bear witness to the truth of it: the incessant wars, mass migrations, religious persecutions, universal slavery, dishonesty in commerce, and monopolies.
This fatal desire has its origin in the very nature of man -- in that primitive, universal, and insuppressible instinct that impels him to satisfy his desires with the least possible pain.
Property and Plunder Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor; by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources. This process is the origin of property.
But it is also true that a man may live and satisfy his wants by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others. This process is the origin of plunder.
Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain -- and since labor is pain in itself -- it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under these conditions, neither religion nor morality can stop it.
When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor.
It is evident, then, that the proper purpose of law is to use the power of its collective force to stop this fatal tendency to plunder instead of to work. All the measures of the law should protect property and punish plunder.
But, generally, the law is made by one man or one class of men. And since law cannot operate without the sanction and support of a dominating force, this force must be entrusted to those who make the laws.
This fact, combined with the fatal tendency that exists in the heart of man to satisfy his wants with the least possible effort, explains the almost universal perversion of the law. Thus it is easy to understand how law, instead of checking injustice, becomes the invincible weapon of injustice. It is easy to understand why the law is used by the legislator to destroy in varying degrees among the rest of the people, their personal independence by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property by plunder. This is done for the benefit of the person who makes the law, and in proportion to the power that he holds.
Victims of Lawful Plunder Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter -- by peaceful or revolutionary means -- into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.
Woe to the nation when the latter purpose prevails among the mass victims of lawful plunder when they, in turn, seize the power to make laws!
Until that happens, the few practice lawful plunder upon the many, a common practice where the right to participate in the making of law is limited to a few persons. But then, participation in the making of law becomes universal. And then, men seek to balance their conflicting interests by universal plunder. Instead of rooting out the injustices found in society, they make these injustices general. As soon as the plundered classes gain political power, they establish a system of reprisals against other classes. They do not abolish legal plunder. (This objective would demand more enlightenment than they possess.) Instead, they emulate their evil predecessors by participating in this legal plunder, even though it is against their own interests.
It is as if it were necessary, before a reign of justice appears, for everyone to suffer a cruel retribution -- some for their evilness, and some for their lack of understanding.
The Results of Legal Plunder It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.
What are the consequences of such a perversion? It would require volumes to describe them all. Thus we must content ourselves with pointing out the most striking.
In the first place, it erases from everyone's conscience the distinction between justice and injustice.
No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them.
The nature of law is to maintain justice. This is so much the case that, in the minds of the people, law and justice are one and the same thing. There is in all of us a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are "just" because law makes them so. Thus, in order to make plunder appear just and sacred to many consciences, it is only necessary for the law to decree and sanction it.
Slavery, restrictions, and monopoly find defenders not only among those who profit from them but also among those who suffer from them.
Read the entire piece: barefootsworld.net
