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Commonly Misunderstood Concepts: Health Care (2009) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

Commonly Misunderstood Concepts: Health Care (2009) – Article by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
Originally Published October 12, 2009
as Part of Issue CCXI of The Rational Argumentator
Republished July 24, 2014
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Note from the Author: This essay was originally published as part of Issue CCXI of The Rational Argumentator on October 12, 2009, using the Yahoo! Voices publishing platform. Because of the imminent closure of Yahoo! Voices, the essay is now being made directly available on The Rational Argumentator.
~ G. Stolyarov II, July 24, 2014
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It is an odd society indeed where such a seemingly simple idea as health care is so severely misunderstood. Health care, as the constituents of the term suggest, is simply caring for one’s health, where health – of course – is the physical integrity and unobstructed functioning of one’s body. A healthy person is one whose body is not breaking down, one who is not in constant pain, one who is going to live for a long time unless some unforeseen external peril – such as an accident or an assault – violates the integrity of one’s body from without.

In a society where there exists advanced scientific medical knowledge, it is possible to benefit one’s health by consulting with certain individuals who specialize in aspects of this knowledge. These individuals are also useful in detecting diseases or other malfunctions that are not obvious to the intelligent layman, and they also do a commendable job in researching cures for diseases that have hitherto been without remedy. Most doctors are to be praised for the excellent work they do, and I am confident that any doctor worthy of his M.D. degree would strongly concur with the fundamental understanding of health care that I posit here.

Most people will recognize that doctors play an important and sometimes necessary role in the provision of health care. What many people today fail to recognize, however, is that doctors are never a sufficient part of genuinely effective health care. Doctors can indeed often detect signs of illness and recommend remedies, but to expect a doctor to perform all of your health care for you is just like expecting a teacher to perform all of your education for you. Doctors and teachers can both help and can even at times make the difference between success and failure, but without your participation and your vigilance, failure is inevitable.

What are other crucial components of health care? They are not esoteric, and they do not require specialized knowledge. They include eating in moderation, exercising regularly, avoiding harmful substances, practicing at most monogamy, keeping one’s surroundings clean, and avoiding risks to life and limb as much as possible. There are also numerous over-the-counter medications and first aid practices, that, if used intelligently, can enable individuals to recover from many minor and even some major perils. These habits are not just little frills added on to the body of health care; they are that body, and without them, one will be quite dead quite soon – but not before racking up absurd amounts of medical expenses. I will note that in the 20th century, human life expectancy in the West surged from the mid-to-late forties to the late seventies. Although medical advances were phenomenal during that time, the vast majority of the increase can be attributed to improvements in overall cleanliness of infrastructure and healthier habits. With the advent of sanitation, regular dental hygiene, automatic washers and dryers, and efficient household cleaning supplies, a lot of infectious diseases that formerly wiped out millions were kept at bay – mostly not by doctors, but by ordinary laypersons living their lives in a superior manner to that of their ancestors. New technologies motivated new behaviors, and these everyday behaviors are our first and so far our best line of defense against disease and decay.

Of course, some people who lead their lives in the most health-conscious manner possible can still be afflicted by catastrophic diseases for reasons that are none of their fault. As far as medical science is aware, many cancers do not appear to be caused by any active human behavior; indeed, some are an unfortunate product of poor genes. And, of course, there is the ultimate killer – senescence – which afflicts all humans, given the current level of medical technology. It is imperative that these perils be eradicated as soon as possible, and the best doctors, scientists, and media advocates are needed to enable a victory over what can justly be called the greatest threats to humans everywhere. I will add that it is a matter of justice that a person who suffers from a disease which he did not cause receive prompt, efficacious, and affordable care. But the vital question – and the question many people today neglect to consider – is how this just state of affairs can possibly come about.

Reality only works in certain ways, in accord with immutable natural laws. Wishing for a good outcome will not make it so, and even acting toward that outcome will only work if the right actions are undertaken. Any reasonable, moral person will agree that it is preferable for all reasonable, moral people to be healthy rather than not. What many people fail to recognize is that any process of improvement takes time, and that surrogate measures that attempt to bring about the improvement instantaneously are not only illusory but can also be severely counterproductive.

As a case in point, I bring forth the oft-encountered contemporary confusion of health care with health insurance. Too many people today believe that it is not taking care of oneself and visiting doctors when necessary that constitutes good health care, but rather the presence ofhealth insurance, which – at least in theory – promises to pay for some of the medical attention one receives from doctors. These individuals see statistics stating that millions do not have health insurance, and they mistakenly assume that these individuals do not have adequate health care. But it is entirely possible for a person to have healthy habits and – especially if this person is young – to not require extensive or expensive medical attention. It is also possible for a person to be sufficiently wealthy to afford to pay for the doctors he wishes to visit. Moreover, it is possible for a person to rely on the charity of doctors in providing any medically necessary attention – as was the case for centuries before health insurance came about, when most doctors would treat all patients but would charge them differential rates based on their ability to pay. In effect, with these traditional doctors, the rich voluntarily subsidized the poor on a largely free market, in a manner beyond the wildest dreams of the advocates of socialized medicine today.

Of course, the presence of health insurance cannot avert the need to seek the attentions of doctors. Indeed, a well-known concept in insurance, moral hazard, suggests that in some cases, an insured individual may actually be more likely to fall victim to a peril than an uninsured individual, because the insured individual is shielded from some of the financial consequences of the loss. Insurance can make life easier for some people in some cases, and it can also be a good safeguard for catastrophes, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient for proper health care. Indeed, the manner in which health insurance has developed in the United States is one of the contributing factors to the astronomically increasing prices of specialized medical care. Health insurance in the U. S. is not provided on a largely free market like most forms of property insurance. Instead, it is mostly tied to one’s employment by virtue of the market-distorting tax breaks that employers receive for providing health insurance. One does not need to worry about what happens with one’s car insurance if one loses a job, but losing one’s job can severely damage one in the realm of health insurance.

Since employers began to receive favorable treatment from the federal government for providing health insurance in the 1940s, the health insurance snowball has continued to embroil more people in a crisis of increasing proportions. The people who got the subsidized insurance had an incentive to spend more money than they usually would on doctors – often an outcome of hypochondria rather than of a reasonable concern for health. As demand for medical services rose, so did the cost, and so the people who did not have insurance – especially the elderly and unemployed – found it more difficult to afford even basic services. The federal government’s solution? Medicare and Medicaid, which put the elderly and unemployed in the same position to spend more freely that the previously insured had. This, of course, further increased the demand for and price of specialized medical services. With the recent vast expansion of Medicare under the Bush administration, it is no surprise that prices have further skyrocketed.

Now, because so many people have subsidized health insurance, it has become extremely difficult to afford medical care for catastrophic situations without it. This is not a necessary component of health care in a quasi-advanced society; it is a creation of bad policies that incrementally expanded the scope of the present crisis. An even worse policy is on the horizon; it is not socialized healthcare yet, but in some respects it may even be worse. The Obama administration and its supporters in Congress threaten to require everyone to purchase health insurance and to eliminate the aspect that makes it insurance – selection and pricing on the basis of the risks posed by the insureds. Forcing people to purchase health insurance and prohibiting discrimination on the basis of pre-existing conditions are the same as making the healthy subsidize the ill and charging everyone roughly the same general rates. With this kind of incentive system in place, it is only logical to assume that many people who otherwise would have lived spectacularly would begin to demand medically unnecessary attention simply to be net beneficiaries of the system where everyone ostensibly subsidizes everyone else. This cannot continue indefinitely, as resources are finite, and the inevitable recourse by the government will be the rationing of medical services – a political selection of who lives and who dies. This scenario – so common in many countries in the West today, including Britain and Canada – is the opposite of genuine health care. Indeed, denying care to an individual who could afford it and placing that individual on a waiting list on which he dies is nothing short of murder.

Only a massive shift in public opinion and government policy can extricate us from the entanglement of health care with health insurance and return us to the direct relationship between patients and doctors, as well as the optimal amount of motivation for each individual to care for his own health. Until then, stay healthy and try to make sure that you do not need the care that gets rationed – if you can.

Read other articles in The Rational Argumentator’s Issue CCXI.

The Hubris of Neo-Luddism – Article by Franco Cortese

The Hubris of Neo-Luddism – Article by Franco Cortese

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The New Renaissance Hat
Franco Cortese
June 19, 2013
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One of the most common anti-Transhumanist tropes one finds recurring throughout Transhumanist rhetoric is our supposedly rampant hubris. Hubris is an ancient Greek concept meaning excess of pride that carries connotations of reckless vanity and heedless self-absorbment, often to the point of carelessly endangering the welfare of others in the process. It paints us in a selfish and dangerous light, as though we were striving for the technological betterment of ourselves alone and the improvement of the human condition solely as it pertains to ourselves, so as to be enhanced relative to the majority of humanity.
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In no way is this correct or even salient. I, and the majority of Transhumanists, Techno-Progressives, and emerging-tech enthusiasts – I would claim – work toward promoting beneficial outcomes and deliberating the repercussions and most desirable embodiments of radically transformative technologies for the betterment of all mankind first and foremost, and only secondarily for ourselves, if at all.
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The ired irony of this situation is that the very group that most often hails the charge of Hubris against the Transhumanist community is, according to the logic of hubris, more hubristic than those they rail their charge against. Bio-Luddites, and more generally Neo-Luddites, can be clearly seen to be more self-absorbed and recklessly selfish than the Transhumanists they are so quick to raise qualms against.

The logic of this conclusion is simple: Transhumanists seek merely to better determine the controlling circumstances and determining conditions of our own selves, whereas Neo-Luddites seek to determine such circumstances and conditions (even if using a negative definition, i.e., the absence of something) not only for everyone besides themselves alive at the moment, but even for the unquantable multitudes of minds and lives still fetal in the future.

We do not seek to radically transform Humanity against humans’ will; indeed, this is so off the mark as to be antithetical to the true Transhumanist impetus – for we seek to liberate human wills, not leash or lash them. We seek to offer all humans alive the possibility of transforming themselves more effectively according to their own subjective projected objectives; of actualizing and realizing themselves; ultimately of determining themselves for themselves. We seek to offer every member of Humanity the choice to better choose and the option for more optimal options: the self not as final subject but as project-at-last.

Neo-Luddites, on the other hand, wish to deny the whole of humanity that choice. They actively seek the determent, relinquishment, or prohibition of technological self-transformation, and believe in the heat of their idiot-certainty that they have either the intelligence or the right to force their own preference upon everyone else, present and future. Such lumbering, oafish paternalism patronizes the very essence of Man, whose only right is to write his own and whose only will is to will his own – or at least to vow that he will will his own one fateful yet fate-free day.

We seek solely to choose ourselves, and to give everyone alive and yet-to-live the same opportunity: of choice. Neo-Luddites seek not only to choose for themselves but to force this choice upon everyone else as well.

If any of the original Luddites were alive today, perhaps they would loom large to denounce the contemporary caricature of their own movement and rail their tightly spooled rage against the modern Neo-Luddites that use Ludd’s name in so reckless a threadbare fashion. At the heart of it, they were trying to free their working-class fellowship. There would not have been any predominant connotations of extending the distinguishing features of the Luddite revolt into the entire future, no hint of the possibility that they would set a precedent which would effectively forestall or encumber the continuing advancement of technology at the cost of the continuing betterment of humanity.

Who were they to intimate that continuing technological and methodological growth and progress would continually liberate humanity in fits and bounds of expanding freedom to open up the parameters of their possible actions – would free choice from chance and make the general conditions of being continually better and better? If this sentiment were predominant during 1811-1817, perhaps they would have lain their hammers down. They were seeking the liberation of their people, after all; if they knew that their own actions might spawn a future movement seeking to dampen and deter the continual technological liberation of Mankind, perhaps they would have remarked that such future Neo-Luddites missed their point completely.

Perhaps the salient heart of their efforts was not the relinquishment of technology but rather the liberation of their fellow man. Perhaps they would have remarked that while in this particular case technological relinquishment coincided with the liberation of their fellow man, this shouldn’t be heralded as a hard rule. Perhaps the they would have been ashamed of the way in which their name was to be used as the nametag and figurehead for the contemporary fight against liberty and Man’s autonomy. Perhaps Ludd is spinning like a loom in his grave right now.

Does the original Luddites’ enthusiasm for choice and the liberation of their fellow man supersede his revolt against technology? I think it does. The historical continuum of which Transhumanism is but the contemporary leading-tip encompasses not only the technological betterment of self and society, but the non-technological betterment as well. Historical Utopian ventures and visions are valid antecedents of the Transhumanist impetus, just as Techno-Utopian historical antecedents are. While the emphasis on technology predominant in Transhumanist rhetoric isn’t exactly misplaced (simply because technology is our best means of affecting and changing self and society, whorl and world, and thus our best means of improving it according to subjective projected objectives as well), it isn’t a necessary precondition, and its predominance does not preclude the inclusion of non-technological attempts to improve the human condition as well.

The dichotomy between knowledge and device, between technology and methodology, doesn’t have a stable ontological ground in the first place. What is technology but embodied methodology, and methodology but internalized technology? Language is just as unnatural as quantum computers in geological scales of time. To make technology a necessary prerequisite is to miss the end for the means and the mark for a lark. The point is that we are trying to consciously improve the state of self, society, and world; technology has simply superseded methodology as the most optimal means of accomplishing that, and now constitutes our best means of effecting our affectation.

The original Luddite movement was less against advancing technology and more about the particular repercussions that specific advancements in technology (i.e., semi-automated looms) had on their lives and circumstances. To claim that Neo-Luddism has any real continuity of impetus with the original Luddite movement that occurred throughout 1811-1817 may actually be antithetical to the real motivation underlying the original Luddite movement – namely the liberation of the working class. Indeed, Neo-Luddism itself, as a movement, may be antithetical to the real impetus of the initial Luddite movement both for the fact that Neo-Luddites are trying to impose their ideological beliefs upon others (i.e., prohibition is necessarily exclusive, whereas availability of the option to use a given technology is non-exclusive and forces a decision on no one) and because they are trying to prohibit the best mediator of Man’s ever-increasing self-liberation – namely technological growth.

Support for these claims can be found in the secondary literature. For instance, in Luddites and Luddism Kevin Binfield sees the Luddite movement as an expression of worker-class discontent during the Napoleonic Wars than having rather than as an expression of antipathy toward technology in general or toward advancing technology as general trend (Binfield, 2004).

And in terms of base-premises, it is not as though Luddites are categorically against technology in general; rather they are simply against either a specific technology, a specific embodiment of a general class of technology, or a specific degree of technological sophistication. After all, most every Luddite alive wears clothes, takes antibiotics, and uses telephones. Legendary Ludd himself still wanted the return of his manual looms, a technology, when he struck his first blow. I know many Transhumanists and Technoprogressives who still label themselves as such despite being wary of the increasing trend of automation.

This was the Luddites’ own concern: that automation would displace manual work in their industry and thereby severely limit their possible choices and freedoms, such as having enough discretionary income to purchase necessities. If their government were handing out guaranteed basic income garnered from taxes to corporations based on the degree with which they replace previously manual labor with automated labor, I’m sure they would have happily lain their hammers down and laughed all the way home. Even the Amish only prohibit specific levels of technological sophistication, rather than all of technology in general.

In other words no one is against technology in general, only particular technological embodiments, particular classes of technology, or particular gradations of technological sophistication. If you’d like to contest me on this, try communicating your rebuttal without using the advanced technology of cerebral semiotics (i.e., language).

References

Binfield, K. (2004). Luddites and Luddism. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Franco Cortese is an editor for Transhumanity.net, as well as one of its most frequent contributors.  He has also published articles and essays on Immortal Life and The Rational Argumentator. He contributed 4 essays and 7 debate responses to the digital anthology Human Destiny is to Eliminate Death: Essays, Rants and Arguments About Immortality.

Franco is an Advisor for Lifeboat Foundation (on its Futurists Board and its Life Extension Board) and contributes regularly to its blog.

Workplace Freedom and Right-to-Work Laws – Article by Edward W. Younkins

Workplace Freedom and Right-to-Work Laws – Article by Edward W. Younkins

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The New Renaissance Hat
Edward W. Younkins
December 14, 2012
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On Tuesday December 11, 2012 Michigan, the birthplace of the nation’s organized labor movement, became the country’s 24th right-to-work state. This short excerpt from pages 81-83 of my 2002 book, Capitalism and Commerce, explains the propriety of right-to-work laws.

Before the Norris-La Guardia and National Labor Relations Acts (NLRA) in the 1930s, the employment relationship consisted of voluntary exchange contracts between employers and employees. A return to the common law of contracts, property rights, and tort would permit each person to decide if he wanted to contract with or join any union for representation services. Under such an arrangement there would be competitors among labor organizations and the possibility of having workers represented by a variety of unions and other workers having no representatives. Instead, they would bargain for themselves as individuals.

Before these acts, an employer had the common-law right to fight the unionization of his company. The employer could enter into “yellow dog contracts” with the employees in which the two parties would agree not to have a union—one reason for such contracts was the desire of the employees to avoid the loss of work and wages that would occur during strikes. Because these agreements were voluntary, they must have been to the mutual benefit of both parties. In addition, before the 1930s, the employer was free to attempt to persuade workers that unionization would not be to their benefit. Also, in his efforts to gain loyalty to his firm, the employer could refuse to hire workers who wanted to engage in union-related activity. The employer also had the common-law right to establish a company union. Then, of course, the company always had the right to voluntarily agree to hire workers who belonged to a specific union.

Unions were subject to the antitrust laws before Norris-La Guardia—not so thereafter. The National Labor Relations Act then destroyed the common-law right of an employee to join a union of his own choosing or to represent himself. After such New Deal legislation, unions operated with the help of laws and court decisions to force employees to join them to gain a monopoly of particular jobs. Unions were free to use violence (picketing) against competing workers and intimidation against the employers through the strike.

After a union has been certified as an exclusive bargaining agent, it is presumed to have majority support indefinitely (unless there is a decertification election) even if all the workers who originally chose it are no longer with the company. Section 8(a) 3 of the National Labor Relations Act empowers unions with monopoly bargaining privileges to agree with employers that all workers represented by the unions must join the union or at least pay union dues. Section 14(b) of the Act permits states to forbid such arrangements. Twenty-one right-to-work states have chosen to do so by banning all forms of union security. In these states workers can be forced to have a union (selected by majority vote) represent them, but they cannot be forced to join or pay dues to any unions. However, in the twenty-nine other states, security clauses are permitted. In these states, workers who do not want to be represented by a union (but are forced to because of monopoly representation) may be compelled to pay for the unwanted representation or be fired. Nonunion (i.e., union-free) workers who don’t want to become members of a union may be forced to pay dues (or their equivalent) as a requirement of their employment.

If a union security agreement specifies a union shop then the worker must join the union after a probationary period. However, if it specifies an agency shop, the worker does not have to join the union but must pay dues or their equivalent. In an agency shop, workers do not have to become members, but they all must pay dues or “service fees” to the unions that represent them. Unions employ a free-rider argument to justify this coercion. They argue that, without the imposition of forced dues, some workers would choose to receive the benefits of union representation but not pay for them. The goal of compulsory union dues is apparently to prevent free riders. Of course, if a union simply represented those who wanted it, there would be no free-rider problem. The union’s free-rider problem stems from section 9-A of   the National Labor Relations Act that requires that a certified union be the exclusive representative that bargains with the employer for all workers, both union and non-union. Unions that have gained monopoly bargaining privileges by majority vote must represent all workers, whether those workers want it to or not. The unions created the free-rider problem themselves when they persuaded the authors of the NLRA to permit monopoly bargaining. They now use monopoly bargaining as an excuse for forced dues!

By empowering labor unions the government did away with the old common-law rules of contract, property, and tort that applied equally to all involved parties. They were replaced with a coercive legal framework designed to help labor union leaders attain their goals. As a result, common-law courts were replaced by administrative tribunals (e.g., the National Labor Relations Board) which could be relied upon to implement prounion policies. The government thus promoted unions by failing to apply laws of equal applicability to unions and employers alike, used its power to support unions, and allowed unions to use force in pursuit of their ends.

Dr. Edward W. Younkins is Professor of Accountancy at Wheeling Jesuit University. He is the author of Capitalism and Commerce: Conceptual Foundations of Free Enterprise [Lexington Books, 2002], Philosophers of Capitalism: Menger, Mises, Rand, and Beyond [Lexington Books, 2005] (See Mr. Stolyarov’s review of this book.), and Flourishing and Happiness in a Free Society: Toward a Synthesis of Aristotelianism, Austrian Economics, and Ayn Rand’s Objectivism [Rowman & Littlefield Pub Incorporated, 2011] (See Mr. Stolyarov’s review of this book.). Many of Dr. Younkins’s essays can be found online at his web page at www.quebecoislibre.org. You can contact Dr. Younkins at younkins@wju.edu.

Government Gifts from Heaven: The Illusions of Redistributive Taxation – Article by Kyrel Zantonavitch

Government Gifts from Heaven: The Illusions of Redistributive Taxation – Article by Kyrel Zantonavitch

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The New Renaissance Hat
Kyrel Zantonavitch
October 3, 2012
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Everybody wants something for nothing. But the problem is you can never actually get it. And virtually everyone quietly understands this.

Nothing is ever free, and there’s always a price to pay – even if you only pay it eventually, indirectly, or secretly. And usually the price for this “free” stuff is quite high. You’re almost always far better off paying for it directly and honestly rather than engaging in any type of amoral, unprincipled, dispiriting, and anxiety-ridden beggary or theft.

But when it comes to government, many people today really do pretty much think you can get something for nothing. Many people nowadays really do believe that the government can magically generate things out of thin air, and then give them to “the people” for free. They even commonly think that this is the people’s “right.”

And the more coercive the government, the better, some people think. The more tyrannical the state is, the more it has the power to repeal the laws of economics, physics, and reality. Then it can give “the people” all sorts of free goods and services!

And yet, in an odd way, this view is actually right, because it’s always the more authoritarian states that pretend to offer the most goodies and booty to their greedy citizenry. They’re the ones that always claim to feature the most “economic rights” or welfare-state give-aways.

Many people in the 21st century really do want – and even righteously demand – “free” schools and medical care. They want mandatory “free” paid vacations, sick days, and personal days. They want paid mandatory “free” maternity leave along with no-charge day care for the kids. And, of course, they fully expect “free” public roads, parks, libraries, fire departments, water supplies, etc.

But the problem with all this “free” stuff – as has already been stated – is you truly do pay for it. This happens via taxes. And no, you can’t steal from the rich, and make them pay your share. If you attempt it, they’ll probably just make you pay double. If a government is tyrannical, the rich and powerful can work its machinery far better than you.

Still, too many people try. They hope and dream – and then are easily deluded and duped.

The result of all this attempted robbery of the wealthy, and of the general public, is that while some people do get some “freebies” of a generally ugly and repellant type, the rest of the citizenry quietly raises the costs of everyone’s taxes thru the roof. And almost all the merchandise redistributed via taxation is invariably low in quality and high in cost. Now, maybe many don’t notice this. Defenders of Big Brother go to considerable trouble to disguise this reality from you. But it’s the truth.

Had you directly and honestly paid for all this apparent government windfall – utilizing your individual judgment, prudence, experience, and intelligence – you and your society would be far richer overall. The massive taxes you and the others end up paying are not at all worth it.

Ultimately, whether you know it or not, welfare-state redistribution of wealth results in its very advocates getting utterly conned and totally ripped off.

Kyrel Zantonavitch is the founder of The Liberal Institute  (http://www.liberalinstitute.com/) and a writer for Rebirth of Reason (http://www.rebirthofreason.com). He can be contacted at zantonavitch@gmail.com.

Communist and Fascist America – Article by Kyrel Zantonavitch

Communist and Fascist America – Article by Kyrel Zantonavitch

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The New Renaissance Hat
Kyrel Zantonavitch
June 19, 2012
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The United States is a massively communist and fascist nation.

Some of America’s main political establishments are: (1) Social Security – which is communism, (2) Medicare – which is communism, (3) Medicaid – which is communism, (4) unemployment insurance, food stamps, housing subsidies, and multitudinous other types of government charity – which is communism, (5) government roads – which are communism, and (6) government schools – which are communism.

In addition to these individual-attacking, freedom-destroying, economic schemes and scams, America also has: (7) drug criminalization – which is fascism, (8) prostitution criminalization – which is fascism, (9) many types of gambling criminalization – which is fascism, and (10) censorship of broadcast obscenity on radio and t’v’ – which is fascism.

Now, the United States admittedly does enjoy some political liberty – does have some capitalist and libertarian elements.

In economics, America has private, non-government industries like oil, gas, coal, farming, ranching, cars and trucks, most of personal housing, most of business buildings, restaurants, clubs, bars, clothing, shoes, movies, sports, almost all radio, almost all t’v’, computer hardware, computer software, etc. So the capitalist sector of America – albeit hideously regulated, stunted, and demented – still lives in America.

Moreover, in American social and personal lives, much behavior is freely-chosen and private. The people of the United States are politically free to choose their own job, housing, transportation, entertainment, friends, lovers, philosophy, religion, politics, food, dress, music, art, exercise, manners, attitude, clubs, groups, parties, sexuality, and speech. So the libertarian sector of America – albeit hideously regulated, stunted, and demented – still lives in America.

And yet, the ten evil institutions listed above are central to the American nation and its way of life. These tyrannical aspects of the people and government degrade America’s quality of life considerably. The level of popular energy, dynamism, satisfaction, happiness, greatness, hope, and spirit is very inferior to what it could be. And it’s worth noting that most of these totalitarian programs and laws did not exist a century ago. As for those that did – such as collectivist roads and schools, and restrictions on prostitution and gambling – they cost far less than today, and had far less influence on American lifestyles.

In the end, the Stalinist and Hitlerian political institutions cited above pervert the society, debauch the culture, and ravage the American civilization. They need to be terminated immediately. America today is a massively communist and fascist nation – and that needs to change.

Kyrel Zantonavitch is the founder of The Liberal Institute  (http://www.liberalinstitute.com/) and a writer for Rebirth of Reason (http://www.rebirthofreason.com). He can be contacted at zantonavitch@gmail.com.