The Freedom Bulletin

Congress seems like it’s actually been getting some things done lately. In addition to the Senate repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell today, both houses recently passed, and President Obama signed, a compromise bill to both cut taxes and extend unemployment benefits. While anything that involves tax cuts is a good thing, it’s disturbing that neither Congress or Obama is taking any serious measures to reduce our national debt.

Here are the main points of the tax deal:

• The “Bush tax cuts” will be extended for 2 years.
• Unemployment benefits will be extended for 13 months.
• Workers who make $106,800 or less will pay 4.2% of their wages to Social Security instead of 6.2%.
• The estate tax will continue, but at a lower level.

The bill has some of what Republicans want (lower taxes) and some of what Democrats want (free stuff for people), but anyone with common sense can see that these are not a good combination when it comes to long-term financial success. As W.E. Messamore explains, cutting taxes without cutting spending will eventually result in higher taxes in the future. Compromise is often a good thing, but compromises between Republicans and Democrats have resulted in more spending without more taxes, and therefore a national debt of $13 trillion and counting. I’m no supporter of raising taxes – which I think are way too high to begin with – so I think that the just way to pay down the national debt would be to leave taxes as they are and significantly cut spending. Politicians need to be brave enough to make the unpopular choices that will put our country on the right financial path.

President Obama said a few days ago that Muslims have the right to build a mosque near the site of the September 11th attacks. According to Obama…

“Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances.”

Later, he added that he was “was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom” of the plan but merely the Constitutional right to do so.

I, believe it or not, agree with Obama.

Building a mosque near Ground Zero is not the greatest idea. It is a little strange and not very fitting to have a mosque right near the site of the worst act of terrorism in American history, which was committed by terrorists who happened to be Muslims. If I was in charge of building the mosque, I would choose a different location.

But it would not violate anyone’s rights to build the mosque. If you buy a plot of land, you have the right to build whatever you want there, even if most people disapprove of it. New York City could offer to buy up the land and turn it into a public memorial, but as long as the mosque developers own the land, they can build whatever they want.

Newt Gingrich compared building a mosque near Ground Zero to putting Nazi signs next to the Holocaust museum. Although I am a Newt fan, I have to object to this particular analogy. Nazism is the ideology that is responsible for the Holocaust, while Islam itself is not responsible for 9/11, just certain individuals who happened to be radical Muslims. Not all Muslims are terrorists, while all Nazis are, well, Nazis. Putting a pro-terrorism memorial or terrorist training camp at Ground Zero, now that would be the equivalent of Nazi signs at the Holocaust museum.

In conclusion, although perhaps not a wise idea, there is no Constitutional or moral reason why a mosque near Ground Zero should be forbidden. The First Amendment gives people the freedoms of, among other things, religion and speech. 9/11 was the worst act of terrorism in American history. The feelings of its victims are important, and the potential Mosque builders should take them into account. But in America, we do not and should not deny people the right to practice their religion just because this would offend people.

At their annual convention, delegates of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People passed a resolution condemning the “racism” of the Tea Party movement. It is important to note that the NAACP is not condemning the Tea Party movement in its entirety but merely “extremist elements” within it and asking leaders to “repudiate those in their ranks who use racist language in their signs and speeches.”

In the brewing battle between the NAACP and the Tea Party, I am firmly on the Tea Party’s side. There are two main thoughts that come to mind about the resolution:

First, why would the NAACP decide to pick on the Tea Party out of all the organizations that exist? Almost every organization has some racist people in it, or mean people, or people who are objectionable for some reason. Why should the Tea Party as a movement be responsible for the fact that some people who identify with it happen to be racist? An organization should not be responsible for the actions or attitudes of its individual members. Ted Bundy was a Republican, for example, but no one (I hope) thought that his murders reflected badly on the Republican Party or expected them to make any statements repudiating him. Plus, even though they shouldn’t be obligated to, leaders of various Tea Party groups have made statements condemning racism and making it clear that racist people are not welcome in the movement.

Second, in my opinion, many of the NAACP’s examples of supposed racist conduct by Tea Party members are not really racist. The NAACP’s website displays pictures of allegedly racist Tea Party signs, including…

• “Obama-nomics: monkey see, monkey spend” – This is just a play on the phrase “monkey see, monkey do.” I understand that the word monkey is sometimes used in a racist way, but it is not automatically racist whenever monkeys and a person who happens to be black are mentioned on the same sign.
• “Obama, what you talkin about Willis! Spend my money?” – I had to look up this phrase in Urban Dictionary. So some of the characters in the show where it originated were black, but I don’t think the phrase is used to insult black people. In this case, the sign is just criticizing Obama for spending everyone’s tax money.
• “Obama’s plan: white slavery” – This sign mentions race and is probably not true, but it’s still not exactly racist. The sign holder is criticizing Obama because he thinks he is a black supremacist, not for being black in itself.
• “Barack Hussein Obama: the new face of Hitler” – Although a dubious comparison, this could be said of a white politician just as easily as a black politician.
• “The American taxpayers are the Jews for Obama’s ovens” – Another exaggeration, and possibly a little disrespectful to Holocaust survivors, but this also has nothing to do with Obama’s race. This sign could just as easily be about a white politician who recklessly spent taxpayer money.

In conclusion, although it is almost certain that some people who identify with the Tea Party movement happen to be racist, this is true of almost every movement, and there are fewer such people than the NAACP seems to think. The NAACP needs to fully grasp the difference between criticizing President Obama and being racist. Criticizing someone who happens to belong to a racial minority is not racist unless you are criticizing them for belonging to a racial minority. Very few people in the Tea Party movement, if any, do this.  

Other takes on the same subject:

• Bill O’Reilly – Talking Points 7/14
• The Humble Libertarian – “What’s Racist About Balanced Budgets?”

President Obama recently gave a speech praising the recently passed version of health insurance reform and warning insurance companies not to use the new law as an excuse to raise prices. But unless strong measures are taken to prevent this, “Obamacare” will actually cause the price of health insurance to rise.

I oppose Obamacare, primarily because it requires all Americans to have health insurance. In my opinion, this violates everyone’s rights because people have the right to decide how they want to spend their own money, as long as they don’t do anything that violates the rights of anyone else. But according to economic theory, the individual mandate has a bad side effect as well – it makes the cost of health insurance go up.

If you haven’t studied economics before, here are the basics:

Usually, the higher the price of a good, the less the demand. Makes sense, right? Also, the higher the price of a good, the higher the supply, because producers are more willing to make a product if they can sell it for a high price. The supply and demand curves (or lines) can be shown on a graph. The point where the two lines intersect is called the equilibrium. This represents the quantity and price that will be produced in a free market.

However, by requiring everyone to purchase a product (in this case health insurance), the government stops demand from responding naturally to price. The degree to which demand for a good responds to price is called price elasticity of demand. People will buy necessities such as food, water, or insulin for diabetics regardless of their price. In economics-speak, the demand for these goods is inelastic. The demand for things such as lattes, CDs, and stuffed animals is elastic, because people can live without them and therefore tend to buy less of them if the price goes up. When demand is perfectly inelastic, the demand curve looks like a vertical line.

By forcing everyone to buy health insurance, the government makes the demand artificially inelastic. The problem with this is that when demand is perfectly inelastic, price basically approaches infinity. If consumers are going to buy something no matter what it costs, you can bet that producers are going to charge a lot.

Bottom line: according to traditional economics, the individual mandate will make the cost of health insurance go up.

Yesterday the House of Representatives passed the Senate’s health “reform” bill, which will soon be signed by President Obama and become law.

This is a dark day for freedom. The medical system in America (and in much of the world) is terrible. All this legislation does is makes it even more terrible. Almost none of the things that make our medical system terrible (the Durham-Humphrey Amendment, the culture of dependence and paternalism between doctors and their customers, ridiculous prices, insurance companies covering things that are discretionary, et cetera) are even addressed by this legislation. Instead, the legislation leaves this terrible medical system as it is and forces everyone to take part in it.

But people who believe in freedom will not give up. The majority of the American people oppose this bill. I was inspired by the protests by people all across the country and by the brave Republicans who spoke out against the legislation in Congress. I also admire the 34 courageous Democrats who broke with their party to vote against the bill. There will certainly be reprisals at the ballot box against the legislators who assaulted our freedom by voting for this bill. Additionally, Idaho and Virginia have passed laws against the individual mandate to purchase insurance, and there is a good chance other states will, too. At least two state Attorneys General will file lawsuits against the mandate, which will likely make their way to the Supreme Court. Considering that the individual mandate is blatantly unconstitutional, I’d say the Attorneys General have a good chance of winning.

The battle for freedom will never be over, and I will not stop fighting until this legislation is repealed.