Ultimately, what has become clear is that while health care is the hot potato being tossed around, the real battle here is one over control. And the “left vs. right” fallacy has served up yet another sideshow to distract us from the real issues at stake: personal freedoms. Both of the two major political parties in the US are waging the same war on liberty, regardless of their platitudes. This becomes clearer by the day, as we are bombarded with hour after hour of what can most politely be described as political horse manure.

What many seem to have forgotten is that we have, in this nation and elsewhere, made health care a nearly impossible puzzle due to the notion that somehow someone other than the patient should pay for it. The origins of this ridiculous idea can be traced back to labor unions who lobbied corporate interests for better conditions for the masses of indentured servants who were forced to appeal to their corporate taskmasters for any and everything. It could arguably be further traced back to more obvious forms of slavery, but that’s probably a discussion for a different day.

As the 20th Century progressed, our need for sophistication had us relabeling these “benefits” as insurance — as if I could be insured for something we all require. Imagine, for example, that someone similarly decided that gasoline for your automobile should somehow be a job benefit and that ultimately you should be required to purchase “gasoline insurance” so that someone else could pay for what you use at the pump. This idea is perhaps a little more obviously so, but no less ridiculous than the idea that I should need health insurance.

Don’t misunderstand me, insurance has its place. Anyone familiar with the basic purpose of insurance — to mitigate the risk of the “unlikely occurence” — can see that coverage for the rare catastrophic situation makes sense. But insurance for the “regular occurrence” is an obvious waste of resources.

Today’s bloated system is one in which the economic buyer of services is not the actual user of the services. And a basic examination of the operations of your average physician’s practice will show just how inefficient this is. The average medical practice employees a team of nearly 5 people per physician, most of whom are only necessary due to the incredible complexity of collecting fees from the 3rd parties who are paying for their customers’ purchases.

In Florida, for example, where something like 80% of the services of the average medical practice are paid for by Medicare, your friendly neighborhood physician has long since ceased to be a business owner and is little more than a government slave. All manner of control is exercised over these public servants by the two forces to which they are enslaved: government payers and pharmaceutical companies. The latter has entered into the game of control by virtue of the fact that they are the only ones in the game whose pockets are actually being deepened by this bloated and out-of-control system. All manner of payola, bribery, and other undue influence is exercised over these well-educated slaves because of the fact that they aren’t in control of their own businesses.

There’s no question that we have a mess on our hands. But the issues of the “uninsured” and of cost-effectiveness can best be solved — as any rational human being looking at the big picture would necessarily conclude — by removing the centralization of control in the system and letting real competition have its way. This means decentralizing the money: taking it out of the hands of government entities and massive insurers and putting back into the hands of the actual healthcare providers. This would permit them to escape the clutches of control exercised by big Pharma and put them back in the business of providing that which they spent so many years being trained to provide: patient care.

There’s no question that a transition from our current mess to a logical free market system is risky and would need to be planned out strategically. But as history has proven time and time again, we are the best masters of our destiny, not those who seek to control.

And that, my friends, is the reason so much blood was shed in the founding of this great nation.

Sadly, lawmakers are actually batting around the notion of passing what is currently being estimated as an $800 Billion “stimulus” package.

First let me say that if we actually had $800 Billion “in the bank,” as it were, my opinion on this might be different. But the fact of the matter is that we are talking about borrowing this money… on top of all of the money we’ve already borrowed.

And before you write off my opinion as somehow “partisan” or otherwise neatly in support of one “side” or the other in this debate, let me hit you with a bit of common sense:

You can’t borrow your way out of debt.

This is a lesson learned the hard way. I’ve tried it. Let me tell you… it simply doesn’t work.

A National Addiction

We — as a nation — are addicted to debt. And so far we — as a nation — have not felt the sting of it. Sure… many families have learned that excessive borrowing against an asset which varies in value can land you in foreclosure.  That stings.  But as a nation, we’ve not yet faced the painful consequences of all the borrowing that we have done.

This is precisely why we continue to debate this bill as though it were actually a plausible solution.

Once you realize that you have a harmful addiction, you must do any and everything in your power to end the addiction. No matter how painful it may seem (or actually be).

But we — as a nation — have decided that more of our destructive vice is preferable to detox.

The fact is that it used to be a shame to “mortgage the farm.” It meant that you had managed things poorly. It meant that you had not planned well enough for the future. It meant that you weren’t planning well enough for your heirs.

Granted, in an agricultural enterprise, there are years (and sometimes series of years) where drought or other conditions affect the crops and things go badly. But everyone knows this and it’s all the more reason why shrewd farmers plan for it by storing things up.

But our pattern of handing off responsibility every few years and electing leaders — at the national or state level, in all branches of government — who are more concerned about short-term results, their approval ratings and their “legacies” than they are about the real impact of their decisions has made it all too easy to dig ourselves deeper and deeper into this devastating hole.

And whether it’s been done ignorantly or with complicity, we the people have enslaved ourselves through the actions of these leaders.

It’s been done by Republicans and Democrats alike. It’s been done by Independents and others. It’s all too easy to simply borrow more than it is to address the real issues. And as anyone who treated their home equity like an ATM machine during the real estate boom years can tell you, it’s all fine and good until you can’t borrow anymore.

And then the pain of dealing with the real issues is far greater because of the multiplied impact of the debt.

As the ancient proverb says:

The borrower is servant to the lender.

We have enslaved ourselves. And most of us don’t even know it yet. We’ll realize it one day when we wake up with the sting and the scars of the whip extracting its “pound of flesh.” And we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves.

I want to challenge those who call themselves Christians in this time to apply some critical thinking before running out to cast a vote for the candidate who seems most obviously the “right” one.

The Machinery of the “Religious Right”

Growing up in Evangelical circles, I know all too well the machinery that works to influence our vote. It doesn’t require us to think. It encourages us not to debate the issues. It simply hands out voter guides that focus on a handful of issues that are our major “hot buttons,” not the least of which is abortion.

In times past, we have voted for and put into office en masse the candidate who says the right Evangelical things… the one who knows the right turn of phrase… the one who speaks “our language.” And it’s a noble thing that we want a candidate who seems to be Godly and who has a knowledge of the Scriptures and appears to be someone who prays.

But before you go racing off to the Primaries, let me urge you to give some consideration to just a few of what I believe you will see are the most significant factors in this year’s elections.

For the first time ever, we have multiple candidates who take a firm Pro-Life stance. This immediately levels the playing field somewhat - particularly for those who vote based upon a single issue. While I believe that is significantly misguided (I’ll explain why in a moment), it is always done with noble and genuine intentions.

The Greatest Nation on Earth… What Once Was

This nation became the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave for a very short list of significant reasons. Our Founding Fathers understood that freedom was the most valuable possession that any human being was created with by God. They understood first-hand what the tyranny of government looked like when power was concentrated in the hands of too few individuals unchecked. They sacrificed their very lives (in many cases) fighting to create a nation whose land would be governed in a manner that would guarantee the freedoms of the individual. Those who escaped with their lives sacrificed much of their personal wealth in service to the generations to come as they invested years of their lives in reading, discussion, critical thinking, and debate in order to draft a set of documents that would guide the formation of this great nation.

Of the rights that they most ardently and passionately defended, the right to free speech, to choose one’s religion, to keep and bear arms, to confront one’s accuser, to not have one’s property seized nor to be imprisoned without proper and speedy trial before a judge and jury, and others were most significant. The Founders understood the significance of these rights because they had lived in societies wherein those rights had been trampled. They knew the pain of injustice.

As a person born squarely within the ranks of Generation X, I am not personally familiar with the society that our Founders created. In my lifetime, the freedoms enjoyed by previous generations have been whittled down to mere shadows of their former selves. Government has inserted itself into every facet of life, to the point that as a parent I am forced to think hard about the manner in which I train, discipline and educate my own child. I’m not free in my own home, nor on my own property, nor in my own car. The restrictions on government that were written into every jot and tittle of the Constitution have been obliterated by runaway courts and by lawmakers intoxicated by their own power. Executive orders from the highest office in the land make me subject to invasions of privacy and even search and seizure without cause and without due process. Even free speech is no longer what it used to be. Yes, I’m still able to write and publish thoughts like these, but I question how long even that will be true.

But let me point out just one of many significant examples of the erosion in our freedom of speech: If you are a pastor or religious leader, how difficult is your decision when you contemplate how “political” you can be from the pulpit? The silence of religious leaders has been purchased for the right to issue a receipt for donations. It’s insidious and amazing how far-reaching the implications of financial influence are able to reach.

Deluded Evangelicals

The delusion that the so-called Christian right has held is that if we were to elect enough Pro-Life candidates, suddenly and magically the abortion issue would be solved. Further, we’ve held onto a dream that somehow gay marriage wouldn’t take place or that we could influence the contents of the textbooks and the educational processes in this country.

What we have not understood is that we are hoping to solve cultural and societal problems by using the ridiculous and evil usurpation of power that stole our freedoms and led to the problems in the first place. Electing people who share our moral beliefs will not be enough.

“Let me issue and control a nation’s money, and I care not who writes its laws.”

- Mayer Amschel Rothschild, Patriarch of the Famous Banking Family

The simple fact is that we must undo the ill-gotten influence that has been achieved in our land by those few individuals who truly are pulling the levers in our land. Just this week, we watched the enormous influence - in this case over financial markets - exercised by just a few unelected individuals.

A Nation Enslaved

The Scripture teaches that, “The borrower is servant to the lender.” (Proverbs 22:7) In our land, nothing could be more clearly demonstrated than this. Consumer and national debt causes us to bow our knee to the lenders and, no matter Godly we may wish to be… no matter how moral the men and women are that we elect to office… when our nation is enslaved, we will obey those who have the leverage to command.

We must elect those who have the capacity to govern effectively and, more importantly, to return this nation to the principles in our Constitution and early documents that created the most prosperous and free society in the history of the Earth.

For a candidate to say that he or she is for “small government” isn’t enough. We must re-evaluate the positions held by those who wish to use and even expand the rights and powers of the Federal government. There was a time in my Grandparents’ younger days in which no one even thought about the federal government in their day-to-day lives. Now, the influence of federal agencies - from the Internal Revenue Service (arguably not a federal agency) to the Department of Homeland Security is felt every single day.

This didn’t occur on my generation’s watch. But it did happen on the Church’s watch.

Today, many of my generation actually think it’s the role of Federal Government to make sure that all of us have health care. We don’t know that health care used to be a free market system unhindered by 3^rd-party payers who make decisions and control costs, making life miserable even for (perhaps especially for) the physicians and healthcare providers. We don’t know a day in which the Federal Government hadn’t meddled in the system with attempts to socialize it.

My generation actually thinks it is the role of the Federal Government to control the contents of the textbooks used in the public school down the street. (What many of us don’t know is that the Board of Education in the far away State of California actually wields more influence over this - because of market forces that the Church frequently ignores.)

My generation believes that the Federal Government should control the economy. We actually believe that currency has always consisted of worthless paper and coins. We don’t know that today’s dollar is worth 4 cents of what it was worth in 1913 when the Federal Reserve gained control of the currency and began systematically devaluing the wealth - and yes, even the labor - of the hardworking “free” American people.

My generation thinks it is Constitutional to penalize productivity - that the Federal Government has always had its hand in our pockets even before the paycheck gets signed. We don’t know anything different.

These examples could go on and on. My challenge to you is to take a hard look at the Constitutional positions of the candidates - not just evaluate how well they quote Scripture or pander to the hot buttons of the so-called “right wing.”

A better answer would be a return to the foundational principles of our Constitution.

And… in this critical year, it can be done.

David G. Johnson is a former Contributing Editor at ChristianBusinessDaily.com

…Giulani Involvement Points to a Conspiracy

“Bias has to do with the elimination of points of view, not presenting a point of view.”
Roger Ailes, President
Fox News

With those words, Roger Ailes once expressed the reason that so many viewers turned to Fox News. In a time when Ted Turner and NBC dominated cable news, Fox News rode onto the scene like a proverbial knight in shining armor. These days, the armor is tarnished and the white horse is muddied - it appears that Mr. Ailes’ understanding of how media outlets most effectively exploit their influence to promote a bias is, in fact, company policy.

In an unparalleled move, Fox has chosen to silence the only Republican candidate who could truly be classified as a traditional limited-government conservative who has demonstrated a strict commitment to the U.S. Constitution - based upon the nearly 4 decades of voting records available for review. The network, consistently #1 among cable news networks in Nielsen ratings, excluded Dr. Ron Paul from its Republican presidential debate Sunday, January 6^th.

Instead, Fox has persistently pushed the names of Paul’s opponents into the limelight - names like Giuliani, whom Paul soundly beat in last Thursday’s Iowa Caucus, capturing nearly three times as many votes. Giuliani was invited to the Sunday debate sponsored by the network, as was Fred Thompson, whose poll numbers in New Hampshire - the state in which the debate was held - have been consistently lower than Ron Paul’s.Fox has repeatedly refused to state its reasons for relegating Ron Paul - long seen as a significant contender for the Republican nomination - to the “need-not-appear” category. It seems that the network’s policy is very specifically to eliminate his point of view.

Mr. Ailes? Is this your policy, or does it come from Mr. Murdoch?

The Giuliani Connection

According to the Columbia Journalism Review, during the first New York City mayoral term of Rudy Giuliani, News Corp (the parent company of Fox News) received a $20.7 million tax break for the building in Manhattan that serves as the home of Fox News, as well as News Corp’s New York Post, and various other News Corp media holdings, including TV Guide.
During Giulani’’s terms as mayor, the Post seems to have eliminated any points of view that might have been negative in any way of the mayor. It seems that Giuliani himself intervened in a critical fight between News Corp and New York City cable provider Time Warner (owner of CNN), in which News Corp used all of its ammo — editorials, cartoons, etc. — to secure a much-needed slot on the city’s cable system in order to compete head-to-head with CNN in the nation’’s most critical market.

More recently, even a cursory evaluation of programming on the news network once touted as “conservative” shows an unusual favoritism toward Rudy Giuliani by framing questions for both viewers and guests in ways that pit Giuliani - more so than any other Republican candidate - against the leading Democratic contenders.

Is Keith Rupert Murdoch, the Australian-born billionaire at the helm of the News Corp empire, returning some old favors by silencing an opponent for his old friend from New York?

The War in Iraq

Murdoch, known to be a staunch supporter of the war in Iraq, may also have a score to settle with Ron Paul for his vehement vilification of the war in Iraq. (Check out this PBS video from 2002 - prior to the US-led invasion of Baghdad - in which Ron Paul speaks out back then against the invasion, for all the same reasons that many do today.) Could it be related to Murdoch’’s own holdings overseas in the oil industry?

Here’’s what the Columbia Journalism Review had to say about Mr. Murdoch’’s tactics:

Murdoch uses his diverse holdings, which include newspapers, magazines, sports teams, a movie studio, and a book publisher, to promote his own financial interests at the expense of real newsgathering, legal and regulatory rules, and journalistic ethics. He wields his media as instruments of influence with politicians who can aid him, and savages his competitors in his news columns. If ever someone demonstrated the dangers of mass power being concentrated in few hands, it would be Murdoch.

That was written in 1998, before Fox News had become the “most trusted name in cable news.”

Can conservatives rely upon a network controlled by a man with a political and financial agenda that would lead him to use every means in his power to eliminate the viewpoints that threaten it?

Unelectable?

While Fox has not specifically leveled this charge, Dr. Ron Paul has been accused by some of being unelectable. Ironically, this was the exact terminology used of Ronald Reagan by Gerald Ford in March of 1980.

In fact, Ron Paul has rallied record-breaking support, raising nearly $20 million in the 4^th quarter alone - while breaking single-day fundraising records… twice. And despite any efforts to silence him in the “conservative” media, Paul continues to gain support - particularly via the internet - enough to put him in a tie with Giuliani for 3^rd place in the New Hampshire polls.

Paul has rallied enormous support from traditional conservatives for his stands on the issues. His vehement opposition of federal government expansion and the neo-socialistic welfare state that the Democrats seem hell-bent to create has earned him the respect of constitutionalists of all ages. Younger voters - those who understand that the government can never fulfill its promises regarding Social Security - have been flocking to the Paul camp because they view his “return to sound money policy” as the only hope for righting the economic ship for their futures.

“… it is ’sinful and tyrannical’ to force the American taxpayers to subsidize programs and practices they find morally abhorrent.”

Ron Paul
Recalling a Thomas Jefferson quote before the House of Representatives as he introduced his Sanctity of Life Act of 2007

Paul, a practicing obstetrician for much of his adult life, has also taken a stand on other issues that resonate with conservatives, including the abortion issue. Having delivered over 4,000 babies, he has voted consistently throughout his 10 terms in Congress against every pro-abortion measure.

With all of these conservative qualities, why would the “fair and balanced” network try to eliminate his point of view?