Great speech from Helio Beltrao at a Mises event in Brazil. The power of the individual is the strongest sovereign power, but people foolishly believe that the decisions of politicians are somehow more worthy and worthwhile. Below is a portion of the speech Beltrao gave.

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President [Leonardo] Fração, it is a pleasure to be here, at this XXIII Forum da Liberdade, whose theme is based on Ludwig von Mises’s Economic Policy book [known in Brazil as The Six Lessons].

Mises was one of the greatest intellectuals of the 20th century, a resolute and uncompromising champion of freedom. Fifty years ago, Mises came to South America and delivered those six historic lectures, which are heralded and quoted just outside, at the Forum’s exhibit.

Today, there is a great international revival of Misesian ideas — including in Brazil — which show the benefits that consumers and workers derive when they are free to venture, to chart their course, and to fulfill their desires.

This week, in Porto Alegre, there is a great concentration of intellectual heirs of Ludwig von Mises. We, from Instituto Mises Brasil, have just concluded our first conference, which was a great success, and it could not have been otherwise! The energy emanating from you is contagious. We have here today many scholars and experts of the Austrian School of economics. Tom Woods, one of the speakers at our conference and the bestseller author of Meltdown, will address you tomorrow. The legendary founder and chairman of the Mises Institute — Lew Rockwell — is also among us tonight! Without Lew, there would be no Mises Institute, no revival of the Austrian School, no Instituto Mises Brasil. Thank you, Lew. And above all, thanks to you, President Fração, to IEE [The Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies], for your support to our conference and especially for your achievements in the fight for liberty. Results come first in this contest; the results of the work of IEE and of the Forum da Liberdade are both evident and quantifiable. Congratulations, IEE!

On other occasions, I customarily speak about finance and economics, about the measures that are likely to bring about a more prosperous society; in other words, as did Mises, I usually speak about what works and what does not.

Today, for the first time, I am addressing a different subject. I speak about what moves me. I speak about where my energy, as an individual, originates. Its source is here, in this advanced and progressive libertarian community, which looks forward to real changes; not merely illusory changes from campaign slogans. I feel at home. It is a great honor to receive the Libertas Award.

The history of ethics has been a history of exploitation. From time immemorial, individuals were set apart into two groups: those that must obey the rules, and those that need not. The people must observe ethics and morals, while rulers not.

The ethics that you and I must observe correctly advocates that one should not steal the property of others, should not murder, and should not force others to do something against their will.

But note that those ethical rules do not apply to government — the government takes your money, calls it “democratic taxes,” and presto! — it is now authorized to steal.

If one enslaves another, this is considered a heinous crime. After all, slavery is the antithesis of individuality! However, in the case of government, they will draft you to “serve your nation” for a year, call this conscription “military service,” and serfdom becomes perfectly legal.

If one kills a neighbor, this is murder. However, if he is an agent of the government — particularly that of the United States — using an olive-green uniform, and invoking a “preventive” war or similar excuse, suddenly it becomes permissible to murder — legally.

Counterfeiting is a crime, but only for you and me. For the government has the money-printing machine, or more precisely, the counterfeiting machine. If it is they doing it, fine. If it is we, we go to jail.

Three hundred years ago, a substantial part of the population in the Americas was comprised of slaves. One hundred percent of the fruits of their labor were the property of their owners. Today, we are no longer slaves. However, about 40 to 50 percent of the product of your efforts and talent are not your property, but your masters’ — that is, the government and its friends. This is what you pay, whether you like it or not, embedded in the prices of the products, or through other taxes, duties, or tariffs. We are no longer slaves, but we are serfs.

Previously, the slave owner would threaten to punish with a whip a slave who refused to work. Now, if you refuse to pay the government, you are summoned and attacked with lawsuits, until you are finally thrown into jail. In both cases, the violence is of the same nature. The gun doesn’t even need to be displayed, as in the case of the customary robber. The mere threat of violence suffices. But the gun is always present, in the robber’s pocket and in the ruler’s jacket.

Theft and slavery are crimes, even if sanctioned by the majority of the people! Theft of the government, by the government, and for the government is somehow accepted and rationalized by the population at large. Why does that majority agree with this theft?

We must analyze the most misrepresented concept nowadays: the concept of democracy.

The conventional use of the term “democracy” conveys a certain disrespect for semantics. Most of us utilize the word democracy when we actually mean other concepts, such as the “rule of law,” “liberty,” “equality before the law,” “individual rights,” “solid institutions,” “justice,” and other concepts that have specific words to designate them. Democracy is, formally, the regime of majority rule, that is, the majority of voters decides whatever it sees fit. Or, as is commonly said, it is the tyranny of the majority — which in practice means the tyranny of the minority: that of the politicians who rule over our lives and property.

True environmentalism is rooted in the individual; it is a movement based on education, connection with nature, and working to show people the sentimental side of nature that only comes through direct experience (not from Al Gore, a president, or some political rally). It is a movement based on individual liberty, responsibility, and localism. In fact, the principles of true environmentalism are nearly identical with libertarianism. However, common mainstream environmentalism does not focus on the education and knowledge of nature nearly as much as it uses the environment as an excuse to push forward a political ideology.

The simple fact is that government cannot sustainably change the way people approach the environment. If you see a logger cutting down a tree on his own property, is it morally defensible to hold a gun to his head preventing him from going any further? Is it acceptable morally if a collective group like government holds the gun to his head? When you approach nature from the standpoint that only the government can protect it, you are essentially giving in to the ridiculous idea that only through coercive collective force can nature be preserved.

“Nature will not be admired by proxy.” — Winston Churchill

This is not to say that all people in the environmental movement want to coerce people into their vision of the planet. However, the movement has become one only rooted in a political movement. And yet, they somehow seem surprised that not many people subscribe to the belief that you must expand government force to keep people in line with the environment. The thinking goes that without preventive collective force, “capitalists” (somehow people exercising their freedom as individuals are separate from everyone else) supposedly would ravage the environment and build as many hotels, stores, and resource-consuming projects as possible on the nation’s most beautiful land.

One of the most frustrating things for me to see, especially with teens and young adults, is the firm belief that government legislation is the ultimate way to bring about environmental change. We had a very kind lady come to my small private high school this past fall to talk about issues like climate change and the usual rhetoric from today’s environmental organizations. At the end of her presentation, this lady tried to get kids excited by announcing the “Declaration of Energy Independence” (a list of energy policies and subsidies for the federal government to undertake) that was to be signed by Barack Obama. This lady’s group and the mainstream environmental movement has it stubbornly implanted in their heads that our environmental fate lies with the government or a president.

I told her clearly that even though I did not believe the science or reasoning behind her presentation, I would certainly work to reduce waste and increase efficiency in my area. No person is going to argue, “Darn it all, I want my waste and inefficiency if it’s the last thing I do!” There is tremendous value in efficiency, and efficiency comes about naturally and most effectively in a free, non-coerced society. Incentives for efficiency do not come from government force, they come from natural free market competition and the God-forsaken profit motive common in a laissez faire society built on liberty.

Unlike a business in a free market, government does not convince you of the value of its product, it coerces you into taking and subsidizing the product whether you desire it or not. It is absurd that people have their heart set on the belief that the market recklessly destroys nature, and they just as easily fall into the trap that noble political servants know the ideal method to provide value and conservation to the environment. The detached and costly process of government intervention is the last thing we need to encourage responsibility, efficiency, and sustainability. We need individuals utilizing the power they carry as human beings! This is a key principle that probably all libertarians agree upon, and it is a principle that true environmentalists should take to heart.

No one can argue against a cleaner planet. The environmental movement would gain ongoing support from individuals of every background if it disregarded political motives and instead focused its resources on bringing education and direct nature experiences to people, as well as using resources (as many organizations have done past and present) to purchase land with the intent of preservation. Consider how much longer lasting an environmental group’s efforts would be in actually purchasing some beautiful land and opening it up to tourists, educational visits, and explaining the importance and benefits of conservation. Given the amount of people who support environmental projects, simple creative solutions like this are hardly implausible. Instead, the environmental movement has fallen into the uncreative trap that is government and politically motivated change through coercion.

The current environmental classes in public schools are so dry and lacking of substance that kids come out with very little experience in nature. My school introduced a new class this year based on the games put together by environmentalist and Sharing Nature founder Joseph Cornell. We are trained to lead small groups in nature activities that bring kids into nature itself to learn to feel, smell, and observe nature for themselves. You encourage connection with nature, rather than viewing it as a foreign object that only disgruntled hippies can find enjoyable. Do you think kids (and adults) will appreciate nature more when they get to have fun in nature or when their teacher recites a lecture of political talking points that the kids will probably forget anyway? Rather than using fear as a motivator for people to sign off on increased government intrusion in the name of the environment, consider the impact environmentalists could have if they worked on bringing this basic understanding and realization of nature to kids and adults alike. It has nothing whatsoever to do with politics and government, it simply awakens the joy of nature on a level that we as individuals can appreciate and value. In short, it would be far more effective than lobbying Obama or other government officials to throw more laws on the backs of the American people.

One major defect of mainstream environmentalism is its focus on bringing about massive regulation on a national and even global scale. Basic economic history shows that expensive laws and penalties benefit larger corporations looking to encumber competition from smaller businesses (thus why Dow Chemical, General Electric, and other billion dollar corporations are among the primary groups lobbying for “cap and trade” and other climate legislation). As government expands, so do the beds corporations use to snuggle up with their favorite bureaucracies. Environmental legislation such as Cap and Trade merely provides another outlet for corporations to diminish smaller, localized competition. In other words, it destroys precisely the setting where individuals have the most influence over business practices and products. Legislation of this sort provides a de facto monopoly to the corporations who can afford to jump through the arbitrary legal hoops and regulations created by politicians and unelected bureaucrats. By nationalizing and globalizing governments to such impressive scales, environmentalists are at the same time destroying the power of individuals in their local communities.

Place the power where it belongs: in the hands of the people. People carry their power not through national and global bureaucracies, but in their families, communities, and local environments. Is it easier to influence a $50 billion corporation propped up through government legislation, or a small local business? Is it more sensible to attempt to influence a Congress of 535 individuals representing more than 300 million people, or become active in a local government representing several thousand people? There is no question that we as individuals carry our influential powers over business, government, and the environment, on a local scale. It is the only logical outlet for the environmental movement to focus its efforts of sustainability and preservation.

This power and responsibility of individuals can only be adequately and sustainably utilized on a local level. Sustainable environmental conservation and education must originate through individuals locally, not through unelected bureaucrats nationally and globally. Localism, through empowered individual property rights, gives measure to the effects of responsibility and decisions made by individuals relating to themselves and their property, their respective communities, as well as the environment. Its function can only operate in a society free of bureaucratized laws and central planning.

The true environmental movement begins with the direct experience of an individual and cannot be furthered by governmental law. True environmentalism and libertarianism originate in the same source: the individual. Both believe strongly in individual liberty and the responsibility that comes with that liberty. By providing individuals with the full power of responsibility over their own lives, the environment will take a greater step forward in the minds of people. People won’t feel detached and separated from nature, they will feel a direct connection and obligation in their local communities. Are people not more concerned and responsible about the land, air, and water they see and use on a daily basis?

Return the responsibility of duties to the individual, not unelected bureaucracies promising the wonders of central planning, and you immediately provide the incentive (through property rights) and ability to maintain clean property, engage in sustainable activities, and preserve environmental quality. Returning to the responsibility of the individual on a local level is the only reasonable and lasting method for true conservation and respect of natural beauty.

James Cameron’s Avatar has shaken the entertainment industry in the past couple months, raking in more than $2.3 billion so far in the box office worldwide. I first saw the film in January and was blown away by the incredible visuals, a detailed exploration of the Na’vi culture, and what I thought was a masterfully told story (as common or predictable as it may be to some). Unfortunately, some conservative and libertarian writers condemn the movie as a wackjob combination of pro-Green, anti-military, and anti-capitalist thinking wrapped into a movie. However, when I saw the movie I thought it strongly reinforced the importance of private property, individual rights, and protection against central force.

Consider the planet Pandora, where the “savage” Na’vi tribes have made their residence for generations. Their planet is their property. When a human corporation backed by hired mercenaries (hardly a constitutional military used for national defense) establishes itself on the planet to further the exploration and mining of a valuable mineral called Unobtanium, they face severe blowback from the tribes. One of the first scenes in the movie shows a massive vehicle returning to base with several arrows stuck in the tires. The tribes understandably felt threatened and saw the human tactics as an invasion of their property. Is this really an attack on the principles of peaceful exchange common in a free market?

The Omiticaya tribe that is prominent in the film does not need anything the humans offer in return for the mineral whether it be roads, education, medicine, etc. Is this really unreasonable? Does an owner of a product not have the right to negotiate the terms of a transaction? The Na’vi are not being selfish, the humans simply do not have a product or service that is more valuable than the land itself is already worth to the Na’vi. It is the same as if someone was offering $10 for a family heirloom that you will never give up. Just because you refuse their offer doesn’t mean they can take that item by force, as the mercenaries in Avatar did.  Once again, this reinforces peaceful and voluntary exchange in a free market.
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No past, present, or future document can grant rights to humanity, nor can any government or collective. The rights and freedoms of an individual person are a priori, have been, are, and will be so long as a single person draws breath. Whenever in the course of history a governing body infringes upon the rights, life and property of the individual, that individual may bring it upon himself/herself to rise up against his/her oppressor in order to take back what was rightfully his/hers from the beginning of time. While in the past the will of the majority has served to oppress those in the minority, no greater example of this can be found than in the formation of nation-state governments. Government should have one purpose and one purpose only: to protect the people and their property from plunder. Instead, our government like so many that went before has passed laws allowing for legal plunder, and has systematically stolen our lives by taking the fruits of our labor, which no government can ever earn or deserve.

The crimes of our government are indeed too numerous to list them all, but some of the more egregious offenses include restriction of liberty through excessive taxation for the purpose of redistributing wealth, maintaining a monopolistic control over the means of money and credit, propagating inflation and the subsequent devaluation of the only legal tender allowed by law, subsidization of the immoral behavior of banks and bankers, the jailing of criminals who have committed victimless crimes, the sending of our men and women to fight unnecessary wars as well as unlawfully occupying other countries for the benefit of those in power while simultaneously spying on its own citizens without first obtaining the proper warrants.

It is because of the above mentioned policies that if any man, woman, or child should choose to fight back peacefully either by not paying taxes or impeaching the whole of the government he/she would be entirely justified in their actions.

The Constitution of Freedom

An individual owns his/her life, labor, and the product of his/her labor. People are free and no government, law or collective action of any kind shall infringe upon their freedoms, namely those of life, choice, belief, action, and property. A person’s freedom is infinite so long as it does not infringe upon the freedoms of another, cause bodily harm to another, or damage another’s property.

No person can be the property of another person, government or collective.

No ruling body is necessary for a functioning society. No government can make law restricting rights or freedoms.

People have the right to individual defense of their own life, liberty, and property. No army is permitted during times of peace; this does not include security forces for the purposes of personal protection of life, liberty, and property. No military war shall be waged for the purpose of conquest. If an army is formed it shall be for defense only. No army nor the government or collective it represents has a right to the land or property of any other individual or collective.

The will of the people can never take precedent over the rights and freedoms of the individual.

Law is justice. A law shall be invalid if it stands in violation of the rights or freedoms of an individual except in cases of reparations for payment of damages to another person or their property. Any law that promotes injustice in any form is invalid. Any law which would plunder a person’s life or property for the benefit of another person or group is invalid.

No tax shall be levied upon any individual or group of individuals. No tariffs shall be levied upon foreigners as this is a hidden tax upon the people. No inflation of any money supply is allowed without the consent of all the holders of that money.

No government can determine what is or is not money. No person must accept any form of payment that he/she determines to be unfit as proper payment for his/her goods or services.

Morality can not be imposed upon a person. No law shall be made in an attempt to impose morality on anyone. No crime can occur without a victim. If the rights or property of a person are infringed upon he/she make seek just compensation by bringing a complaint against the offender to be tried before a jury of peers presided over by an arbitror agreed upon by both parties.

The only public property is of that necessary to travel; this is to protect the freedom of movement. No one may prevent someone from traversing his/her land if their means are peaceful and nondestructive; this does not apply to a person’s or people’s private residence, only to pathways essential to commerce. If destruction does occur from such travel, just compensation for damages may be sought.

No restrictions of any kind shall be placed upon what may be owned by an individual. No restrictions or regulations may be put upon any business as no person may be forced to purchase the goods or services of another against his/her will.

No person shall commit fraud or in any way deceive another person in a voluntary exchange of goods or services. All contracts whether verbal or written are binding. In cases of fraud a person may seek just compensation by bringing a complaint against the offender to be tried before a jury of peers presided over by an arbitrator agreed upon by both parties.

The signer(s) of this document believe(s) that the government which governs least governs best, and that people should not be accountable to the government but the government accountable to the people. I ask nothing which I can not rightfully earn of my own accord, and demand only to be allowed to keep that which I earn. I ask no assistance from any government as anything the government has is not theirs to give. I hold all governments to the same standards expected of all people, namely not to plunder one person or group to profit another, to respect life, liberty, choice and property and deem any government which does not act in accordance with these laws as unlawful, unjust, invalid, and an atrocity in the history free acting people.

Congressman Ron Paul recently gave a speech on the House floor covering the topic of health care. In it he brought up the Flexner Report, an item few individuals have even heard about that is worthy of much more attention than it currently receives.

“A lot of problems were created in 20th century as a consequence the Flexner Report (1910), which was financed by the Carnegie Foundation and strongly supported by the AMA. Many medical schools were closed and the number of doctors was drastically reduced.” — Ron Paul; September 24, 2009

The seeds of the Flexner Report were planted in 1908 when the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching commissioned Abraham Flexner, a high school principle, to research and report on medical schools in the U.S. Flexner himself was not involved in the medical industry, but after being asked to take on the report he researched and grew fond of the medical systems in England, France, and Germany.

In the report, which was officially published in 1910, Flexner called homeopathic schools “a striking demonstration of the incompatibility of science and dogma.” What’s curious is that Flexner points out between 1900 and 1909 homeopathic schools decreased from 22 to 15 and students within the schools decreased from 1,909 to 1,009. Flexner uses these figures to conclude that “the rise of legal standard must inevitably affect homeopathic practitioners.” In short, even with the marketplace whittling out the unproductive and unsustainable homeopathic colleges (or any colleges, for that matter) that Flexner clearly did not appreciate, he still advocated increased government intervention to further clear out homeopathic schools.
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When the Federal Reserve was signed into law in 1913, it was largely on the basis that the independent organization would assume the role of “lender of last resort” to struggling banks and institutions. This would allow the Fed to extend credit in order to prevent short-term economic hardships. As I wrote in my article, Deception in “Free Market” Banking, banks had not experienced troubles because of the free market as is regularly assumed, but through the government-protected fractional reserve system that allowed banks to overextend themselves and deceive depositors:

After the Panic of 1907 and the umpteenth failure of fractional reserve lending, the attacks still were not aimed at the fractional reserve system. This system, when protected through law, gave banks the undoubted opportunity to inflate the money supply, overextend themselves in ways that would never be sustainable in a free market economy, and give little regard to the customers’ original property. Instead, economists began calling for a “lender of last resort” to bail out banks if they were caught overstretched in commitments. Many people don’t realize it, but the U.S. financial system has been in bailout mode for nearly a century since this event.

The Federal Reserve’s “last resort” lending powers did not meet the expectation of politicians. Banks still overextended themselves with depositors’ money despite the new powers of the central bank. In fact, between 1921 and 1929 there was an average of 600 bank failures every year, which exceeded the previous decade’s average (the one in which the Fed was created) by ten times.

During the last few months of 1930 people grew increasingly weary and cautious of the banking system. Understandably, people did not react well when they realized the banks did not have their deposited money. Banks retracted credit and liquidated assets, building up a financial perfect storm that resulted in 9,096 banks suspending operations between 1930 and 1934.

Many politicians reacted by proposing a system (that had been discussed in recent years) of deposit insurance backed and paid by a federal agency, despite the failure of similar state setups of deposit insurance in the same era. Since the early 1800s many states had attempted to offer some form of deposit insurance, many failing to live up to their initial claims. All of them were broke by 1930 (some reached their demise many years earlier, such as Michigan, New York, and Vermont in the mid-1800s).

This all changed when The Banking Act of 1933 was signed into law by Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 16, 1933. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was established as a temporary agency that started operating on January 1, 1934. In its first year the FDIC fund carried a balance of $292 million. In 1935, with President Roosevelt’s signing of The Banking Act of 1935, the FDIC was established as a permanent government agency.The act also strengthened the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the group of seven individuals who play a major role in controlling monetary policy.

The primary functions of the FDIC include insuring deposits through the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) and examining/supervising “financial institutions for safety and soundness and consumer protection.” This has been the basic mission of the FDIC in its 75 year existence, the details of which I won’t fully cover in this article.

Modern economics and politics often praise the development of the FDIC as a great and necessary banking program (this alone might be reason enough to question the FDIC’s role). The main curiosity that I have is the fact that rather than recognize the failure of a government-protected banking system that had failed numerous times leading up to the Great Depression, politicians decided to once again prop up the government system. According to information on the fdic.gov website, the original FDIC legislation drew support from those “who were determined to end destruction of circulating medium due to bank failures and those who sought to preserve the existing banking structure.” (Emphasis added.) These people either failed to realize or downright ignored that it was precisely the banking structure of the fractional reserve system that made such booms and busts so dreadful.

The failure of many banks in the Great Depression was not due to the free market. Fractional reserve banking, the process of banks loaning and investing more money than they actually have in reserve, had been shot down by market forces many times throughout the 1800s in the U.S. The numerous “financial panics” of the 19th century that people often pin on the free market would not have been possible had the states and federal government ceased in protecting the ability of banks to deceitfully loan away depositors’ money. A free market system would not involve government protecting banks in this process, but enforcing the distinction of contracts between demand deposits and time deposits.

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The swine flu, or H1N1 virus, has been declared a “pandemic” by the World Health Organization. In response to fears of the flu spreading, many government health agencies have stepped up to the plate and are now rushing vaccines into the marketplace. European health officials have declared that lives potentially lost through largely untested vaccines are worth the gamble in order to save lives. The Greek government recently announced its intentions to vaccinate all 12 million of its citizens, “without any exception.”

The swine flu outbreak of 1976 is not often brought up in the current H1N1 discussion. In February 1976 one soldier, Private David Lewis, died from and several of his peers fell ill to the swine flu in Fort Nix, New Jersey. Due to the strength and the quickness with which the flu could potentially spread, President Gerald Ford ordered nationwide vaccinations, which started up in October 1976. However, soon after receiving the vaccinations, roughly 500 people were developing a disease paralyzing the nerves, Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS). Private Lewis ended up being the only individual to die directly from the swine flu itself, while more than 25 people died because of the vaccinations. After more than 40 million people received vaccinations, the $137 million program was canceled on December 16.

The reasoning behind massive mandatory vaccinations, particularly today (as well as 30 years ago) with the swine flu, is to avoid another disaster such as the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic which killed millions of individuals around the world. This despite recent research suggests that the swine and Spanish flu may not be as connected as previously thought, primarily because the swine flu is spread through pigs, while the Spanish flu is passed from birds to humans.

I am not downplaying the positive effects that some vaccines have had on humanity. I am simply questioning the principle of compulsory vaccinations, coerced medical care, and forceful quarantines supposedly justified by government-declared health emergencies. These have been the topics of increased discussion of the WHO and many government health agencies around the world, and certainly are not to be dismissed as mere crackpot theories.

Mandatory vaccinations limit the soundness and viability of vaccinations. If a certain vaccination is proven to prevent disease, increase strength of health, and protect the body, clearly it would not require force to be implemented in society. The very idea of mandatory vaccinations implies that you must impose on someone’s beliefs, preferences, and reasoning.

If an individual decides to reject a vaccination that the majority of people are receiving, how does his decision impact others? If the vaccinations are effective and voluntarily received by many people, the individual is only placing himself at risk. If people feel they are exposing themselves to too great of a risk by not taking a vaccine, they are free by all means to get a vaccine. Individuals receive or decline vaccinations at their own risk.

As far as the swine flu situation goes, people will not need a government mandate or forceful coercion to take a vaccine if they feel a major potential risk is looming. In the case of 1976 it was government officials who determined that the swine flu might turn into a disastrous situation, and in turn imposed their frights on millions of Americans. The actions the government carried out were primarily based on the information and beliefs of unelected officials who felt it was worth the risk to potentially sacrifice lives in the name of protecting people against a potential disaster.

The idea that if someone doesn’t take a vaccine they are therefore a potential risk to other individuals makes no sense whatsoever. If one group of people chooses to get vaccinated while another group declines the opportunity, the vaccinated group is supposed to be protected against that particular disease. They are not put in danger by those who decided to opt out of the vaccine. They are also taking the chance that they could possibly grow more ill from the injection. In the event of a true pandemic you can bet that if proven vaccines are available, the majority of people will choose to get vaccinated; you do not need government officials determining the weight of different risks. It is the responsibility and free choice of the individual, plain and simple.

The Merriam-Webster definition of freedom is “the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.” Can anyone seriously defend the potential policies of mandatory vaccinations and still make the argument that we live in a free country? Freedom does not suddenly become a doormat to new and abusive government powers in times of potential health problems as declared by government; last I checked the Constitution, anyway.

It is illogical to expect government to constitutionally take on the job of keeping people healthy. It is the responsibility of the individual, not government, to decide what food to eat, which medications are most helpful, and whether or not to receive vaccines. The federal government has already attempted to regulate and control substances in this way through the Drug War, and it has not lessened drug use or violence. Whenever government has tried to protect individuals from themselves it has always failed and led to far worse consequences.

The reality is that it cannot be up to government officials and politicians to decide when or if a vaccination will truly protect the individual. Who can push away the possibility that politicians aren’t trying to score a victory for the pharmaceutical companies providing the vaccines? The potential for deadly abuse of mandatory vaccinations alone proves the insanity of giving the president, Congress, or a government agency the power to mandate medications and vaccinations.

No person or group, no matter how powerful, has the moral or legal authority to force or deny substances like vaccines and drugs. The 5th Amendment mandates that no one is to “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” while the 4th Amendment protects the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” Whether it’s an individual or government holding a gun to your head, mandatory vaccinations are an unequivocal infringement on free will, choice, and individual discretion.

Mandatory vaccinations destroy individual liberty, individual sovereignty, and any concept of freedom. If the vaccinations the government feels must be forced on the entire country are as fantastic as officials claim, force and coercion certainly would not be necessary to convince people of their benefits.

Vaccinations must treated and managed like any other good or service: through individual choice, discretion, responsibility, and freedom. It is the only method that guarantees the absolute control is where it belongs: with the individual.

In recent years profits have gotten a bad name from many people and politicians. Profits are said to take advantage of others, encourage greed, among a variety of other allegations. These concerns can be legitimate but often miss a crucial point.

Profit represents the reward for taking a risk. You wouldn’t start a business if you knew you weren’t going to make more than you would spend creating that business, would you? However, if you can increase your income more than your expenditures through that business, you’ll feel much more inclined to continue with the operation. Obviously, people cannot survive operating a business at a loss.

Profits do not come without work and risk. It is only possible to make a profit if you can offer a product or a service that people want, in an efficient manner. No matter how greedy you may be, in a free market you cannot survive without efficiently producing a product that has market demand. You cannot force people to work for you, you cannot force people to invest in your business, and you cannot force people to purchase your product. Your greed is limited to free and voluntary exchange.
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A recent New York Times article by David Leonhardt brings up an interesting proposal to pay for government health care:

The numbers show there is only one sure way out of the problem, and, after months of roundabout discussion, that solution has re-emerged: It’s a tax on health care.

If Congress taxes health care, the revenue has a chance of rising with health spending. A health tax will also create an incentive for workers and businesses to slow the growth of health spending — thus reducing the amount of taxes needed to pay the nation’s health bill.

In other words, politicians want to control the health care industry with a special government plan that will cost trillions of dollars in a several-year period. Government doesn’t have money, considering that the nation is broke and suffering a harsh recession. But with this brilliant new proposal, Congress can provide health care service and pay for it by taxing health care spending.

I honestly don’t know where to begin with this one. If cutting wasteful spending is as simple as slapping a tax on an item, why not throw a tax on the escalating government spending, where there is far more waste than any business or service in the marketplace?

More from the Times article:

Because health care — unlike food, clothing and most other things — isn’t taxed, it’s effectively on sale. And when something is on sale, people often buy more of it than they need.

In the case of health care, they buy — or their employer buys for them — insurance plans that don’t make much of an effort to control costs. Rather than putting pressure on hospitals to root out administrative waste, the plans cover the cost of that waste.

Taxing rising spending is not going to lower the price of health care without a cost. To compensate for the lost income businesses will either cut or limit their service or increase prices. If government really knew a method of lowering prices while increasing productivity, I highly doubt anyone would be against that type of plan. It’s funny, though, when I think of the yearning for lower prices and higher productivity, I can’t help but think of some other economic system that provides this exact service without the supposed wisdom of government officials: the free market.

Certainly there is a good deal of waste and over-use in the health care industry today. But the last thing that is causing this phenomena is the lack of a tax on health care spending. The direct problem for rising health care costs is the fact that today the individual carries little control over his or her’s medical plan. Through HMOs and other programs encouraged and forced by government, we have effectively put other people in charge of our health care.

The more that people rely on third-parties to manage and pay for their health care (whether it’s their employer, insurance businesses, or government), the less they will be financially attached to their medical plans. If they aren’t paying for their health care directly, they have little incentive to take cost into account. It isn’t because we haven’t slapped a tax on medical spending that we have the problem of rising spending, it’s because the individual is losing the direct control over medical spending and therefore the incentive to limit medical spending and costs as much as possible. When someone else is paying the bill, who is really going to hold back and not grab as much of a service as possible?

Another problem stems from the idea that health insurance needs to pay for every little medical cost. This again takes more of the incentive away to control spending and cost. If you buy flood insurance, you do not expect it to pay for covering the damage of a muddy lawn after a drizzle of rain. Insurance is a simple tool to measure and pay for risk, not common procedures.

Consider what caused the price of cell phones to drop quickly while the products continually improved. The first cell phone, the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x, released in 1984, weighed two pounds, had a half-hour battery life, and cost $3,995. Today, you can purchase a cell phone for twenty or thirty dollars with far more capabilities than the DynaTAC. Was it a tax on cell phone spending that encouraged businesses to increase efficiency, lower costs, and create cheaper and better products, or was it competition, a relatively unregulated market, and the power of the consumer?

Imagine if in 1984 the government forced employers to offer cell phones to their employees and placed “insurance” businesses in charge of paying the simple fees. When you take the power away from the individual and hand it to a third party, people greatly lose the incentive to find the best product at the cheapest price. They lose the incentive to find value, and the ability and options to find value become greatly limited because of the government intervention. This is why people will often overuse the medical system in Canada, which leads to rationed medical care, limited medical services, and long waiting periods for simple procedures.

The solution to our health care problem does not lie in a collective system such as socialism. We have had a sort of collective corporatism insurance and few people are pleased with it. It really does not matter which third party is paying for health care; so long as individuals don’t have the financial control over their medical care, inefficiency will abound. Employer-provided medical coverage, corporate insurance plans, and socialized medicine all have a basic flaw: they can’t fully serve the individual because it is not the individual who is in full control.

Individuals need more, not less, control over their medical care, and this is what many people and politicians fail to recognize today. More government involvement through subsidies, taxes, and programs will not solve a thing in the long run. To save health care, it must be the individual -  not the employer or the corporate workers or the government officials – who carries the power of choice and the incentive to reward value in the marketplace.