A new group has recently released a video advocating free-market policies from a whole new perspective, and the result is very compelling.
The group is called Free Market America, and its stated mission is to defend economic freedom, particularly from environmental extremism.
The video puts the viewer in the perspective of someone who wants to dismantle the country, and walks them though what they would do to accomplish it. Throughout the video, the viewer becomes aware of how many of today’s ideas match the destructive actions learned through this perspective.
What makes this argument compelling is that this sort of connection cannot be built from anything other than concrete evidence. Leaving the viewer to digest the sobering truth once the video ends.
After watching the video, feel free to read the transcript below if you would like a closer look at the video’s points.
If I wanted America to fail …
To follow, not lead; to suffer, not prosper; to despair, not dream — I’d start with energy.
I’d cut off America’s supply of cheap, abundant energy. Of course, I couldn’t take it by force. So, I’d make Americans feel guilty for using the energy that heats their homes, fuels their cars, runs their businesses, and powers their economy.
Welcome to the Heartland’s podcasts. This week, listen to a discussion on how to defend freedom in our personal and economic lives. Click the links below to listen, and subscribe on iTunes so you get the latest podcasts as soon as they are produced. (Search for “Heartland Institute” in the iTunes store.)
ON EDUCATION: With wickedly funny, deeply poignant prose, Providence College Professor Anthony Esolen‘s new book dissects how current approaches to education and parenting squash children’s imaginations and cheapen childhood. Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child discusses forming a child’s mind and heart to wonder at the world around him. “Imaginative children are by nature difficult to herd,” he says. “Schools are built for a certain kind of efficiency and anonymity; they look like factories, and serve many of the same functions.” Esolen both explains why and discusses what to do about it. Listen here.
ON TECHNOLOGY: Author and consultant Larry Downes discusses the spectrum crunch, as well as Federal Communications Commission opposition to legislative efforts to alleviate it by conducting auctions. Listen here.
ON ENVIRONMENT: Emergency medical physician Dr. John Dale Dunn explains how EPA is misrepresenting data regarding lives allegedly saved through regulation. Listen here.
I had the pleasure of appearing on the Butler on Business radio show yesterday to chat with Alan Butler and Jason Riddle about the EPA and the effect that particular agency has on our economy. It’s always gratifying to talk with people who get it, particularly when we have a President who so clearly doesn’t.
You can also find your truly in the Washington Times today, discussing an issue that is going to be more and more important as time goes on: continuing to develop America’s vast reserve of shale gas and the radical environmentalists desire to bring the industry to its needs. Having effectively killed coal in the US already, natural gas is the next target of the zealots and we need to stop them if the nation is to have any chance of prospering once more.
Happy 2012 and welcome to the Heartland’s podcasts. This week, listen to a discussion on Obamacare’s interim final rules and regulations. Click the links below to listen, and subscribe on iTunes so you get the latest podcasts as soon as they are produced. (Search for “Heartland Institute” in the iTunes store.)
ON EDUCATION: The current media and government scrutiny of for-profit higher education’s weaknesses often ignores the potential for these institutions to innovate beyond their current startup stages, says Ben Wildavsky, a senior fellow for the Kauffman Foundation. He has recently released a report of in-depth interviews he held with those leading such firms, outlining their experiences in traditional and for-profit higher education and comparing the two. Listen here.
ON TECHNOLOGY: In this week’s podcast, Randolph J. May, president, The Free State Foundation, discusses his newly published collection of essays, which call for free-market reforms of U.S. communications policy. Listen here.
I’m currently planning my next book in which I intend to discuss how shockingly anti-science the MSM has become when it comes to pet policy issues that involve science, technology and the environment. My proposition is that MSM journalists are so bad at reporting on these issues not so much because of their left-leaning biases, but because they are largely ignorant and lazy when it comes to covering these complex concepts. Thanks to guys like Paul Krugman at The New York Times I’m sure that I’ll never have any shortage of material to illustrate the point.
Jim Rust handily deconstructed Krugman’s arguments regarding mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants in his excellent post of January 5. Admittedly, Rust had an unfair advantage in that discussion: he used actual data. Somehow I think that the average Joe would find actually data showing that mercury emissions from coal fired power plants represent of a pittance compared to natural and overseas sources a bit more persuasive than Krugman’s approach which was essentially “mercury bad – EPA good”. Perhaps that’s nice messaging, but it leaves a lot to be desired from the scientist’s point of view.
Some ideas sound so plausible that they can fail nine times in a row and still be believed the tenth time. Other ideas sound so implausible that they can succeed nine times in a row and still not be believed the tenth time. Government controls in the economy are among the first kinds of ideas and the operations of a free market are among the second kind.
In the 2006 State of the Union address, President Bush promised the nation that he will use taxpayer funds to develop cellulosic fuels (fuel made from grass, woodchips, or other plant material) to power our cars by 2012.
In 2007, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and her fellow members of Congress were big believers in cellulosic ethanol and subsequently mandated that the following quantities be produced. You might wonder how Congress could do that when no facility, no technology, and no idea how to make commercially viable cellulosic ethanol existed. These facts were apparently brushed aside as unworthy considerations, as is the tendency with facts regarding legislation labeled with the words “energy independence.”
As the gradual implementation of Obamacare continues and debate over the intelligence of socialized medicine mounts, the budgetary malaise of the current Medicaid system should be a red flag to supporters of the President’s health care plan. The current degree of governmental control over healthcare is proving calamitous for states with financial troubles, and the expanded bureaucracy that is Obamacare will only make matters worse.
The contradictions and logistical maladies manifest in government-controlled healthcare have never been more evident than in the recent series of cuts in the Pennsylvania Medicaid apparatus. Over the next nine years, $1.2 trillion in reductions will mean the elimination of care for 150,000 people (43,000 of which are children) and more than 80,000 in job losses.
The uncertain economy has meant a surge in those receiving Medicaid across the nation, but since the summer of 2011, Pennsylvania has seen a steady decline because of the Department of Public Welfare’s (DPW) efforts to cut those no longer living in state and those who are dead or otherwise ineligible for aid. Patient advocates are saying otherwise, calling the cuts “disastrous.”
The bureaucratic nightmare that the cuts have unleashed on eligible patient care could be called Orwellian, as Pennsylvania’s push to close the backlog of cases has resulted in an overload for an already understaffed DPW. Hundreds of thousands of pending cases were “reviewed” in a matter of weeks, and technical omissions that would regularly necessitate simple clarification from the patient, such as lack of information, resulted in the cancellation of thousands of cases.
But the bureaucratic incompetence doesn’t end there.
Culturally and politically, the United States and Great Britain have much in common; a shared heritage, similar economic and foreign policy goals, and a recently, a mutual proclivity toward socialized medicine. As opposition to Obamacare continues to mount in the U.S., an examination of how socialized medicine is fairing in light of global financial troubles is necessary.
The UK’s National Health Service, or NHS, established in 1948, is experiencing massive cutbacks, to the tune of $31 billion by 2015. As the Service’s 2011/2012 budget is approximately £106 billion pounds, such cuts are already taking a toll.
In order to compensate for its losses, the NHS is reducing the number of treatments given and medical personnel employed. Surgeries deemed to be “non-lifesaving” are being postponed, waitlists for simple procedures are growing longer and longer, and more than 50,000 doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals will be let go in the next four years, according to The Telegraph.
It makes sense then, that those unable or unwilling to postpone surgeries or submit to months of waiting seek out private “self-pay” services instead. As the Daily Mail points out:
In the midst of state budgetary turmoil, it is not surprising that legislators are turning to unconstitutional regulatory measures in the pursuit of a few extra tax dollars. Arkansas, Connecticut, Colorado, North Carolina, and Rhode Island are among those states that have attempted to force Amazon.com to collect taxes on Internet sales. The tax has become a reality in Illinois, with Gov. Quinn’s signing of the “Mainstreet Fairness Act.” The online retailer has challenged and resisted these attempts at taxation, shutting down its affiliates program in the aforementioned states in retaliation.
Justifying the selective elimination its affiliates, Amazon points to the economic losses that are starting to add up as a result of these regulations. In a letter sent to its affiliates in Arkansas and Connecticut on June 10 2011, the company asserted that the increased regulatory efforts are the work of “big box retailers” hoping to harm the competition:
The year is near its end, but Heartland’s podcasts keep chugging along. This week, listen to a discussion about the EPA’s ‘facts’ on lives ‘saved’ through emission restrictions, and other interesting conversations on public policy. Click the links below to listen, and subscribe on iTunes so you get the latest podcasts as soon as they are produced. (Search for “Heartland Institute” in the iTunes store.)
ON EDUCATION: Patricia Siroky’s 12-year-old daughter was failing core classes, acting out to her parents and teachers, and calling herself “stupid” while attending her local public schools. Now, half a year into a small private school she can attend thanks to Indiana’s new school vouchers program, the seventh grader is happier, engaged in after-school activities, upping those grades in her hardest subjects, and once more delighting her parents. Listen Here.
ON ENVIRONMENT: Dr. John Dale Dunn explains how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency distorts the facts on lives allegedly saved through emissions restrictions. Listen Here.
ON TECHNOLOGY: In this weeks Infotech and Telecom News podcast, Matt Howard, CEO of ZoomSafer, discusses safe, legal and handsfree use of mobile phones while driving. Listen Here.
