Looking for Freedom?

November 20, 2006

Looking For Health - Naturally
Do-It-Yourself CPR?
By Susan Callaway, RN

A dear friend sent me the following, an email forward he'd received, asking if it was a valid thing to do in an emergency.

What are you to do if you have a heart attack while you are alone. If you've already received this, it means people care about you ... The Johnson City Medical Center staff actually discovered this and did an in-depth study on it in our ICU The two individuals that discovered this then did an article on it .. had it published and have even had it incorporated into ACLS and CPR classes.

Let's say it's 6:15 p.m. and you're driving home (alone of course), after an usually hard day on the job. You're really tired, upset and frustrated. Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain in your chest that starts to radiate out into your arm and up into your jaw. You are only about five miles from the hospital nearest your home. Unfortunately you don't know if you'll be able to make it that far.

(Read the rest here)

Getting What We Deserve
By Lady Liberty

I don't know that there was anybody who knew much of anything about politics who didn't expect Republicans to get spanked on November 7. But as much as I expected the backlash generated by unpopular policies and broken promises, even I was taken aback at the extent of that backlash. The Democrats now control both the House and the Senate, and George W. Bush's remaining years in his "lame duck" presidency are likely all but crippled.

While I certainly understand the reaction, I'm inclined to see it as an overreaction and not a pleasant one. It's akin in my mind to the dieter who errs in eating a piece of cheesecake and then determines to punish himself for his mistake by eating the remainder of the cheesecake. "I'll show me for messing up! I'll mess me up even more!" That's self-defeating at best, and only contributes to the deepening of a downward spiral the vast majority of us claim we don't want. (Read the rest here)

Fathers No Longer Cost-Effective?
By Carey Roberts

I'm not one who is prone to get misty-eyed, but Tim Russert's latest book did it.

Two years ago Russert penned a moving tribute to his own father, Big Russ and Me, which quickly became a New York Times best-seller. Russert was inundated with so many poignant letters that he decided to compile them into a sequel, Wisdom of Our Fathers. Now that book has become a run-away top-seller, as well.

There's a message here: people have an enormous sense of gratitude for the many things - big and small - that dad did for them. I know, that's exactly how I feel about my father. (Read the rest here)

From The Archives: (10/20/04)
Imagine There's No Healing
By Catfarmer

Suppose free home repair was proclaimed a legal right, like "free" [or "universal"] health care and "free" education. Politicians would dive at the chance to promise gullible voters another perennial boondoggle like "free house care." Under such an outrageous scheme the tyrant's dream of total control over individuals might achieve its desired nightmarish reality. Somewhere, an ambitious bureaucrat is crouching under his toadstool, drafting precisely such a despicable bill… I feel the beastly law slouching toward Washington D.C. to be born, its dreaded hour come 'round at last.

Imagine "free" home repairs, courtesy of "the government." Now, most of us know the law of free lunches, but obviously plenty of people believe in "free education" and even "free health care." Perhaps it's helpful to consider the analogy of free house care. First of all, the government would want every home to have a "free" checkup every year or two, and keep extensive (not to mention intrusive) records of all listed occupants, dependents, pets, weapons, electronic devices, canned goods, etc. Private insurance companies would have to link arms with the state, or pack up and leave. Official "home health inspectors" would arrive unannounced, or on short notice at their own capricious convenience, to do thorough spot examinations of our homes. At least the Jehovah's Witnesses and student magazine salesmen are polite, and don't force their way past the door. The new "home health inspectors" would soon discover they need armed backup especially in rural areas so armed backup would swiftly become routine procedure everywhere. (Read the rest here)

In Defense of “Borat”
By Alvaro Vargas Llosa

For those who have not seen it, “Borat” is a documentary by a faux Kazakh journalist who sets off on a journey across America, encountering as he drives from New York to Los Angeles ordinary people and shocking them with extremely politically incorrect antics designed to put cultural differences to the test.

Critics say “Borat” is anti-American. In fact, the U.S. government could not begin to match Borat’s contribution to the image of the United States abroad if it increased the budget of the under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs by a factor of 10. The most important thing the movie has done for America is to show that it is a society capable of laughing at itself. The millions of Americans who are flocking to the theaters are sending the message that they are able to look at themselves as if from outside. And that, precisely, is what made this country great in the first place. Economic power was a consequence of the self-critical mind. By contrast, when the Muslim world stopped looking at itself as if from outside, around the 11th century, it began its long decline. (Read the rest here)

Misplaced Nostalgia
by Sheldon Richman

Before we get too nostalgic about the foreign-policy prowess of the George H.W. Bush administration, we should remind ourselves of what happened from 1989 through 1992. I understand that, compared to the bunch running things now, nearly anyone would look good. But I sense almost a giddiness about the supposed return of the Bush 41 team, primarily through James Baker's Iraq Study Group and in Robert Gates, who will almost certainly succeed Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense. "Giddiness" isn't an overstatement. About the only criticism of the 41 team is coming from unreconstructed neoconservatives who sense that their messianic worldview is becoming passe.

We can leave aside Bush the Elder?s little adventures in Panama and Somalia, although his ouster of Panama president Manuel Noriega of Panama, formerly a staunch U.S. ally, bears some resemblance to the treatment Iraq's Saddam Hussein got at the hands of Bush's son. American presidents don't like ally-dictators to go off the reservation. (Read the rest here)

Individual Liberty - 101
From The Ludwig von Mises Institute

Globalization: The Long-Run Big Picture
By George Reisman

Summary
Globalization, in conjunction with its essential prerequisite of respect for private property rights, and thus the existence of substantial economic freedom in the various individual countries, has the potential to raise the productivity of labor and living standards all across the world to the level of the most advanced countries. In addition, it has the potential to bring about the radical improvement in productivity and living standards in what are today the most advanced countries, and to provide the strongest possible foundation for unprecedented further economic advance everywhere.

These overwhelmingly beneficial results are often hidden from view by the fact that at the same time globalization implies a substantial decline in the relative or even absolute nominal GDPs of today's advanced countries, the experience of which engenders opposition to the process. What is not seen is that to whatever extent globalization might reduce absolute nominal GDP in today's advanced countries, it reduces prices many times more, with the result that it correspondingly increases their real GDP, and that to whatever extent it reduces merely their relative nominal GDP, it again increases their real GDP many times more. (Read the rest here)

External Articles:
Standards of Environmental Good and Evil: Why Environmentalism Is Misanthropic
by George Reisman

It’s obvious to me that the existence of my house constitutes an enormous improvement in my environment compared with living at the same location on the bare ground, and that the same is true of the existence of virtually all houses in relation to the environment of their occupants. It’s further obvious to me that the process of improving the environment in this way starts with developers and contractors who bring in bulldozers and other heavy construction equipment to clear the tops of hills, level and compact the land, build streets, and utility connections, and construct houses.

Yet those who are called “environmentalists” describe the exact same process of development and construction as harming the environment. Why? Because they have a profoundly different standard of environmental good and evil than the one that is present in my example. The standard that is present in my example is that of human life and well-being. What is environmentally good according to this standard is the promotion of human life and well-being, notably, housing construction and the existence of houses. What is environmentally evil is what impairs human life and well-being, such as preventing housing construction. (Read the rest here)

The Mailbag
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Libertarian Commentary on The News 12 - 18 November, 2006
By Nathan A. Barton © 2006

Freedom Fighters: Free Market Economist Dies
Al Jazeera (English)
Milton Friedman, an economist and Nobel laureate, has died at the age of 94. The former University of Chicago professor, an advocate of individual freedoms in economics and politics, died in San Francisco on Thursday morning, a spokeswoman for his family said. Friedman was awarded a Nobel prize for his work in 1976. Widely regarded as the architect of monetary economics, which places importance on the quantity of money as a tool of government policy to fight inflation, Friedman was an influence on several postwar leaders including Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

I may be in trouble, because Mr. Friedman was far from an anarcho-capitalist, but he was certainly at least an 80-80 libertarian (using the Nolan chart – www.advocates.org) and far more on the side of liberty and free markets than not. For those interested, I suggest the Wikipedia article about his primary work . In particular, I admire his stand and argument against state licensing of professionals (like engineers and doctors), but he promoted many more now-standard libertarian and anarcho-capitalist solutions. His life and (most of) his works should be honored by lovers of liberty.

Mama's Note: I've read and admired much of Friedman's work for many years, yet never could understand how anyone who understood so much about the free market and liberty could advocate central banking and government money policy as he did. We'll never know now... RIP Milton.

(Read the rest here ) 2 full pages!!

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