The economic establishment in this country has come to the conclusion that it is not a matter of "if" the United States must intervene in the bailout of the euro, but simply a question of "when" and "how". Newspaper articles and editorials are full of assertions that the breakup of the euro would result in a worldwide depression, and that economic assistance to Europe is the only way to stave off this calamity. These assertions are yet again more scare-mongering, just as we witnessed during the depths of the 2008 financial crisis. After just a decade of the euro, people have forgotten that Europe functioned for centuries without a common currency.
The real cause of economic depression is loose monetary policy: the creation of money and credit out of thin air and the monetization of government debt by a central bank. This inflationary monetary policy is the cause of every boom and bust, yet it is precisely what political and economic elites both in Europe and the United States are prescribing as a resolution for the present crisis. The drastic next step being discussed is a multi-trillion dollar bailout of Europe by the European Central Bank, aided by the IMF and the Federal Reserve.
The euro was built on an unstable foundation. Its creators attempted to establish a dollar-like currency for Europe, while forgetting that it took nearly two centuries for the dollar to devolve from a defined unit of silver to a completely unbacked fiat currency note. The euro had no such history and from the outset was a purely fiat system, thus it is not surprising to followers of Austrian economics that it barely survived a decade and is now completely collapsing. Europe's economic depression is the result of the euro's very structure, a fiat money system that allowed member governments to spend themselves into oblivion and expect that someone else would pick up the tab.
A bailout of European banks by the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve will exacerbate the crisis rather than alleviate it. What is needed is for bad debts to be liquidated. Banks that invested in sovereign debt need to take their losses rather than socializing those losses and prolonging the process of adjusting their balance sheets to reflect reality. If this was done, the correction would be painful, but quick, like tearing off a large band-aid, but this is necessary to get back on solid economic footing. Until the correction takes place there can be no recovery. Bailing out profligate European governments will only ensure that no correction will take place.
A multi-trillion dollar European aid package cannot be undertaken by Europe alone, and will require IMF and Federal Reserve involvement. The Federal Reserve already has pumped trillions of dollars into the US economy with nothing to show for it. Just considering Fed involvement in Europe is ludicrous. The US economy is in horrible shape precisely because of too much government debt and too much money creation and the European economy is destined to flounder for the same reasons. We have an unsustainable amount of debt here at home; it is hardly fair to US taxpayers to take on Europe's debt as well. That will only ensure an accelerated erosion of the dollar and a lower standard of living for all Americans.
Sunday
Thursday
WHAT I THINK.....JUSTIN PTAK
I got involved in politics because of the tragic decisions I saw our so-called statesmen making in Washington D.C. I was troubled by the laws being passed that impact our lives on a daily basis. Those crucial issues of our day that no man or woman can sit back and let be decided by those out of touch and unresponsive from the first day they get into office. These men and women who state they are public servants doing the common good, and yet are nothing but petty thieves with silver tongues and shiny three thousand dollar suits. To quote: "Don't steal, the government hates competition." An informed electorate is our only hope for the future. We can no longer afford to let the Federal Reserve act as a common pickpocket. Nor allow the military industrial complex to pillage and plunder around the world as they blaze a trail of bloody innocence.
I never thought of running for President when I was a hall monitor and felt the awesome yet abusive power over other people. Nor do I want to become President in order to continue the family tradition. And, I do not seek this office to enlarge the riches of my friends or those who have donated to my campaign. I will grant neither privilege nor favor to reward loyalty or support.
I aspire to the presidency to give you back control of your lives. I do not know how to run your life. Unlike many others in this race, I do not pretend to. I want the American people to enjoy the privileges of our forefathers and experience the benefits of self-determination that they fought and died for. Those are your right and privilege that the founding fathers in their infinite wisdom bestowed upon us if only we are willing to preserve them.
This is the greatest challenge we face today.
We live in a time of a constantly deflating dollar. A time where we see deficits and debt increase at levels we have not seen in 40 years. Our civil liberties are vanishing at the whim of the president's signature. It is a time when our empire is expanding and causing untold devastation and destruction with no end in sight.
I want to make a difference, to send a message to the world that the remnant is still alive, that it is growing stronger and stronger every day as its message spreads by word of mouth, roads, byways, and the amazing electronic superhighway. And, foremost, to educate the citizenry that we can indeed return to the path of peace, freedom, and prosperity.
I believe that we can become a beacon of hope for the world. We can regain the goodwill that we once enjoyed as a symbol of hope and opportunity for all. We can once again aspire to be "the shining city on the hill" that Ronald Reagan once dreamed of. But, we cannot achieve this by robbing from Peter's grandchildren to pay the privileged Paul's of today.
We will have to face the reality of this path toward destruction that we have set ourselves on by listening to the false promises of politicians without principle. We will have to make tough choices and take responsibility. Responsibility both personally as it relates to our own lives and as a whole when it comes to matters of finance and friendly relations with the rest of the world. The American people yearn for this freedom. We all yearn for the ability to be free to choose and direct and determine the future of our own lives and that of our families. We, as citizens, also seek to restrain the growth of government and even decrease its size in order to take back our lives and limit the burden that we place on our children and our children's children.
We cannot let this go on anymore. It is just that simple. If we are set on this course then we are destined for "the dust heap of history." It is a hard fact to swallow, but it is a certainty. We shall follow the fate of Rome. Or, we will become another chapter in the history books just as the British Empire has.
Fortunately, we have time to redirect and set sail upon a new wind of respect for life and liberty. Our time is running out, but it is not too late. The choice is ours to dedicate ourselves with new determination toward that often heard phrase, but rarely executed: a new birth of freedom.
We are no longer disparate voices in the wilderness without a cause to rally around. The time is now to join together around principle and send a message to the powers that be that it will not be more business as usual on K Street, Wall Street, 20th Street and Constitution Avenue, 1400 Defense Pentagon, and, certainly not at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
I never thought of running for President when I was a hall monitor and felt the awesome yet abusive power over other people. Nor do I want to become President in order to continue the family tradition. And, I do not seek this office to enlarge the riches of my friends or those who have donated to my campaign. I will grant neither privilege nor favor to reward loyalty or support.
I aspire to the presidency to give you back control of your lives. I do not know how to run your life. Unlike many others in this race, I do not pretend to. I want the American people to enjoy the privileges of our forefathers and experience the benefits of self-determination that they fought and died for. Those are your right and privilege that the founding fathers in their infinite wisdom bestowed upon us if only we are willing to preserve them.
This is the greatest challenge we face today.
We live in a time of a constantly deflating dollar. A time where we see deficits and debt increase at levels we have not seen in 40 years. Our civil liberties are vanishing at the whim of the president's signature. It is a time when our empire is expanding and causing untold devastation and destruction with no end in sight.
I want to make a difference, to send a message to the world that the remnant is still alive, that it is growing stronger and stronger every day as its message spreads by word of mouth, roads, byways, and the amazing electronic superhighway. And, foremost, to educate the citizenry that we can indeed return to the path of peace, freedom, and prosperity.
I believe that we can become a beacon of hope for the world. We can regain the goodwill that we once enjoyed as a symbol of hope and opportunity for all. We can once again aspire to be "the shining city on the hill" that Ronald Reagan once dreamed of. But, we cannot achieve this by robbing from Peter's grandchildren to pay the privileged Paul's of today.
We will have to face the reality of this path toward destruction that we have set ourselves on by listening to the false promises of politicians without principle. We will have to make tough choices and take responsibility. Responsibility both personally as it relates to our own lives and as a whole when it comes to matters of finance and friendly relations with the rest of the world. The American people yearn for this freedom. We all yearn for the ability to be free to choose and direct and determine the future of our own lives and that of our families. We, as citizens, also seek to restrain the growth of government and even decrease its size in order to take back our lives and limit the burden that we place on our children and our children's children.
We cannot let this go on anymore. It is just that simple. If we are set on this course then we are destined for "the dust heap of history." It is a hard fact to swallow, but it is a certainty. We shall follow the fate of Rome. Or, we will become another chapter in the history books just as the British Empire has.
Fortunately, we have time to redirect and set sail upon a new wind of respect for life and liberty. Our time is running out, but it is not too late. The choice is ours to dedicate ourselves with new determination toward that often heard phrase, but rarely executed: a new birth of freedom.
We are no longer disparate voices in the wilderness without a cause to rally around. The time is now to join together around principle and send a message to the powers that be that it will not be more business as usual on K Street, Wall Street, 20th Street and Constitution Avenue, 1400 Defense Pentagon, and, certainly not at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Tuesday
MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION VS MUTUALLY ASSURED RESPECT
The Soviet Union detonated its first nuclear bomb on August 29, 1949, leading to the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction, shared by both the USA and the Soviets. The unwritten agreement by the two superpowers deterred nuclear war with an implied threat to blow up the world, if need be, to defend each of their interests.
I well remember the Cuban missile crises of October 1962, having been drafted into the military at that time. Mutually Assured Destruction had significant meaning to the whole world during this period. This crisis, along with the escalating ill-advised Vietnam War, made me very much aware of the problems the world faced during the five years I served as a USAF flight surgeon.
It was with great pleasure and hope that I observed the collapse of the Soviet Empire between 1989 and 1991. This breakup verified the early predictions by the free market economists, like Ludwig von Mises, that communism would self-destruct because of the deeply flawed economic theories embedded in socialism. Our nukes were never needed because ideas are more powerful than the Weapons of War.
Many Americans at the time were boldly hopeful that we would benefit from a generous peace dividend. Sadly, it turned out to be a wonderful opportunity wasted. There was to be no "beating their swords into plowshares," even though history shows that without weapons and war there's more food and prosperity for the people. Unfortunately, our leaders decided on another course that served the special interests who benefit from constant wars and the arbitrary rearrangement of national borders for control of national resources.
Instead of a peace dividend from ending the policy of Mutually Assured Destruction, US leaders opted for a foreign policy of American world domination as its sole superpower. It was all in the spirit of Woodrow Wilson's idealistic goal of "making the world safe for democracy" by pursuing a war to end all wars.
The mantra became that American exceptionalism morally required us to spread our dominance world-wide by force. US world dominance, by whatever means, became our new bipartisan foreign policy. There was to be no peace dividend, though our enemies were virtually non-existent.
In many ways America had been "exceptional" but in an opposite manner from the neo-con driven foreign policy of the last 20 years. If America indeed has something good to offer the cause of peace, prosperity, and liberty it must be spread through persuasion and by example; not by intimidation, bribes and war.
Maintaining world domination is based on an intellectually and financially bankrupt idea that generates dependency, war, loss of civil liberties, inflation and debt, all of which contribute to our economic crisis.
Saddest of all, this policy of American domination and exceptionalism has allowed us to become an aggressor nation, supporting pre-emptive war, covert destabilization, foreign occupations, nation building, torture and assassinations. This policy has generated hatred toward Americans and provides the incentive for almost all of the suicide attacks against us and our allies.
To continue to believe the fiction that the militants hate us for our freedoms and wealth may even result in more attacks against us – that is, unless our national bankruptcy brings us to our knees and forces us to bring our troops home.
Expanding our foreign military intervention overseas as a cure for the attacks against us, tragically, only guarantees even more attacks. We must someday wake up, be honest with ourselves, and reject the notion that we're spreading freedom and America's goodness around the world. We cannot justify our policy by claiming our mission is to secure American freedoms and protect our Constitution. That is not believable. This policy is doomed to fail on all fronts.
The policy of Mutually Assured Destruction has been gone now for 20 years, and that is good.
The policy of American domination of the world, as nation builder-in-chief and policeman of the world, has failed and must be abandoned – if not as a moral imperative, then certainly out of economic necessity.
My humble suggestion is to replace it with a policy of Mutually Assured Respect. This requires no money and no weapons industry, or other special interests demanding huge war profits or other advantages.
This requires simply tolerance of others' cultures and their social and religious values, and the giving up of all use of force to occupy or control other countries and their national resources. Many who disagree choose to grossly distort the basic principles shared by the world's great religions: the Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments, and the cause of peace. Religions all too often are distorted and used to justify the violence engaged in for arbitrary power.
A policy of Mutually Assured Respect would result in the U.S.:
Treating other nations exactly as we expect others to treat us.
Offering friendship with all who seek it.
Participating in trade with all who are willing.
Refusing to threaten, bribe or occupy any other nation.
Seeking an honest system of commodity money that no single country can manipulate for a trade advantage. Without this, currency manipulation becomes a tool of protectionism and prompts retaliation with tariffs and various regulations. This policy, when it persists, is dangerous and frequently leads to real wars.
Mutually Assured Respect offers a policy of respect, trade and friendship and rejects threats, sanctions and occupations.
This is the only practical way to promote peace, harmony and economic well-being to the maximum number of people in the world.
Mutually Assured Respect may not be perfect but it's far better than Mutually Assured Destruction or unilateral American dominance.
I well remember the Cuban missile crises of October 1962, having been drafted into the military at that time. Mutually Assured Destruction had significant meaning to the whole world during this period. This crisis, along with the escalating ill-advised Vietnam War, made me very much aware of the problems the world faced during the five years I served as a USAF flight surgeon.
It was with great pleasure and hope that I observed the collapse of the Soviet Empire between 1989 and 1991. This breakup verified the early predictions by the free market economists, like Ludwig von Mises, that communism would self-destruct because of the deeply flawed economic theories embedded in socialism. Our nukes were never needed because ideas are more powerful than the Weapons of War.
Many Americans at the time were boldly hopeful that we would benefit from a generous peace dividend. Sadly, it turned out to be a wonderful opportunity wasted. There was to be no "beating their swords into plowshares," even though history shows that without weapons and war there's more food and prosperity for the people. Unfortunately, our leaders decided on another course that served the special interests who benefit from constant wars and the arbitrary rearrangement of national borders for control of national resources.
Instead of a peace dividend from ending the policy of Mutually Assured Destruction, US leaders opted for a foreign policy of American world domination as its sole superpower. It was all in the spirit of Woodrow Wilson's idealistic goal of "making the world safe for democracy" by pursuing a war to end all wars.
The mantra became that American exceptionalism morally required us to spread our dominance world-wide by force. US world dominance, by whatever means, became our new bipartisan foreign policy. There was to be no peace dividend, though our enemies were virtually non-existent.
In many ways America had been "exceptional" but in an opposite manner from the neo-con driven foreign policy of the last 20 years. If America indeed has something good to offer the cause of peace, prosperity, and liberty it must be spread through persuasion and by example; not by intimidation, bribes and war.
Maintaining world domination is based on an intellectually and financially bankrupt idea that generates dependency, war, loss of civil liberties, inflation and debt, all of which contribute to our economic crisis.
Saddest of all, this policy of American domination and exceptionalism has allowed us to become an aggressor nation, supporting pre-emptive war, covert destabilization, foreign occupations, nation building, torture and assassinations. This policy has generated hatred toward Americans and provides the incentive for almost all of the suicide attacks against us and our allies.
To continue to believe the fiction that the militants hate us for our freedoms and wealth may even result in more attacks against us – that is, unless our national bankruptcy brings us to our knees and forces us to bring our troops home.
Expanding our foreign military intervention overseas as a cure for the attacks against us, tragically, only guarantees even more attacks. We must someday wake up, be honest with ourselves, and reject the notion that we're spreading freedom and America's goodness around the world. We cannot justify our policy by claiming our mission is to secure American freedoms and protect our Constitution. That is not believable. This policy is doomed to fail on all fronts.
The policy of Mutually Assured Destruction has been gone now for 20 years, and that is good.
The policy of American domination of the world, as nation builder-in-chief and policeman of the world, has failed and must be abandoned – if not as a moral imperative, then certainly out of economic necessity.
My humble suggestion is to replace it with a policy of Mutually Assured Respect. This requires no money and no weapons industry, or other special interests demanding huge war profits or other advantages.
This requires simply tolerance of others' cultures and their social and religious values, and the giving up of all use of force to occupy or control other countries and their national resources. Many who disagree choose to grossly distort the basic principles shared by the world's great religions: the Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments, and the cause of peace. Religions all too often are distorted and used to justify the violence engaged in for arbitrary power.
A policy of Mutually Assured Respect would result in the U.S.:
Treating other nations exactly as we expect others to treat us.
Offering friendship with all who seek it.
Participating in trade with all who are willing.
Refusing to threaten, bribe or occupy any other nation.
Seeking an honest system of commodity money that no single country can manipulate for a trade advantage. Without this, currency manipulation becomes a tool of protectionism and prompts retaliation with tariffs and various regulations. This policy, when it persists, is dangerous and frequently leads to real wars.
Mutually Assured Respect offers a policy of respect, trade and friendship and rejects threats, sanctions and occupations.
This is the only practical way to promote peace, harmony and economic well-being to the maximum number of people in the world.
Mutually Assured Respect may not be perfect but it's far better than Mutually Assured Destruction or unilateral American dominance.
NO MANDATORY MENTAL HEALTH SCREENING FOR CHILDREN!
Maryanne Godboldo, a mother in Michigan, noticed that pills prescribed by her daughter's doctor were making her condition worse, not better. So Mrs. Godboldo stopped giving them to her. That's when the trouble began. When Child Protective Services (CPS) bureaucrats became aware that the girl was not receiving her prescribed medication, they decided the child should be taken away from her mother's custody on grounds of medical neglect. When Ms. Godboldo refused to surrender her daughter to the state, CPS enlisted the help of a police SWAT team! On March 24 of this year a 12 hour standoff ensued and young Ariana was taken into custody. The drug involved was Risperdal, a neuroleptic antipsychotic medication with numerous known side effects. Ms. Godboldo had decided on a more holistic approach for her daughter. She is still engaged in a costly legal battle with the state over Ariana's treatment and custody.
This is one example of how government's increasing proclivity to medicate children with questionable psychiatric drugs violates the rights of parents. Just recently, the Government Accountability Office released a report on the astonishingly high rate of prescriptions for psychotropic drugs for children in the foster care system. It is absolutely astounding that nearly 40% of kids in foster care are on psychotropic drugs, some of them taking up to 5 different pills at a time. Some of these children are under one year of age - too young to safely take over the counter cold medication!
To fight this dangerous trend I reintroduced the Parental Consent Act of 2011, HR 2769, which prohibits federal funds from being used to establish or implement any universal or mandatory mental health or psychiatric screening program. The previous administration pushed hard for this type of federal intrusion into the medical decisions of families through its wildly misnamed "New Freedom Commission on Mental Health." Everyone interested in parental rights and true health freedom must fight to make sure the commission's findings and dubious psychiatric science are never used as justification to force mental health screening on American kids at school without their parents' consent.
There has been a persistent lobbying effort, funded by pharmaceutical companies, to increase the number of these prescriptions to even more children. A universal screening program is the stated goal of these lobbyists. I would not be at all surprised to see the recent attention to the issue of schoolyard bullying used as a tool towards these ends.
Imagine the potential ramifications of a universal, mandatory psychiatric health screening program in a public school, considering how some bureaucrats are wont to behave! The diagnostic criteria for many mental illnesses remain vague and subjective. Therefore it is all too easy for a bureaucrat in a white coat to label a child with some sort of psychiatric syndrome simply because they were having a bad day, or behaving as a typical rambunctious child. That label could follow them around the rest of their school career and come with a number of prescriptions attached, which the state, as in the Godboldo case, may try to force the parents to administer, whether they want to or not.
I plan to continue the fight to ban federal funding of any universal screening program that imposes mental healthcare screening on children without express informed consent from parents.
This is one example of how government's increasing proclivity to medicate children with questionable psychiatric drugs violates the rights of parents. Just recently, the Government Accountability Office released a report on the astonishingly high rate of prescriptions for psychotropic drugs for children in the foster care system. It is absolutely astounding that nearly 40% of kids in foster care are on psychotropic drugs, some of them taking up to 5 different pills at a time. Some of these children are under one year of age - too young to safely take over the counter cold medication!
To fight this dangerous trend I reintroduced the Parental Consent Act of 2011, HR 2769, which prohibits federal funds from being used to establish or implement any universal or mandatory mental health or psychiatric screening program. The previous administration pushed hard for this type of federal intrusion into the medical decisions of families through its wildly misnamed "New Freedom Commission on Mental Health." Everyone interested in parental rights and true health freedom must fight to make sure the commission's findings and dubious psychiatric science are never used as justification to force mental health screening on American kids at school without their parents' consent.
There has been a persistent lobbying effort, funded by pharmaceutical companies, to increase the number of these prescriptions to even more children. A universal screening program is the stated goal of these lobbyists. I would not be at all surprised to see the recent attention to the issue of schoolyard bullying used as a tool towards these ends.
Imagine the potential ramifications of a universal, mandatory psychiatric health screening program in a public school, considering how some bureaucrats are wont to behave! The diagnostic criteria for many mental illnesses remain vague and subjective. Therefore it is all too easy for a bureaucrat in a white coat to label a child with some sort of psychiatric syndrome simply because they were having a bad day, or behaving as a typical rambunctious child. That label could follow them around the rest of their school career and come with a number of prescriptions attached, which the state, as in the Godboldo case, may try to force the parents to administer, whether they want to or not.
I plan to continue the fight to ban federal funding of any universal screening program that imposes mental healthcare screening on children without express informed consent from parents.
Saturday
Tuesday
WHAT I THINK......WALTER WILLIAMS
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, in his New York Times column titled "Free to Die" (9/15/2011), pointed out that back in 1980, his late fellow Nobel laureate Milton Friedman lent his voice to the nation's shift to the political right in his famous 10-part TV series, Free To Choose. Nowadays, Krugman says, "'free to choose' has become 'free to die.'" He was referring to a GOP presidential debate in which Rep. Ron Paul was asked what should be done if a 30-year-old man who chose not to purchase health insurance found himself in need of six months of intensive care. Paul correctly, but politically incorrectly, replied, "That's what freedom is all about – taking your own risks." CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer pressed his question further, asking whether "society should just let him die." The crowd erupted with cheers and shouts of "Yeah!", which led Krugman to conclude that "American politics is fundamentally about different moral visions." Professor Krugman is absolutely right; our nation is faced with a conflict of moral visions. Let's look at it.
If a person without health insurance finds himself in need of costly medical care, let's investigate just how might that care be provided. There are not too many of us who'd suggest that we get the money from the tooth fairy or Santa Claus. That being the case, if a medically indigent person receives medical treatment, it must be provided by people. There are several possible methods to deliver the services. One way is for people to make voluntary contributions or for medical practitioners to simply treat medically indigent patients at no charge. I find both methods praiseworthy, laudable and, above all, moral.
Another way to provide those services is for Congress to use its power to forcibly use one person to serve the purposes of another. That is, under the pain of punishment, Congress could mandate that medical practitioners treat medically indigent patients at no charge. I'd personally find such a method of providing medical services offensive and immoral, simply because I find the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another, what amounts to slavery, in violation of all that is decent.
I am proud to say that I think most of my fellow Americans would be repulsed at the suggestion of forcibly using medical practitioners to serve the purposes of people in need of hospital care. But I'm afraid that most Americans are not against the principle of the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another under the pain of punishment. They just don't have much stomach to witness it. You say, "Williams, explain yourself."
Say that citizen John pays his share of the constitutionally mandated functions of the federal government. He recognizes that nothing in our Constitution gives Congress the authority to forcibly use one person to serve the purposes of another or take the earnings of one American and give them to another American, whether it be for medical services, business bailouts, handouts to farmers or handouts in the form of foreign aid. Suppose John refuses to allow what he earns to be taken and given to another. My guess is that Krugman and, sadly, most other Americans would sanction government punishment, imprisonment or initiation of violence against John. They share Professor Krugman's moral vision that one person has a right to live at the expense of another, but they just don't have the gall to call it that.
I share James Madison's vision, articulated when Congress appropriated $15,000 to assist some French refugees in 1794. Madison stood on the floor of the House to object, saying, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents," adding later that "charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government." This vision of morality, I'm afraid, is repulsive to most Americans.
If a person without health insurance finds himself in need of costly medical care, let's investigate just how might that care be provided. There are not too many of us who'd suggest that we get the money from the tooth fairy or Santa Claus. That being the case, if a medically indigent person receives medical treatment, it must be provided by people. There are several possible methods to deliver the services. One way is for people to make voluntary contributions or for medical practitioners to simply treat medically indigent patients at no charge. I find both methods praiseworthy, laudable and, above all, moral.
Another way to provide those services is for Congress to use its power to forcibly use one person to serve the purposes of another. That is, under the pain of punishment, Congress could mandate that medical practitioners treat medically indigent patients at no charge. I'd personally find such a method of providing medical services offensive and immoral, simply because I find the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another, what amounts to slavery, in violation of all that is decent.
I am proud to say that I think most of my fellow Americans would be repulsed at the suggestion of forcibly using medical practitioners to serve the purposes of people in need of hospital care. But I'm afraid that most Americans are not against the principle of the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another under the pain of punishment. They just don't have much stomach to witness it. You say, "Williams, explain yourself."
Say that citizen John pays his share of the constitutionally mandated functions of the federal government. He recognizes that nothing in our Constitution gives Congress the authority to forcibly use one person to serve the purposes of another or take the earnings of one American and give them to another American, whether it be for medical services, business bailouts, handouts to farmers or handouts in the form of foreign aid. Suppose John refuses to allow what he earns to be taken and given to another. My guess is that Krugman and, sadly, most other Americans would sanction government punishment, imprisonment or initiation of violence against John. They share Professor Krugman's moral vision that one person has a right to live at the expense of another, but they just don't have the gall to call it that.
I share James Madison's vision, articulated when Congress appropriated $15,000 to assist some French refugees in 1794. Madison stood on the floor of the House to object, saying, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents," adding later that "charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government." This vision of morality, I'm afraid, is repulsive to most Americans.
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