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Thinking Outside the Box!
We're All on the Dole
Dr.
Chuck Ormsby,N. Andver School Committee
 Picture what it would be like to
live in a truly free society. You would have the right to
associate, or not, with whom you choose. You would have
an absolute right to any property that you have earned.
You could use or trade your property with other willing
participants as long as you don’t infringe on the
equal rights of others. Governments would have only two
primary purposes: to enforce laws against the initiation
of force (or fraud) and to protect us from aggression by
outside entities.
OK, OK … quit dreaming! We live in the twenty-first
century, not the eighteenth century.
The principles that were invoked at the birth of our
nation and that created a free society, largely like that
described above, have long been forgotten. Sure, they
still exist in some dusty old history books and in the
political rantings of a few radical wing-nuts, but the
flame of freedom is rapidly being extinguished.
The barriers to the re-establishment of a free society
are just too substantial. The two biggest impediments are
ignorance and government entitlements.
Ignorance: Well over 95% of our fellow citizens
don’t have any concept of what it means to be truly
free. Our long-standing population has lost sight of what
it once had and new immigrants have no history of freedom
to remember. If our fellow citizens had no concept of
freedom, we’d be better off. Unfortunately, their
“understanding” of freedom is hopelessly
confused by a gaggle of entitlements that they have
accepted and that make a free society impossible.
The big four entitlements are guarantees related to
education, healthcare, a “living” wage, and
economic security in retirement. These are quite
sufficient by themselves to stop freedom dead in its
tracks. Additional guarantees of “adequate”
housing, healthy food, or the myriad of other
entitlements dreamt up by politicians just place freedom
even further from our grasp.
Ignorance of a meaningful concept of freedom and belief
in entitlements are not entirely independent. They are
mutually reinforcing. If you understand and appreciate
freedom, you can’t seriously embrace entitlements.
If you have no comprehension of freedom, it is hard to
resist when a politician looking for your vote tells you
that you are entitled to all these goodies.
The fact that entitlements are inconsistent with freedom
is fundamental. How can anyone reconcile having the right
to some material goods or services that he didn’t
create and he doesn’t own? If he has a right to
these, the government can only protect his
“right” if it has the power to steal those
goods or services from others. Therefore, those
“others” must not have the right to their
property or the right to perform or not perform services
as they see fit. They can’t be free.
Most people find it difficult to embrace blatant
contradictions. If they accept the entitlements
politicians bestow on them, they have to accept the
notion that the government can expropriate the goods and
services that are rightfully theirs. There is no way
around it.
The entitlement philosophy is a cancer and it is
metastasizing to every organ of our society. It creates
numerous barriers to re-establishing a free society.
The education entitlement has led to a one-size-fits-all
government education system with high costs, low
standards, poor service, and little say by customers
regarding what they want to learn. Since everyone is
“entitled” to be educated, regardless of
whether they want to be educated or are capable of being
educated, huge sums are spent on those most resistant to
enlightenment. Since entitlements are equalized, funds
are lavished on poorly performing schools as a reward for
their poor performance, while successful schools receive
substantially less funding. With incentives like this,
should poor performance be a surprise?
But the worst part about public education is the loss of
freedom — freedom to decide what you want to learn,
and from whom, and under what circumstances, and at what
price. Yes, private education is still legal for now, but
the “free” public schools drain so much of
society’s resources and the after-tax price is so
cheap (“free”) that competitive markets do not
emerge except for the very narrow segment of society
where “price is no object.” Unfortunately,
customers of the public schools in many locals are
learning that even “free” is not much of a
bargain when the education process fails – due to
either misguided fads or incompetence — and the
lives of their children are ruined.
The healthcare entitlement is rapidly establishing
socialized medicine. The freedom to choose your doctor
and the freedom of doctors to determine your treatment,
and even the ability of the two of you to negotiate fees,
is rapidly fading. Free healthcare has resulted in a
dramatic increase in the demand for healthcare resources
and, therefore, government allocation of scarce medical
resources is becoming the norm. A medical paperwork
explosion, resulting directly from government
intervention in the healthcare process, now consumes 30%
of all expenditures on healthcare. How many lives could
be saved if the paperwork burden was cut in half?
Our right to a “living wage” is used to justify
everything from the minimum wage law to compulsory
unionism and compulsory bargaining. Of course, the real
minimum wage, in spite of minimum wage laws, is zero when
you can’t get a job. And that prospect is even more
likely after a minimum wage law is passed. Worse still,
that wage is likely to persist if you can’t
establish any work history or job knowledge. And what
happens to freedom of association if an employer and
potential employee can’t agree on the terms of
employment without government interference? As for
unions, they would be fine except for the compulsion
part. How is government-mandated compulsory membership or
compulsory bargaining consistent with freedom?
Finally, the retirement entitlement has given rise to the
biggest Ponzi scheme and the largest theft of private
property in history.
Social Security will either crash and leave people’s
retirements in ruins or, more likely, the crash will be
“avoided” by the devastating imposition of a
huge new tax. Regardless of how this tax is imposed, it
will be a direct assault on our freedoms. The destructive
effects on the economy and our standard of living will be
substantial.
Like drugs are to junkies, these entitlements are
addictive. A high percentage of our population is now on
the dole and few are willing to endure withdrawal.
We have sold out our precious freedoms on the cheap.
Unfortunately, if we want to buy them back, the tree of
liberty may need to be refreshed.
Dr. Ormsby is a member of the
North Andover School Committee. He is a graduate of
Cornell and has a doctorate from MIT. If you have any
questions or comments, you can contact Dr. Ormsby via
email: ccormsby@comcast.net
*Send your questions comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com
The December, 2006
Edition of the Valley Patriot
The Valley Patriot is a Monthly
Publication.
All Contents (C) 2006, Valley Patriot, Inc.
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