Conservatives Need to Talk Ideas

Newt Gingrich made a great point.

If the opposition kept Romney from getting a majority of delegates, there might be a brief moment in which Republicans actually discussed ideas.

Wouldn't that be wonderful? To actually hear conservatives discuss ideas!

Republicans usually just react.

The primary concern of conservatism is the preservation of the social order (not freedom). When conservatives talk ideas, it is usually about how to use big government to impose social views. For example, the Conservatives in Utah used their political klout to remove science based sex-education from the public schools. (yippie)

Unfortunately, Newt's latest idea is the lame notion that he could bring $2.50 gas. I stated in a different post that this unlikely because Obama's loose monetary policy has devalued the dollar. Because of the credit contraction, we have not experienced the full brunt of loose monetary policy.  Newt's promise cannot be fulfilled because of inflation.

Republicans need real ideas.

Repealing ObamaCare is not a real idea. It is a reaction. Enough of ObamaCare is in place that it can't simply be repealed.

The only way to undo this monstrousity is to come up with an idea to replace ObamaCare.

I push the idea of Health Freedom.

This is a real idea that is much stronger than fantasies like $2.50 gas.

Health Freedom is the radical idea that people own their own bodies and they should own the resources used to care for their body. If people paid for care from resources they owned, then we could restore the doctor/patient relation.

This is a fully formed idea that is not simply a reaction.

I have even gone as far at to create a mathematically viable device to restore health freedom called the Medical Savings and Loan. It is administered by people called Health Care Advocates.

I've tried for a solid three years to get conservatives to talk about health freedom. I have not gotten anywhere with the effort.

I find that when I try to discuss the idea of restoring freedom with a Conservative, the conservative immediately shoves me aside.

Restoring health freedom, after all, might upset the social order. It is easy to impose a social order with insurance. Insurance concentrates wealth and creates a culture of dependence.

Anyway, I am enchanted with Newts strategy to get Republicans to talk about ideas.

All of the Republicans, with the exception of Ron Paul, support big government control of health care. Unfortunately, Ron Paul supports deregulation ... which can't work because insurance is a regulator and you can't deregulate regulators.

Now, I have never personally witnessed a Conservative talking about ideas. When conservatives talk about ideas, the conversation usually takes the forms of ways to use big government and big business to impose a top-down social order.

Still, living in an intellectual wilderness, the mere thought that someone in the not too distant future might discuss an idea has me thrilled.

Sadly, Newt's $2.50 plan is lame. Ron Paul is the candidate with a history of supporting free market idea; So, I will now put on my Ron Paul shirt and actively support the good doctor.

The Mormon Voting Block

The LDS Church has colonies in Hawaii and American Somoa. It appears that Mormons are voting as a block; So, I predict that both Hawaii and American Somoa will go for Romney. Interestingly, I became attentive to voting blocks because the Book of Mormon is about an evil voting block that destroyed a Democracy. (projection)

In No Man Knows My History, the apostate Fawn Brodie puts forward a history in which the Smiths were a family of Tories exiled to Western New York after the Revolutionary War. The disgruntle Smith patriarch probably spent a great deal of time talking to his children about the evils of Democracy. The son, Joseph Smith (1805-1844), was a child with great imagination who loved to engage in treasure hunts and dreamed of finding lost indian treasure.

Joseph Smith claimed to have found golden tablets that contained mysterious script written in "Reformed Egyptian" that he could read with the help of peep stones.

The golden tablets told a history in which the Native Americans were the lost tribes of Israel. They had a great and prosperous kingdom. One day, King Benjamin (no relation to Benjamin Franklin) decided to grant the people a democracy.

A group of evil-doers called Lamanites formed an evil-voting block. Because the evil gentiles won the election, there was a great war. God was so displeased with the turn of events that he smited the people and turned them into red savages (currently called Native Americans).

Mormonism is based on a dialectical conflict between the righteous and gentiles. At the time that Joseph Smith was writing the BoM, the historian Hegel (1770-1831) was immensely popular. Hegel presented the theory that history evolves through conflict. The Hegelians would present fantastical histories in which thesis/anti-thesis conflicts resolved in great wars.

The newspapers of the early 1800s were filled with fantastical histories with history advanced through such conflicts. There were several histories published in which the Native Americans were the lost tribes of Israel.


The LDS Church itself came to be as some of the failed Utopian societies (communes) of the early 1800s sought to use Mormonism to revive the commune.

Joseph Smith was politically ambitious. He sent missionaries abroad to recruit members. The missionaries would give people passage to the US and land in return for fealty.

This an interesting case of projection. Joseph Smith wrote a book about a voting block. He then engaged in an aggressive missionary program that used immigration to create just such a block.

The fact that the LDS Church built its voting block through immigration will have ramifications for the immigration policy under Mitt Romney.

I am surprised I have not heard more people talking about the Mormon emigration experience in context of the modern immigration debate. Since the LDS Church votes as a block, the Mormon emigration experience is very much about groups using immigration to gain political control.

Immigration is not my big issue. I am concerned with health care.

For the last three years. I've been wanting to find people to talk about self-funded health care as an alternative to insurance.

I am a Non-Mormon in Utah and I have been completely unable to get people in this state to talk about free-market health care reform.

Health care is the most important issue of the day, and I have a unique perspective on the issue that might be of value. In three years, I have not be able to get anyone to talk about the most important issue of the day.

Mitt Romney and Harry Reid (both LDS) favor socializing medicine via health exchanges. The fact that I cannot get people in Salt Lake, the headquarters of the LDS Church, to talk about the most important issue of the day has me extremely worried.

Spirit Babies of the Heavenly Kingdom, Rejoice!

Spirit babies of the heavenly kingdom rejoice! Many of you will now be released into the wombs of uneducated single Utah teens.

A week ago, the culture war was about the Obama Administration using PPACA to impose mandates that religious groups pay for contraceptive methods they find morally objectionable.

This week, the Conservative Utah legislature passed an over-reaching abstinence-only sex education curriculum for Utah public schools.

Both Progressives and Conservatives are about using the power of the state to impose their views.

I find this really sad. The conservative Utah legislature used freedom rhetoric to rise to power in response to the abuse of power of the Obama Administration.

But they are not working against that abuse of power. Last year the Utah Legislature was among the first to adopt the Health Exchanges of PPACA. For those who are unclear on health care reform. PPACA (ObamaCare) is a centralized health exchange. A centralized health exchange gives the state control over defining health care while big insurance companies speculate on the costs of delivering the care.

The Utah Legislature was so eager to pass the exchanges that Utah Republicans actively suppressed all arguments against exchanges.

In a presidential debate, Jon Huntsman actually had the temerity to claim that the top-down state controlled exchanges were the free market, when there are only cosmetic differences between the Utah Law and PPACA (ObamaCare).

By voting conservative, Utah is now stuck with a corrupt centralized exchange, and conservatives who want to use the top-heavy government to force their views on social issues.

Conservatives do not support freedom. They use freedom rhetoric to rise to power then launch into culture war.

Yes, I know. Conservatives have a long proud tradition in American politics that reaches back to the Revolutionary War (when they fought for the British). I wish America would wake up and realize that neither progressives nor conservatives are champions of the free society. They are both rogues who use freedom rhetoric and culture war to rise to power and dominate.

Conservatives are not going to repeal the centralized exchanges of ObamaCare. They seek merely to capture the devices. While I was looking forward to 2012 as a time of restoration, I am now staring at the rise of Conservatism as a negative for the nation.

Life will not be good for the spirit babies released into the tummies of uneducated Utah teens for the conservative overlords that seek to use the power of state to dominate are every bit as bad as the progressive overlords they seek to replace.

Religion As a Voting Block

I lived in Idaho for several summers. It is a beautiful mountain state. There is a large wilderness area in the center of the state dividing it up into distinct regions; so, there is usually big differences in the vote by region.

The one unifying topic of conversation throughout the state is a distaste of East Coast Ruling Elite. In both Idaho Falls and Twin Falls, the locals will spew forth a gusher on the subject of East Coast Ruling Elite.

Most Idaho Republicans profess a strong distaste for government controlled health care.

Does anyone think it odd that Mormons in the state are walking in and voting 97% for the most liberal of the four presidential candidate ... a candidate who just happens to have been the governor of Massachusetts and who was a principle architect of the government take over of health care?

I contend that, when a religion is organized as a voting block with the express intent of gaining power, that religion must be a topic in the election.

The Super Tuesday vote has me really sad. I want to see people talking about restoring health freedom, and the Republican Party is not shaping up as a vehicle for discussing this issue. Instead it is aimed at capturing PPACA and not replacing it.

Sense of Entitlement and Ownership

Employers love it when employees develop a sense of owership. When employees have a sense of ownership they treat a thing like they own it. They take of the thing and make sure it is working to maximum efficiency for the company.

Employers complain like the dickens when employees have a sense of entitlement.

I thought I would point out the bizarre relation between ownership and entitlement.

If you actually owned something, then you are entitled to whatever proceeds that something brings.

This is how our Founding Fathers saw the world. People owned things and were entitled to whatever improvements they made to the things. By creating a culture that promoted ownership, the Founders laid the foundation for the emergence of a great middle class.

Progressives despise the Middle Class.

They sought to destroy it..

Our progressive overlords created a truly disfunctional legal and financial system that attempted to abstract off risk and reward to be traded on centralized exchanges.

In attempting to abstract off and sell risk and reward, the bozo's created a dysfunctional system that separated the sense of entitlement and ownership from real ownership.

Needless to say, the solution to our economic malaise is to find ways to restore real, actual ownership.

Employees Are An Expense

Employees are expenses. Expenses are something to be reduced.

The greatest problem with American economics is that we've created an absolutely absurd system in which the overwhelming majority of people are expenses, and not owners.

When the vast majority is reduced to being nothing but an expense, the people must seek a political force to defend them else they will be quickly reduced to destitution.

The prosperity that our parents experienced happened because a greater percentage of them were owners. Now that our centralized banks, big insurance and centralized exchanges have locked out all but few insiders, the future of the average Americans has greatly diminished.

The first step to turning this economy around is to restore the concept of ownership.

The easiest path to this goal is with health care.

In the self-funded paradigm, people pay for their health care by building equity. People would build equity in times of health, then sell that equity in times of need.

Sadly, insurance companies came on the scene with the false promise that they could provide health security by having people move their equity into big group pools.

Pooled insurance moves health care resources from the top of the ledger into the expense column. With employer based insurance, a company will put all of the health resources of the workers in a big pool that they replenish on a quarterly basis. Your receiving health care is now on the expense side of your employer's ledger.

I repeat: In self-funded care, you pay for health care by owning things. With insurance, your health care is an expense for your employer.

Health insurance turns owners into mere expenses. Health insurance has done more to concentrate ownership than any other device.

If Americans rejected the false promise of insurance and revived the concept of self-funded health care, they could start turning around the economic and political centralization that is ruining our country.

Unfortunately, since the captured establishment controls health care, the only way to accomplish a revival of self-funded care is with a structured savings program. So, I've proposed creating a structured savings program called The Medical Savings and Loan to serve as an alternative to insurance. The program is run by a new position called Health Care Advocate. The advocate helps people set up and maintain their structured savings plan and helps negotiate price.

A plan that replaces centralized pools with individual equity can help restore the American experiment of self-government by empowering people as owners. The change will move Americans back from the expense column and put them at the top of the ledger as owners.

Government is a Negative Space

The toughest job for the Libertarian is figuring out how to sell the concept of limited government to people who've been trained in public schools to see the state as the primary actor in their lives.
The greatest tool that Libertarians have in their arsenal is the US Constitution which limits government. I love talking about the Constitution and defending it. But, I notice that this conversation falls on deaf ears.

The question is: why?

Our public schools teach people to look to the state for the answers. Talk about liberty is counter to their training.

The Libertarian argument is subtle.

Government is a limit placed on a people. Therefore, limiting the limit creates an unlimited people.

The argument uses a double negative. The Constitution argues for a limit placed on a limit.

To restore interest in freedom, liberty minded people must find ways to rework the conversation to remove the double negative.

One could start with the conversation: "Government places limit on the people. Limiting government creates an unlimited people."

This statement doesn't work because the term "people" is plural. Any group of people can be divided. You should talk about an item that cannot be divided: The Individual.

Each individual lives a continuous life from birth to death. I cannot jump out of my body and be someone else.

To win the health care debate, libertarians should concentrate on the individual. An individual lives a continuous life from birth to death (with new children created in the process).

To start this conversation, I created a program with the gimmicky name: "The Medical Savings and Loan."

In this program I start with the challenge that everyone who can self-fund their care should self-fund their care.

I replace group insurance pools with a plan in which each person has a savings account and access to loans to help them self fund care. To administer the program, I created a new position called the Health Care Advocate. (the advocate replaces insurance agents and claims adjusters).

The advocate has a computer program that simulates expected health expenses and helps people set up a structured savings program to cover those expenses.

For the small number of people who have an abnormally high ratio of expenses to income, the program has a generously funded system of grants.

The MS&L completely removes the concept of group funding of care.

The sneaky part of this program is that it engages the participants in the program in a conversation in which they see their individual live as the positive space.

People who see themselves and the positive space and the government as a limiting force are open to the Constitution and the need to place limits on government.

In contrast, people weened on the concept of group funding of individual consumption dislike limits place on the state because they see the group, not themselves, as the primary actor.

Centralized Exchanges

The price of oil is determined by speculators trading future contracts, on margin, at a detached centralized exchange.

When the price of gas goes up, there is always a great deal of anger directed at the speculators.

Perhaps, however, the problem isn't with the speculators, but with the centralized exchanges.

Prior to the centralized exchanges, people negotiated prices directly with providers and there was wild irregularities in prices and people engaged in face to face negotiation.

The centralized exchanges were designed to regulate prices.

This idea of trading future markets on margin gave the controllers of the centralized exchange multiple tools for regulating prices. With a centralized exchange, central bankers can affect prices by changing margin requirements, interest rates, etc..

The central exchanges have piled on a large number of derivatives, re-insurance and short selling. All of these derivatives and regulations were created by progressives with the claim that they would lead to price stability.

The centralized exchanges have not led to price nirvana. Instead, the centralized exchanges have created a  dystopia in which rogue groups are able to capture and manipulate entire markets by capturing the central exchange.


It is human nature to blame the people at a business, when the real problem is the structure of the business.

We blame speculators who trade on the exchange, when the real rogues are the unseen progressive regulators who created the dysfunctional centralized exchange in the first place.

Centralized exchanges necessarily lead to a highly centralized market in which the insiders of the exchange are able to manipulate and control those on the outside of the exchange.

Instead of blaming the speculators who are just trying to make a buck, why don't we blame the high prices on the progressives who created the centralized exchanges with aim of regulating prices.

Speaking of centralized exchanges. The ruling progressive elite are trying to force the entire health care market into the exact same dysfunctional mold as the energy sector. Why are we letting them do this to our once free nation?

What Is ObamaCare?

I am extremely upset with the Conservative movement.

For the last three years, conservative clowns shoved everyone else aside as they claimed to be the defenders of freedom. They told us to hold on until 2012 when there would be a big campaign to restore freedom.

But what do we find in their precious Republican Primary? We find that the Republican Establishment seeks to capture the centralized Health Exchange of PPACA and not free us from state controlled health care.

Notice how the Republicans actively suppress discussion of real free market reform while ignoring the fact that the center piece of ObamaCare are Centralized Health Exchanges implemented at the state level.

The central idea of both RomneyCare and ObamaCare is to create a centralized health exchange through which an unelected ruling elite controls health care and all of the resources we put aside for health care.

PPACA is a collection of Health Exchanges implemented at the state level wrapped in Federal Regulation.

The Republican Establishment seeks to capture this aperatus and not restore health freedom.

The only way the liberty movement can prevent this from happening is by engaging in a discussion of real free market health care reform.

If people engaged in a discussion of real free market health care reform, they would realize that people cannot be free if their health and health resources are controlled through a captured and corrupt centralized exchange.

I've exhausted myself and my personal resources trying to find a group to discuss free market health care reform.

Both the Democratic and Republican Party are on the path to implement centralized exchanges. Unless someone stands in opposition to the exchanges, freedom is lost in this nation for the foreseeable future.

PPACA is a Health Care Exchange. It is bad legislation because a captured exchange that controls your health and your health care resources is a corrupt and bad idea.

The conservative media has never allowed and never will allow a discussion of real free market health care reform. Members of the Tea Party have as much to fear from the Republicans and they do the Democrats.

When Does Cute Become Scary?

Every a group called Freedom Festival gathers 5,000 to 6,000 elementary school students at the BYU stadium in Provo where they stand in the formation of the US flag and sing patriotic songs.

I admit. It is kind of cute.



The video claims that this is the biggest youth rally of its type in the US ... which is amazing when you consider that Utah is a sparsely populated state in a desert.

A lot of work and training goes into this production where people sing songs of freedom while dressed in uniform and engaging in group think. It is a paradoxical experience. People engaged in this type of overwhelming group process develop a mantality where they try to push out the people who do not belong in the group. (This group project is but one of many that go on in the Beehive state where everyone who is part of the state religion is kept busy as bees by the state's religion.

The next video shows the same demographic group at a college game. People in spectator sports these days wear the same uniform and try to make really loud noises. There are people who coordinate and record the noise to judge crowd reaction.



This group think is not just a Conservative Utah thing. Who can forget the rally in Madison in which public schools organized tens of thousands in support of the right of a small unelected group of union leaders to dictate its whims on the people. Again ... notice the singing songs of liberty to enforce group think.



For the last several months, Occupy Wall Street has been trying to build this group think paradigm into a full life style where people actually live 24/7 in compounds that occupy city parks.

I admit, I am more into individual discovery and personal advancement. I am uncomfortable with group rallies on both left and right. I love ideas and people actively engaged in thinking.

When I am confronted with a problem, I like to think about it and discuss solutions. For the last several years, I've been trying to argue that our health care woes are the result of group funding of individual consumption and that a better form of reform is to create a funding mechanism built around the individual. This is the goal of the Medical Savings and Loan.

What I've discovered in Utah is the people weened on group think (both left and right) are adamantly opposed to talking about the health of individuals. They are not responding to the freedom songs, but the power of the group.

The conservatives raised on the group think of the freedom festival simply say: You are not part of our group and slam the door the second they realize that I am talking about substantive liberty.

The left is even more irate when I opine that individuals (and not their precious unelected bureaucrats) should have control of their own body.

The classical liberal ideals of freedom really start with Jesus's sermon on the mount (Do unto others as you would have done unto yourself) and Aristotle's distaste of absolutes and the reflexive paradox.

A free society cannot allow people the right to deny others their freedom. This concept extends to groups. This game of forming groups to lock out the people they don't like undermines the freedom in the society.

When I look at the Conservative/Progressive split, I simply see two political camps playing the same game of using freedom rhetoric in their attempts to take control of the group.

The progressive/conservative dialectics which has dominated American politics throughout my life is not advancing the cause of freedom. It is has all been about which political party captures control of the group that will suppress the people.

So far, the 2012 election has not been about restoring health freedom. It has been about which group will control the socialized group health pool. ObamaCare wants the group controlled by progressives at the Federal level. RomneyCare wants socialized controls returned to the state level and no one is willing to talk about returning control of health to the individual.

For one last video ... let's go to the birthplace of Democracy and see how the modern Greeks do group think: