THE GOVERNMENT IS TOO INVOLVED IN HEALTHCARE

This week the Supreme Court is expected to issue its long-awaited decision regarding the constitutionality of the "Obamacare" law. I recently discussed absurd legal arguments by Obamacare advocates that Congress can compel the purchase of health insurance, and the dismal record of federal courts applying so-called "judicial review" in protecting liberty. It is obvious that Obamacare's legal apologists either are wholly ignorant of constitutional principles, or wholly lawless in their blatant disregard for those principles. Likewise, supporters of Obamacare are willfully ignorant of basic economics. The fundamental problem with health care costs in America is that the doctor-patient relationship has been profoundly altered by third party interference. Third parties, either government agencies themselves or nominally private insurance companies virtually forced upon us by government policies, have not only destroyed doctor-patient confidentiality. They also inescapably drive up costs because basic market disciplines-- supply and demand, price sensitivity, and profit signals-- are destroyed. Obamacare, via its insurance mandate, is more of the same misdiagnosis. Gabriel Vidal, Chief Operating Officer of a U.S. hospital system, sees this problem squarely in his daily work. As he explains, Obamacare will only make matters worse because it fails to recognize that "costs are out of control because they do not reflect prices created by the voluntary exchange between patients and providers... like every well-functioning industry." Instead, "health costs reflect the distortions that government regulators have introduced through reimbursement mechanisms created by command-and-control bureaucracies at federal and state levels," he continues. "But it is theoretically and practically impossible for a bureaucrat- no matter how accurate the cost data, how well-intentioned and how sophisticated his computer program- to come up with the correct and just price. The (doctor-patient) relationship... has been corrupted by the intrusion of government and its intermediaries (HMOs, for example) to such an extent that we can no longer speak of a relationship that can produce meaningful pricing information." Absent such pricing information, our system increasingly resembles socialist systems with centralized price setting, shortages, rationing, apathy, and declining quality of care. As the situation deteriorates, fewer bright young people want to practice medicine and fewer foreign doctors seek to immigrate. The problem is acute and worsening. Obamacare's third party insurance mandate is only the first step toward what the political left really wants: a single payer government healthcare system. Meanwhile, conservatives seem resigned to a third party insurance system and therefore fail to present a viable alternative to the American people. They continue to speak in terms of saving the healthcare "system," when in fact what America needs is a rejection of all government systems in favor of free market mechanisms. In a free market, most Americans would pay cash for basic services and maintain inexpensive high-deductible insurance for catastrophic injury or illnesses only. Health insurance would be decoupled from employment, which would unleash entrepreneurs who now fear quitting their jobs and losing their health insurance. Costs would plummet due to real competition among doctors, price sensitivity among patients, and elimination of enormous paperwork costs. Doctors would be happier, spending their time treating patients rather than managing their practices. Congress needs to let markets work by aggressively repealing healthcare laws, including: the HMO Act of 1973; the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit passed in 2003; and the Obamacare bill passed in 2010. Furthermore, we must begin scaling back Medicare coverage altogether for younger generations so they will not rely on a system that cannot remain solvent in future decades. Only by taking these steps now can we begin to undo the harm done by government to the once noble field of medicine.

WHAT I THINK.......BOB WENZEL

Occasionally, I will receive an email from an EPJ reader, who will inform me of some U.S. congressional race, or some other race, where a "libertarian" is doing quite well and might win.
I have written before, that the number of people in the United States, who understand liberty, and want liberty, is under 10%, so I find it hard to believe that "libertarians" are very close to being elected in all these races.
I don't think the emailers understand the essence of the Ron Paul presidential campaign: He lost.
He lost, BUT he got an important message out. Millions more now understand that there is a very well thought out liberty philosophy, but let me again emphasize, Ron Paul is not going to be president and he lost in 2008, also. He is a big time political loser. Yet, as an educational tool to advance the liberty message, his presidential campaign has to be ranked as one of the greatest marketing success stories ever.
Where he was a political success, as a member of the House of Representatives, he really didn't accomplish much, if anything. How could he amongst a bunch of statists?


Where he was a political failure, he accomplished much, very much: he launched a movement.
And that's what libertarians need to know about running for office. It's not about compromising your principles to gain more votes, its not about hiding your true views on taxes and minimum wage laws to gain more votes, it's about running to get the hardcore libertarian message out.
It's about hoping that after you give a speech where you denounce minimum wage laws, all taxes and the local public fire department, that at least one person, maybe two, wander over to you after your speech and tell you that what you said sounded interesting.


It's about losing the election, but at the same time advancing the libertarian cause.
In other words, it's okay for a libertarian to run for office, if it's the Ron Paul way. If it's about losing the election but spreading the word. If it's about writing op-eds, appearing in debates and being interviewed on radio about hardcore libertarianism.
Libertarians aren't close to getting elected in most places with just a libertarian message. But the message can be spread. Ron Paul has proved that. If this is done in enough places, enough times, the message can be spread even more, and more people will catch on. Then some day, perhaps five years from now, perhaps ten, we may hear of people sticking completely to libertarian principle and winning here and winning there. That will be the signal that large numbers of people at that time want liberty and understand what liberty is.
As for now, though, don't email me to tell me how close you are to victory. Email me to tell me you were on a radio show and explained to the host the dangers of government charity and the dangers of government healthcare. Write to tell me that you most assuredly are going to lose the election, but as you get better and better about spreading the word about libertarianism that instead of one person coming up to you after every other speech you give, five and six people are coming up to you after every speech and are curious about libertarianism.
The real test, of course, will be to see if the black hole of power doesn't suck you in and make you a sell-out.

WHAT I THINK........TOM WOODS

Few people in public life ever stray from the three-by-five card of approved opinion. On those rare occasions when they do, a macabre ritual of clarifications, retractions, and apologies – a veritable liturgy of expiation – invariably follows. Forgive me, for I have contradicted the holy mainstream. Never again shall I stray from the Biden-to-Romney spectrum.
The world changed on May 15, 2007. Someone strayed from Establishment opinion, and then not only declined to do penance, but actually stood his ground and refused to be intimidated into silence.
That day, in a Republican presidential debate, Ron Paul said things Americans were not supposed to hear about their government’s foreign policy. When Rudy Giuliani demanded a retraction, Dr. Paul wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. He instead pressed his point even harder.
Jon Arden, a regular American who happened to be watching, was instantly converted to the Paul cause.

Ron Paul, without a friend in the world, nothing but hostility aimed at him from all directions, stood his ground and did not back down. Just reiterated his points even stronger. I was blown away. I felt at that moment that the world changed forever, that here had been this massive shift in reality and what could happen.

It wouldn’t be the last such moment. In a GOP debate in Florida of all places, Ron Paul said the U.S. government should normalize trade relations with Cuba. In a South Carolina debate he stuck by his guns on the drug war. At a meeting of an Arab-American association, he was asked if he had a special speech tailored to their group. No, he said. It would be the same speech he gives everywhere.
That’s who Ron Paul is.
Why did he do these things? Why didn’t he take the path of least resistance by speaking in slogans and taking no political risks?
One reason is obvious: he’s an honest man.
The other reason may not be so obvious: he was seeking out the Remnant.
Once in a while we hear Ron Paul speak of the Remnant – how he’s been trying to find it, speak to it, build it up. What does he mean by it?


He’s referring to "Isaiah’s Job," a famous essay by Albert Jay Nock. In that essay, Nock borrowed the example of the prophet Isaiah to describe the task of the honest man in public life. (I think the example of Elijah is a bit closer to what Nock had in mind, but that’s not the point.)
Listen as Nock adapts the Lord’s instructions to Isaiah into a modern vernacular:

"Tell them what is wrong, and why and what is going to happen unless they have a change of heart and straighten up. Don't mince matters. Make it clear that they are positively down to their last chance. Give it to them good and strong and keep on giving it to them. I suppose perhaps I ought to tell you," He added, "that it won't do any good. The official class and their intelligentsia will turn up their noses at you and the masses will not even listen. They will all keep on in their own ways until they carry everything down to destruction, and you will probably be lucky if you get out with your life."

Isaiah had not been reluctant to take on his divinely appointed task, but when it was put to him like that, it seemed like a fruitless task indeed. What was the point of embarking on a mission that was doomed to failure?

"Ah," the Lord said, "you do not get the point. There is a Remnant there that you know nothing about. They are obscure, unorganized, inarticulate, each one rubbing along as best he can. They need to be encouraged and braced up because when everything has gone completely to the dogs, they are the ones who will come back and build up a new society; and meanwhile, your preaching will reassure them and keep them hanging on. Your job is to take care of the Remnant, so be off now and set about it."

And that’s what Dr. Paul has been doing. He’s been looking for this heretofore invisible Remnant, giving them comfort, making them aware of themselves, providing them a rallying point. Selling out for the sake of mainstream respectability would defeat his purpose entirely. Those approaches repel the Remnant, Nock said. On the other hand, the truth teller who appeals to the Remnant will find them.
To be sure, Ron Paul has wanted to make his message as appealing to as many people as possible. He never gratuitously drives anyone away. But he has accomplished this task not by the usual method, which is to water down the message according to focus-group results. He has simply explained himself, boldly and without retreat.
And thus Nock:

[Isaiah] preached to the masses only in the sense that he preached publicly. Anyone who liked might listen; anyone who liked might pass by. He knew that the Remnant would listen; and knowing also that nothing was to be expected of the masses under any circumstances, he made no specific appeal to them, did not accommodate his message to their measure in any way, and did not care two straws whether they heeded it or not. As a modern publisher might put it, he was not worrying about circulation or about advertising. Hence, with all such obsessions quite out of the way, he was in a position to do his level best, without fear or favor, and answerable only to his august Boss.

A lot of people, possibly even the majority, don’t want their worldviews challenged. They want endless goodies. They want checks with their names on them. They want to be flattered. They want: "You are the awesomest of the awesome, and that’s why your government is hated around the world. Because of your awesomeness."
Someone at this level of moral and intellectual development is not going to understand Ron Paul, much less support him.
It is frustrating and fruitless to appeal to such people, says Nock.

They ask you to give them what they want, they insist upon it, and will take nothing else; and following their whims, their irrational changes of fancy, their hot and cold fits, is a tedious business, to say nothing of the fact that what they want at any time makes very little call on one’s resources of prophesy. The Remnant, on the other hand, want only the best you have, whatever that may be. Give them that, and they are satisfied; you have nothing more to worry about.

Ron Paul has had so much fundraising success because the Remnant had rarely if ever been sought out by a presidential candidate before. Here was a man of intelligence who defied all political convention, taught the public about things they didn’t even realize they should be interested in, and could boast a record of consistency that impressed even the most hardened cynic. That got their attention.


Nock had things mostly right, but I would amend his presentation just a bit. He appeared to speak as if the Remnant were a fixed number of people. They might be sought out, but that’s it. Dr. Paul has shown that the Remnant can be increased, not just found and inspired. Dr. Paul’s commitment to the truth, even when it seemed to yield him only grief, seized the attention of a great many apathetic Americans, and added them to the ranks of the Remnant.
Nock further described the task of finding the Remnant as a largely thankless one, a job for which one would search in vain for tangible results.

In any given society the Remnant are always so largely an unknown quantity.... You do not know, and will never know, who the Remnant are, nor what they are doing or will do. Two things you do know, and no more: First, that they exist; second, that they will find you. Except for these two certainties, working for the Remnant means working in impenetrable darkness.

Nock lived before the Internet. Ron Paul now knows who the Remnant are. He has a sense of their numbers. He knows some of the things they’re doing. He knows he has had an impact. Nock didn’t think this was possible. In his day, it wasn’t.
Today we live at a moment of opportunity none of us could have imagined a generation ago. A revolution in information transmission is under way. Anyone can express his ideas before the whole world. All of a sudden, ideas, books, and people shunned by the Biden-to-Romney spectrum can get a worldwide hearing. Next to this, Gutenberg looks like a lazy bum.
Ron Paul did his job. He found and built up the Remnant. And there, rather than in the fleeting passage of legislation, is where genuine, long-term change will emerge.

WHEN WILL WE MURDER SYRIA?

http://www.youtube.com/embed/8rCvfwoRGMg

UNCONSTITUTIONAL USES OF DRONES MUST STOP

Last week I joined several of my colleagues in sending a letter to President Obama requesting clarification of his criteria for the lethal use of drones overseas. Administration officials assure us that a "high degree of confidence" is required that the person targeted by a drone is a terrorist.  However, press reports have suggested that mere "patterns of behavior" and other vague criteria are actually being used to decide who to target in a drone strike. I am concerned that an already troublingly low threshold for execution on foreign soil may be even lower than we imagined.

The use of drones overseas may have become so convenient, operated as they are from a great distance, that far more "collateral damage" has become acceptable. Collateral damage is a polite way of saying killing innocent civilians. Is the ease of drone use a slippery slope to disregard for justice, and if so what might that mean for us as they become more widely used on American soil against American citizens?

This dramatic increase in the use of drones and the lowered threshold for their use to kill foreigners has tremendous implications for our national security. At home, some claim the use of drones reduces risk to American service members. But this can be true only in the most shortsighted sense. Internationally the expanded use of drones is wildly unpopular and in fact creates more enemies than it eliminates.

Earlier this month a former top terrorism official at the CIA warned that President Barack Obama's expanded use of drones may actually be creating terrorist "safe havens." Robert Grenier, who headed the CIA's counter-terrorism center from 2004 to 2006, told a British newspaper that, "[the drone program] needs to be targeted much more finely. We have been seduced by them and the unintended consequences of our actions are going to outweigh the intended consequences."

After a drone strike in Yemen last month once again killed more civilians than suspected al-Qaeda members, a Yemeni lawyer sent a message to President Obama stating "Dear Obama, when a U.S. drone missile kills a child in Yemen, the father will go to war with you, guaranteed. Nothing to do with Al Qaeda." These are the unseen victims of the president's expanded use of drones, but we should pay attention and we should ask ourselves how we would feel if the tables were turned and a foreign power was killing innocent American children from thousands of miles away. Would we not feel the same?

The expanded use of drones overseas has been matched with the expanded use of drones in the United States, which should alarm every American who values the Constitution and its protections against government interference in our private lives. Recently, the governor of Virginia welcomed the expanded use of drones in his state because they "make law enforcement more productive." I find that attitude chilling and am sure I am not alone.

Do we want to live in a country where our government constantly flies aircraft overhead to make sure we are not doing anything it disapproves of? Already the Environmental Protection Agency uses drone surveillance to spy on farmers and ranchers to see if they are in compliance with regulations. Local law enforcement agencies are eyeing drone use with great anticipation.  Do we really want to live under the watchful eye of "Big Brother"? It is terrifying enough to see how drones are being misused abroad. We must curtail the government's ability use drones right away lest the massacres in Yemen and Pakistan turn out to be crude training exercises for what the administration has in mind on our own soil.

THE CBO SEES THE ECONOMIC CLIFF AHEAD

Last week the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued its annual long-term budget outlook report, and the 2012 numbers are not promising. In fact, the CBO estimates that federal debt will rise to 70% of GDP by the end of the year-- the highest percentage since World War II. The report also paints a stark picture of entitlement spending, as retiring Baby Boomers will cause government spending on health care, Social Security, and Medicare to explode as a percentage of GDP in coming years. While the mainstream media correctly characterized the CBO report as highly pessimistic, they also ignored longstanding errors of methodology in CBO estimates. And those errors tend to support arguments for higher taxes and government spending, when in fact America needs exactly the opposite. As Paul Roderick Gregory explained in a recent Forbes column (http://tinyurl.com/cf746dl), CBO has always applied wrongheaded assumptions inherent in Keynesian economics when forecasting future deficits - no matter how many times both history and economic theory have proven such assumptions incorrect. In particular, CBO seems wedded to two enduring Keynesian myths: First, that higher taxes necessarily increase federal revenue and have no negative effect on the economy; and second, that lower government spending hurts the economy. Neither is true, of course. CBO also fails to factor in unexpected wars and expensive foreign entanglements, and we should not assign too much validity to predictive models based on peace. Judging from the actions and rhetoric coming from both parties in Washington, new military entanglements in Syria and Iran may well spike military spending in coming years. Despite these sobering budget realities, the CBO report suggests that a solution is possible with merely a few minor adjustments in the way Congress handles economic issues. But what we need are not minor adjustments, but rather a fundamental shift in our philosophy of government. If we could come to our senses about the proper role of government in America, and what level of government interference is appropriate in a free economy, we would quickly find that there is no reason for government to spend so much, borrow so much, and tax so much. If we simply allowed markets to work free of governmental or Federal Reserve interference, bad debt would be liquidated relatively quickly and malinvestment would be curtailed. Scaled-back regulations would encourage businesses to expand. Lower taxes would jump start investment and spur job creation. This is not rocket science, it is Economics 101. All it would take is for government to get out of the way. There would be some short term pain, of course, but only by allowing the bubble to burst and bad debt to liquidate can we ever hope to begin building a real economy again. The CBO report was alarming to most simply because they know neither party will take the steps necessary to avoid eventual fiscal calamity. Instead, despite their rhetoric, both parties want to maintain the fantasy that “deficits don’t matter.” But the CBO report, combined with what is happening in Greece and the European Union, should finally make the undeniable case that economic realities apply even to industrialized first world economies. We must take concrete steps today to avoid having America become the next Greece.

WAR DRUMS FOR SYRIA?

War drums are beating again in Washington. This time Syria is in the crosshairs after a massacre there last week left more than 100 dead. As might be expected from an administration with an announced policy of "regime change" in Syria, the reaction was to blame only the Syrian government for the tragedy, expel Syrian diplomats from Washington, and announce that the US may attack Syria even without UN approval. Of course, the idea that the administration should follow the Constitution and seek a Declaration of War from Congress is considered even more anachronistic now than under the previous administration. It may be the case that the Syrian military was responsible for the events last week, but recent bombings and attacks have been carried out by armed rebels with reported al-Qaeda ties. With the stakes so high, it would make sense to wait for a full investigation – unless the truth is less important than stirring up emotions in favor of a US attack. There is ample reason to be skeptical about US government claims amplified in mainstream media reports. How many times recently have lies and exaggerations been used to push for the use of force overseas? It was not long ago that we were told Gaddafi was planning genocide for the people of Libya, and the only way to stop it was a US attack. Those claims turned out to be false, but by then the US and NATO had already bombed Libya, destroying its infrastructure, killing untold numbers of civilians, and leaving a gang of violent thugs in charge. Likewise, we were told numerous falsehoods to increase popular support for the 2003 war on Iraq, including salacious stories of trans-Atlantic drones and WMDs. Advocates of war did not understand the complexities of Iraqi society, including its tribal and religious differences. As a result, Iraq today is a chaotic mess, with its ancient Christian population eliminated and the economy set back decades. An unnecessary war brought about by lies and manipulation never ends well. Earlier still, we were told lies about genocide and massacres in Kosovo to pave the way for President Clinton's bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. More than 12 years later, that region is every bit as unstable and dangerous as before the US intervention – and American troops are still there. The story about the Syrian massacre keeps changing, which should raise suspicions. First, we were told that the killings were caused by government shelling, but then it was discovered that most were killed at close range with handgun fire and knives. No one has explained why government forces would take the time to go house to house binding the hands of the victims before shooting them, and then retreat to allow the rebels in to record the gruesome details. No one wants to ask or answer the disturbing questions, but it would be wise to ask ourselves who benefits from these stories. We have seen media reports over the past several weeks that the Obama administration is providing direct "non-lethal" assistance to the rebels in Syria while facilitating the transfer of weapons from other Gulf States. This semi-covert assistance to rebels we don't know much about threatens to become overt intervention. Last week Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said about Syria, "I think the military option should be considered." And here all along I thought it was up to Congress to decide when we go to war, not the generals. We are on a fast track to war against Syria. It is time to put on the brakes.

WHAT I THINK........JACK KENNY

When former Speaker of the House and 2012 presidential candidate Newt Gingrich spoke of the Palestinians as an "invented people," many were offended on behalf of the Palestinians. But former Massachusetts Governor and GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney was offended on behalf of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "Before I made a statement of that nature," Romney admonished Gingrich in a debate, "I'd get on the phone to my friend Bibi Netanyahu and say: 'Would it help if I say this? What would you like me to do?'" That was vintage Mitt Romney. Expect to hear more of it as we enter the summer season, the national conventions and the fall campaign. When he was a candidate for the 2008 presidential nomination, Romney was asked if the President could launch military action against Iran without congressional authorization. The lawyers, Romney replied, will sort out those questions. (Ron Paul responded as though he had been launched from anti-ballistics missile, as he pointedly shot down the notion that lawyers, in the White House or elsewhere, could explain away the constitutional requirement that Congress declare war.) Romney has repeatedly said he wants the generals "on the ground" in Afghanistan to decide when we should bring our troops home form that desolate land that has little to offer besides endless warfare. And he apparently is prepared to submit our foreign policy and, indeed, our domestic political debate, to the imprimatur of the Prime Minister of Israel. Consider: The U.S. Secretary of Defense, the director of our Central Intelligence Agency, and 16 different intelligence services of the United States have said at various times from 2007 to the present that there is no evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb. Yet it is ostensibly because of the possibility that what Iran maintains is its civilian nuclear program might be converted to a strategic military capability that the United States has imposed what David Axelrod, senior political advisor to President Obama, has called the "most withering" economic sanctions ever imposed on any nation. And Romney and many leading Republicans claim those sanctions are not tough enough. Romney has called for truly "crippling" sanctions, backed by serious and credible threat of military force. "You're a tough guy?" asked Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly. You're going to stare them down and say 'Look, I'm gonna use them'?" Romney sat passively, showing no emotion as O'Reilly warned. "If you bomb Iran that starts World War III. You know that. They're going to try to block Hormuz. Oil will double. The unintended consequences to the United States all across the Muslim world will be horrible." Yes, Romney no doubt knows all that. But does he care? That anyone should need to ask if the presumptive nominee of a major political party cares if he starts World War III should be startling enough. The possibility that he would be willing to do that out of a desire to help "my friend, Bibi Netanyahu" is even more shocking. For Netanyahu has said repeatedly that he regards a nuclear-armed Iran as an "existential threat" to Israel. This despite the fact that Israel has an estimated 200 to 300 nuclear bombs of its own. If the Israelis have their own ability to deter the Iranians or retaliate in devastating fashion if Iran does attack, why do they need the economic and military power of the United States not merely to back them up, but to wage a preventive war for them? And why have we repeatedly put American soldiers in harm's way throughout the world when the United States was not attacked or even threatened? Americans have grown accustomed to the role of champion of other people's freedom and well-being. We have long been proud of the fact that the graves of American soldiers circle the globe. We have liberated countless people and we celebrate our willingness to put the lives of young Americans on the line for the oppressed of the world. But is it not now time to take a step back from the precipice of war and ask ourselves if we are really prepared to back up the check to which President Kennedy affixed our name and seal, to be paid to the order of "To Whom It May Concern"? America, the young President pledged in his Inaugural Address, would "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge – and more." "And more?" Good Lord, there's more? Oh, yes. There is nation building around the globe. There is the duty of killing Afghanistan's opium business, building schools, making sure their daughters receive the same education as their sons. I recall that when my state still lacked a Job Corps program, one of our local builders complained that Iraq would have a Job Corps program before New Hampshire would. As a comedian remarked way back in the Fifties, "Satire doesn't stand a chance against reality anymore." Lyndon Johnson was determined to prove him right. Remember the promise of a Great Society on the Mekong Delta of South Vietnam? Most people with even a minimal knowledge of history know that the last time the United States issued a formal declaration of war was in World War II, and not without cause. Try as he might to drag Americans into war to redeem the pledges made by the Machiavellians at Ten Downing Street, America did not go to war until Japan attacked an American military base on American territory in Hawaii. And we did not declare war against Germany until the Germans, bound by a treaty commitment to Japan, declared war on the United States. When North Korean divisions invaded South Korea in June of 1950, President Harry Truman, in the absence of any previously announced defense commitment to South Korea, sent American troops into the battle without so much as a "by your leave" to the Congress of the United States. "We are not at war," he insisted at a press conference a few days later. When a reporter asked if our involvement might be called a "police action under the United Nations," Truman, mistaking an anchor for a lifeline, grasped it and said, "Yes, that is exactly what it amounts to." Over the next three years Americans would come to bitterly resent that "police action" and the President who arbitrarily and unilaterally committed American lives to it. In all likelihood, that decision and the circumlocution describing it cost Mr. Truman another term in the White House. Today President Obama has America committed to Afghanistan well beyond the 2014 deadline for withdrawing combat forces. There is a ten-year commitment beyond that and beyond that...? Well, who knows? In the summer of 1972, the United States was in the middle of its eighth year of combat operations in an undeclared war in Viet Nam, a war that began under suspicious circumstances concerning a naval attack that may or may not have occurred in the Gulf of Tonkin. Senator George McGovern of South Dakota accepted the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party at its national convention in Miami that summer with a speech few Americans heard, let alone heeded. Because of time-consuming procedural battles, McGovern's speech was delivered at what one wag called "prime time in Guam. Yet its message was clear: "Come home, America!" was its oft-repeated theme. McGovern lost in a landslide to President Richard M. Nixon, who was fond of secret diplomacy in China and secret bombing in Laos and Cambodia. America did not come home. We still have not. This Memorial Day, before we further decorate the earth with more graves of more young Americans, let us pause to consider who really "supports the troops." Is it those who are eager to send young Americans to die in other people's quarrels or even for other nations' imperial ambitions, all under the endlessly "entangling alliances" of the United Nations and NATO? Let patriots stand, rather, with John Quincy Adams in his July 4th toast of 1821, noting with pride that America once again, in keeping with her heritage of peace and freedom, "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."