How Republicans Can Win On Health Reform

"Republicans suck." I had heard that Jon Caldara began his July talk to the Denver Metro Young Republicans (DMYR) with that line, so I figured I'd repeat it when I addressed the group on August 25 about health policy.

I really like the DMYRs. It is a vibrant and passionate group on the whole truly committed to liberty. If the Republican Party of Colorado is to have a future, it needs to start with people like this.

I explained that Republicans have advocated bad policies in areas of insurance controls and health welfare.

It was Republican Mitt Romney, for example, who passed insurance mandates in Massachusetts, which the Democrats have now worked into their "reform" bill. I drew on the article by Dr. Paul Hsieh for The Objective Standard on the matter.

Michael Cannon has also written about the failures of the Romney model.

I explained that mandated insurance is inherently tied to tighter insurance controls and expanded subsidies. Moreover, Romney's plan didn't address the underlying problems, particularly the high costs of employer-paid insurance (driven by tax distortions) and capricious insurance controls.

The result of this GOP scheme? Skyrocketing tax costs and premiums, a damaged insurance industry, more political meddling, and doctor shortages.

Next I criticized Bob Beauprez's endorsement of mandated insurance and Mike Coffman's endorsement of insurance controls.

With respect to health welfare, I discussed Bush's costly Medicare prescription drug program, Jim DeMint's plan to expand welfare, and Michael Steele's endorsment of health welfare as a "right."

Then I turned to the positive portion of my talk. How can Republicans win on health reform?

First and foremost, Republicans must make liberty in medicine a moral issue. People have the right to control their own lives and resources, free from political interference. Republicans must answer the Democrats' challenge to address the moral argument. Republicans who try to make the debate all about budgets and cost are destined to lose.

Republicans must articulate the harms of decades of political controls in medicine. They must explain how tax distortions created the expensive, non-portable, employer-paid system. They must talk about how insurance controls drive up premiums and undermine a competitive, consumer-responsive insurance industry. And they must talk about all the ways that forced wealth transfers, via taxation and politically-controlled insurance premiums, drive up costs and reduce responsibility.

Finally, Republicans must advocate true free-market reforms. Expanded Health Savings Accounts would help offset the tax distortions driving employer-paid insurance. Rolling back insurance controls will restore competitiveness and bring down insurance rates. Tort reform will weed out frivolous law suits. And welfare reform will rein in expansions of various programs, control costs, and ultimately begin to move back in the direction of voluntary charity.

Many Republicans are trying to "me too" the Democrats on health reform by advocating more insurance controls and more health welfare. But is it not now abundantly obvious that Republicans cannot win on a Democrat-lite platform?

If Republicans wish to win on health policy and other issues -- and if they want to deserve to win -- they should start with DMYR's five principles:

* "The best government is a small, Constitutionally-constrained one."

* "A strong national defense is... vital to the preservation of our liberty."

* "Capitalism is the only moral philosophical system."

* Individual rights and personal responsibility.

* The Rule of law.

Aurora Republicans Host Top Candidates

Micah Marmaro, president of the Aurora Republican Forum, did an outstanding job gathering top Republican candidates and elected officials at a barbeque June 27 at General's Park. Here I'll review what they had to say -- which in some cases was surprisingly little. (I, on the other hand, said too much, but I'll review my talk in a subsequent post.) I'll intersperse my comments with related photographs.



While I have previously criticized Congressman Mike Coffman on grounds of economic and personal freedom, Coffman gave by far the best speech at the Aurora event.

Coffman, who served in Iraq, offered an overview of the situation there. He said, "I think there's going to be an uptick in violence as we pull out of the urban areas." He added, "I'm confident we can stay on schedule" with a "phased withdrawal." He worried that President Obama is "not committing adequate resources to the war" in Afghanistan, risking unnecessary casualties. He also complained about Democratic pressure to "reduce funding for missile defense."

Coffman attacked directly the Democratic argument that "cap-and-trade" energy restrictions will help the U.S. become energy independent. "The fact is that we're dependent on imported oil because they've done everything they can to block our ability to do energy development, to do drilling of natural gas and oil," Coffman said.

What cap-and-trade "will do," Coffman continued, "is it will drive up the cost of energy. What it will do is drive jobs outside the United States... What manufacturing base we have left in America will push over to China."

Coffman said the political pace in Washington, DC, "has been incredible" because "this president has an agenda that is very aggressive... It is not a president of the general election, it is a president of the primary. He is a liberal through and through... This is far-left stuff."

Coffman said that the rapid pace of legislation is cutting short Congressional debate as well as public scrutiny, "so right behind cap-and-trade... we will be debating health care reform, and right on the heels of that we'll be debating immigration reform" (where I imagine I align closer with Obama's policies than with Coffman's, given that I support an employer's right to hire willing workers). Coffman also said he expects to see another move to push "card check," empowering unions by wiping out secret ballots for unionization.

However, given the close vote for cap-and-trade, Coffman said "I think it will have a difficult time in the Senate."

Coffman complained also that the $787 billion "stimulus" bill got minimal Congressional review before passage.

On health care, Coffman called the "public option" a "bait and switch for socialized medicine," a "single-payer system" that "will continue to drive the deficit."

Coffman said, "We have a deficit this year of $1.7 trillion. We will have a deficit for as far as I can see, at about a trillion dollars and rising. That's unsustainable... It got so bad that the Chinese publicly stated that they were worried about the U.S economy" in terms of inflation and interest rates.

Answering a question, Coffman said, "It's truly a European-style welfare state that this president and Congressional leadership are seeing." He noted that various Europeans are trying to get of such systems.

Coffman said 2010 will be a referendum "that will define the direction of America. It will define whether or not we are a European-style welfare state. It will define whether America is simply a country of large labor organizations, big business like Chrysler and GM where government has a stake in them or ownership in them -- big government, big business, and big labor. Or are we a country based on individual rights and responsibility, and anybody being able to start a small business with that entrepreneurial effort."

I also respected Coffman's answer regarding bringing military jobs to Colorado: "I like the fact that defense dollars come to Colorado, as long as we're competitive for those defense dollars. I will not lift a finger to compromise the ability of our military by forcing them into Colorado. And so what I want to do... is make sure... that they have the right tools to succeed in Colorado."

Concluding, Coffman said the central choice is "whether we have a free market economy or whether we have an economy that's managed by the government for its own interests."

All day (aside from my speech), Coffman's discussion of individual rights and a free market economy was the clearest expression of a guiding political philosophy.



Shown above from left to right: Mike Morison (volunteer with Bob LeGare), Adam Eidelberg (volunteer for Dan Maes and Bruce Peterson), Andrew Goad (candidate for state house district 32), and Brian Cambell (candidate for the Seventh Congressional). (Thanks also to Micah for filling in some of these names.)



Bruce Peterson is running for Arapahoe county commissioner.



Loraine Buck, Ken Buck (candidate for U.S. Senate), and Micah Marmaro.



Check back -- more to come!

Brook Addresses Virginia Republicans

Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Center recently offered a keynote address for the 2009 Republican convention in Virginia.

If you are a Republican -- or if, like me, you hope for a Republican resurgence along proper ideals -- please listen to this speech. The future of your party -- and the future of our nation -- depends upon the kinds of ideas that Brook discusses.

If you are an advocate of liberty and individual rights, watch the speech from the perspective of how to craft an effective message.

Frazier Watch: Top Line

Those interested in Ryan Frazier's campaign for U.S. Senate should note that Frazier recently appeared on ABC's "Top Line" (via PPC). I like his calm demeanor on the show; it compliments his more fiery public speech at the April 15 Tea Party in Grand Junction.

Frazier took a brief moment to discuss his principles of fiscal responsibility and individual rights.

I can live with his answer on immigration: he said we should incentivize people to go home and then come back to work here legally.

I also like his message of "tolerance" toward gay couples, though I hasten to add that the proper attitude is not "tolerance" but open acceptance. ("Tolerance" implies putting up with something one has reason to dislike.) Tolerance here is a step forward for the GOP, however.

I'm not sure what Frazier means about expanding benefits to gay partners. If he's talking about equalizing government treatment, that's fine (though the problem is with the tax-funded benefits per se).

I think Frazier is doing what he needs to do: present himself as as a mature and reasonable guy ready to represent Colorado values of independence and liberty.

Everyone Is Welcome at Hamburger Mary's

The following article originally was published March 30, 2009, by Grand Junction's Free Press.

Everyone is welcome at Hamburger Mary's

"Homosexuality is seen as a violation of this natural, created order," State Senator Scott Renfroe said February 23 on the Senate floor. He called homosexuality an "abomination," a "detestable act" worthy of the death penalty in Old Testament scripture. He said that adultery and murder are also sins, and "all sin is equal."

Fast forward to March 24. Josh Penry, Senate Minority Leader whose name often comes up in discussions of possible Republican challengers to Governor Bill Ritter, spoke to the Denver Metro Young Republicans at Hamburger Mary's in Denver.

The restaurant's web page explains, "Hamburger Mary's franchises are 'open-air bar and grilles for open-minded people,' where guests enjoy a flamboyant dining experience. Everyone is welcome at Hamburger Mary's, but our concept is unique in that we are the ONLY national franchise actively marketing to the gay community."

Open-minded Republicans. Who knew?

Penry told Tim Hoover of the Denver Post, "I've got a traditional view on marriage, and a similarly traditional view that you shouldn't spend your life judging others. And so I don't."

Thomas James, president of DMYR, told Hoover that the group picked the restaurant for capitalistic reasons, not political ones: the burger joint offered a "suitable layout" at a "good location."

James added, "DMYR welcomes any individuals who share its five core principles: individual rights with personal responsibility, small and limited government, free-market capitalism, a strong national defense, and the rule of law."

We think it's a very good thing for Republicans to befriend homosexuals and for homosexuals to befriend capitalists. It could be a match made in heaven.

Ward Churchill: Another big story from Denver is that Ward Churchill appeared in court last week to get his job back at the University of Colorado.

The people who really deserved to be fired were those responsible for hiring Churchill in the first place. The entire premise of offering Churchill a job was that he was supposedly a Native American who would write leftist attacks on the United States. Churchill never had the appropriate credentials for the position. And there's not a shred of evidence suggesting he has any American Indian ancestry.

Search online for Churchill's "Winter Attack," and you will find that Churchill sold reproductions of a work that he had copied, with a few minor alterations, from the deceased artist Thomas Mails.

Churchill was a fraud before his job at CU, he was a fraud in getting that job, and he was a fraud as a professor, plagiarizing the work of others and fabricating "facts." The true scandal is not that Churchill fought to get his job back but that he ever landed the job in the first place.

Then of course Churchill compared the American victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to Nazis. He wrote of the destruction of the World Trade Center, "If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it."

In an added fraud, Churchill claims that his "right" to keep his job is protected by the First Amendment. It is not. The First Amendment forbids censorship, government restraint of free speech. The First Amendment does not require employers to provide the resources for employees to speak. For instance, you do not have the right to give a speech in your office promoting racism.

Churchill may have been protected by his employment contract -- again a problem that CU created -- but the First Amendment has nothing to do with job protection. True, because CU accepts tax dollars, more government protections apply. But just imagine how seriously the left would take Churchill's First Amendment claims if, for instance, a professor argued that homosexuals deserved to be beaten. Churchill's leftist supporters would be the first to demand a firing (and we would agree, again subject to contractual constraints).

Ah, but Churchill is cool, he has a persona, bangs a drum, wears a Che hat with sunglasses and poses with guns, and says things the left enjoys. And that is enough for young sycophants and feeble minded leftists to ignore Churchill's fraud and their own hypocrisy.

Bill 1984: Local Representative Steve King is a House sponsor of an atrocious bill that would collect DNA samples prior to criminal conviction, based only on arrest. The bill is officially numbered 241, but we call it Bill 1984 because of its Orwellian implications.

Nothing is more basic to our system of justice than the presumption of innocence, which Bill 1984 threatens. One thing the bill would do is give the police an incentive to arrest people on some pretext just to get a look at their DNA. We have enough Kings in the horror business, Steve.

Colorado GOP Self-Destructs

It was just Monday (February 23) that Colorado State Senator Scott Renfroe, on the Senate floor, quoted scripture that demands the death penalty for homosexuality, called homosexuality an abomination, and said it is equal to the sin of murder in God's eyes.

Today (Wednesday, February 25), Colorado State Senator Dave Schultheis argued against a bill encouraging pregnant women to get tested for HIV on the grounds that the bill would "remove the consequences" of "sexual promiscuity."

These two cases illustrate the fundamental problem with Colorado politics. The Republican Party is, to a large degree, the Party of God, complete with Bible readings on the Senate floor. Such Republicans declare homosexuality a sin, attempt to completely ban abortion, and generally try to promote their religious faith by force of law. The Democrats, on the other hand, want to expand political control of the economy. Because the Democrats are the less crazy of the two, they win by default. (Ayn Rand's 1973 essay anticipates the state of modern Colorado politics.)

I am still waiting for the Colorado Republican Party to condemn Renfroe's remarks. Now the party needs to condemn the remarks of Schultheis as well.

Schultheis's Statements

I have not been able to find a complete recording or transcript of Schultheis's statements. The most complete remarks I've found come from the Rocky Mountain News.

During the Senate debate, Schultheis said, "This stems from sexual promiscuity for the most part and I just can't go there. We do things continually to remove the consequences of poor behavior, unacceptable behavior, quite frankly. Sexual promiscuity we know causes a lot of problems in our state, one of which obviously is the contraction of HIV."

Later, he told the Rocky:

What I'm hoping is that yes, that person may have AIDS, have it seriously as a baby and when they grow up, but the mother will begin to feel guilt as a result of that.

The family will see the negative consequences of that promiscuity and it may make a number of people over the coming years begin to realize that there are negative consequences and maybe they should adjust their behavior.

We can't keep people from being raped. We can't keep people from shooting each other. We can't keep people from jumping off bridges. There are a lot of things we can't do that have negative consequences in our society. People drink and drive and they crash and kill people. Poor behavior has its consequences.

HIV is spread by blood transmission, and sex is the primary means of that. Schultheis conflates "promiscuous sex" with sex at high risk of transmitting HIV, though of course most premarital sex is at low risk of HIV infection. Moreover, some monogamous women get HIV from their partners.

Schultheis is arguing that an HIV-infected baby constitutes punishment for women who get HIV through promiscuous sex. Schultheis does not wish to "remove the consequences" for such sex. The notion that any woman should be so punished is grotesque. But what about the infant? Isn't the HIV-positive infant the one being punished the most?

David Harsanyi is on target in his critique of Schultheis:

The Republican Party, no matter how many fresh or smart ideas it may have, isn't going to get anywhere in this state -- or nationally -- if it continues to spew the hateful gibberish we've heard from Scott Renfroe and Dave Schultheis the past couple of days. ...

Are these [remarks of Schultheis] the words of a person who should be representing anyone?

The Republican Party has to get rid of these people, pronto. They aren't conservatives; they're nihilists. Can anyone imagine a Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater claiming that a child should live with AIDS to teach the mother a lesson? (If that is what Schultheis meant. And I still hold out a slim amount of hope that this was a matter of incoherence.)

If Schultheis apologizes for his remarks and explains that he really believes something else, we can follow up on Harsayni's slim hopes. As of 11:38 p.m. on February 25, Schultheis has not issued a media release on the matter.

Schultheis: Bad for Liberty

Schultheis has a track record of assaulting our liberties. He has tried to restrict the right to get an abortion. He endorsed the 2008 measure that would have defined a fertilized egg as a person, laying the groundwork for banning abortion. He opposes embryonic stem-cell research.

Schultheis wants for forcibly prohibit employers from hiring workers by mutual consent, on protectionist grounds.

Schultheis is fiscally conservative, but often he is antagonistic toward free markets and individual rights.

Renfroe's Sorry Appeal

Meanwhile, Renfroe said in defense of his comments: "Our First Amendment allows freedom of speech and I should be allowed to say what I want on any issue." He sounds remarkably like Ward Churchill.

Renfroe's invocation of the First Amendment is off point, because nobody is threatening his First Amendment rights. At issue is not what Renfroe has a right to say as a private citizen; everybody agrees he has every legal right to his bigotry. The point is that what he said is wrong, the fact that he said it as a state senator on the senate floor undermines the separation of church and state, and his critics also have a First Amendment right to condemn his statements and call for his resignation.

The Republican Party of Colorado is at a cross-roads. It can shake off the leash of the religious right, or it can remain the justly ridiculed minority party.

Renfroe Should Resign Over Bigoted Remarks

In a just world, State Senator Scott Renfroe's constituents would rise up and throw the bum out of office. If he had a lick of sense, he would resign. Of course, if he had a lick of sense, he wouldn't have called homosexuality an abomination and a sin comparable to murder on the Senate floor in a blatant attack on church-state boundaries.

I have seen no sign of Renfroe's repentance, however, and so I call on the Republican Party of Colorado to publicly condemn Renfroe's remarks. It's the right thing to do, and it's also the prudent political move, if the GOP wishes to be taken seriously as a political force in Colorado.

At issue is a "bill to allow gay and lesbian state employees to share health benefits with their partners," reports the Denver Post. Here I do not wish to discuss the arguments for and against the bill, but only to condemn Renfroe's tirade against it.

Mike Littwin has written about the sorry affair for the Rocky Mountain News. And my good friends over at Progress Now Colorado, having actually discovered a wolf this time, have posted the entire speech on YouTube. Following is the complete transcript:

Transcript of State Senator Scott Renfroe's Speech to the Senate on February 23, 2009

Thank you madame chair. Members, I also come down here to oppose this bill. Look at some of the declarations in the bill, some of those arguments used here to do this, I guess.

Number One, is that there are employers that offer this are at a competitive advantage over those employers that do not offer such benefits. And, number one, employers, that's the private sector, and I believe in that choice, and the private sector should be allowed to do that. And businesses should have that opportunity to choose how they run their business and what they want to do.

The state, on the other hand, we are here to represent the people of Colorado, and do the state's business. And like Senator Brophy said, the state did actually speak almost directly to this issue two years ago, and the last three years we've had bills that contradict what the people of the state of Colorado voted on directly in 2006. So with that, I think that part of the declaration should be considered, in that what the will of the people was.

And, for me personally, I guess I oppose this bill because of what the vote of the people was. And then I also oppose this bill because of what my personal beliefs are. And I think that what our country was founded upon was those beliefs also.

You know, in the beginning, God created our Earth, and the structure for creation, when you have God, you have the Son, and then you have the Holy Spirit, you have that trinity. You also have that same trinity, which is in my opinion a mimic over to what we have within the family. You have the father, the husband, you have the wife, and then you have the children. And I think when you look at that scenario, that is what we were created for. And I think that's what the Bible says.

Through the whole beginning of Creation, it talks about how things were created, and that it was good, it was good, it was good. It says over and over, that it was good. Then we get to verse 18 in Genesis 2, "The Lord God said it is not good for man to be alone. And so he made him a helper, suitable for him. And that was woman."

And then if you go on, and talk about that, God blessed them and said, "Then be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea, over the birds, over the sky, over every living thing that moves on the earth."

And then in Genesis 9 he said to Noah again, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." And I think that that goes back to this whole picture of family, which God created us for. And we need to honor that.

Homosexuality is seen as a violation of this natural, created order. And it is in a sense to God, the creator, who created men and women, male and female, for procreation.

Leviticus 18:22 says, "You shall not lie with a man as one lies with a female. It is an abomination."

Leviticus 20:13 says, "If there is a man who lies with a male as though to lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act, and they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltness is upon them."

Then Romans 1:18: "For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteous men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness."

And that's what we're doing here. We're suppressing the truth. The truth is what the family was created for in the beginning. That is the a husband, a wife, and children. And that is why we are here, and this goes against that. And this is just a continuation of the traction of the family.

And I say all that to back up my beliefs in where we're going with this. I believe government is here, we are here, to create the laws of our land, and when we create laws that goes against what Biblically we are supposed to stand for, I think we are agreeing or allowing to go forward a sin which should not be treated by government as something that is legal.

And that is what we are going to do with this, and what we've done in the past. We are taking sins and making them to be legally okay, and that is wrong. That is an abomination, according to scripture.

And I'm not saying that this is the only sin that's out there. Obviously we have sin, we have murder, we have all sorts of sin. We have adultery, and we don't making those legal, and we would never think to make murder legal.

But what I'm saying that for, is all sin is equal. That sin there is as equal to any other sin that's in the Bible, to having wandering eyes, to coveting your neighbor's things. Whatever you do, that sin is equal, and it can be forgiven because of that.

So with that, I think I need to go back and say that I stand in my belief, that this is wrong, and we should not condone it as a government. And I think the verses that I quoted you in Leviticus back that up in a strong way, and I'd ask you to vote no on this bill.

Renfroe here explicitly calls for the laws of Colorado to be based on Old Testament scripture. This, obviously, violates the separation of church and state. The proper purpose of government is to protect individual rights, not enforce religious dogma, whether or not the majority agrees with it. Murder and theft are properly illegal because they violate individual rights. Homosexuality between consenting adults does not. Moreover, many Coloradans reject Renfroe's religious views or his particular interpretation of Christianity.

For Renfroe to quote a religious text calling for the murder of homosexuals is outrageous, and it is wrong. It is no more appropriate than if a member of some other religion took the floor and read different texts calling for murder.

By Renfroe's account, the divine purpose of marriage is procreation. Never mind the fact that many heterosexual couples choose not to have children or cannot have them. Are their marriages similarly tainted in Renfroe's account?

Renfroe's claim that the 2006 election had anything to do with the bill at hand is nonsense. That year, voters banned gay marriage and voted against domestic partnerships. I think the majority was wrong on both counts, but that has no direct connection to extending benefits to the partners of state employees.

Renfroe's tirade illustrates why the Republicans are the minority party in Colorado. In attempting to impose their religious doctrines by force of law, such Republicans undermine individual rights and alienate mainstream voters.

Again I call on the Republican Party of Colorado to publicly condemn Renfroe's remarks. Whether the party does so will say a great deal about whether the party wishes to win competitive elections here again. And, more importantly, whether it deserves to win.

Bush Rationalizes Bailouts

George W. Bush, a terrible president in nearly every respect, continues his assault on free markets. As Patrick Buchanan notes and others have verified, Bush told CNN in defense of auto bailouts, "I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system."

But Bush never had any free-market principles to abandon. He's been one of the more statist presidents, though lagging behind the likes of Hoover and FDR, dramatically expanding the scope and power of the federal government.

Bush's statement is pragmatism on steroids: it is not merely the view that principles are unnecessary, but that they should be actively violated.

But liberty cannot be saved by violating liberty. To the degree that free-market principles are abandoned, the free-market system no longer exists. Free markets are free from the initiation of force and fraud. Free markets exist when government limits its activities to protecting people's rights to life and property. When the government forcibly takes wealth from some to redistribute to others, that is not a free market, it is a politically-controlled one.

Bush might as well say that he's committing theft to protect property or assault to protect the integrity of the victim. He might as well say he's drinking vodka to stave off drunkenness, cheating to preserve fairness, or lying to protect the truth.

The primary reason that American auto manufacturers are in trouble is that they do not function in a free-market system. They function in a system of federal manipulation of the money supply, federal manipulation of the housing supply (which has generally mucked up the economy), federal manipulation of auto production, and federal manipulation of associations.

There is only one way to save the free-market system, and that is to reinstate the principles of free markets, the principles of liberty, the principles of individual rights. By trampling free-market principles, Bush is helping to destroy the free-market system.

Liberty, Not Lies

Terence Jeffrey pointed me to an article by William Kristol for the New York Times that argues against "small-government conservatism." Following I summarize Kristol's reasons.

* Though Jeb Bush has railed against "big-government" policies, "in his two terms [as the governor of Florida] state spending increased over 50 percent."

* "Five Republicans have won the presidency since 1932: Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and the two George Bushes. Only Reagan was even close to being a small-government conservative."

* The 1994 "Contract With America" failed to deliver.

* W. Bush expanded Medicare.

Krisol concludes, "So talk of small government may be music to conservative ears, but it's not to the public as a whole."

But then Krisol adds the following parenthetical note: "Besides, the public knows that government's not going to shrink much no matter who's in power." No, the public knows that Republicans have expanded federal spending even faster than the Democrats.

But this contradicts Kristol's main point. Kristol thinks "small-government" Republicans aren't popular. The truth is that the public knows that most Republican politicians who claim to support a "small government" are damned liars.

Perhaps the reason that the public does not vote for a small government that protects individual rights and economic liberty is that Republicans offer no such policy, and those who claim to do so routinely advocate a massive welfare state, religious controls, and economic controls in the name of "small government."

Rosen: GOP Message Out of Fashion

At the Independence Institute's banquet November 13, Mike Rosen offered his thoughts on why the Republican Party got trounced. While he provided useful historical perspective, he didn't begin to explain what went wrong with the Republican Party.

While Rosen essentially blamed GOP losses on the spirit of the era, in fact the GOP has actively alienated a variety of voting blocks, and that goes a lot further in explaining why the GOP is now in disarray. To summarize my case, the GOP alienated the free-market wing, nonsectarians, most women of reproductive age, immigrants, homosexuals (and by extension most younger voters), and civil libertarians.

Rosen blamed the mortgage crisis on the "perfidy of some capitalists" as well as the ill effects of certain government controls. This is "not in indictment of capitalism, [but] an indictment of human nature." But there is nothing inherent in "human nature" that makes people turn to central economic controls; that's a result of political philosophy. In general, Rosen avoided discussions of the importance of ideas and focused on the forced of history.

Rosen said, "I understand the limitation of markets, the imperfection of markets." This comment contained two confusions. First, the "market" is merely the combination of individual actors. People can and do make mistakes. The "market" is largely the process by which people respond to and correct mistakes, such as by a businesses going bankrupt. Second, Rosen fails to distinguish between the free market and the government controls that caused the crisis (as well as the private fraud that contributed to it).

"Capitalism and rugged individualism are marginally out of [favor] right now," Rosen continued. Perhaps, but it doesn't help that the Republican Party generally has done everything in its power to foster that trend. So it's not as though people are rejecting the GOP because it stands for capitalism; many rejected the GOP because it has rejected capitalism.

The Libertarian Party did poorly, Rosen argued, because its notions of "rugged individualism and independence" are "too rigorous." But this doesn't begin to explain the failure of the LP. This year the party was fractured, and Ron Paul endorsed another candidate. More importantly, the LP typically stands against government, not for liberty, so the party understandably frightens away many voters. (Of course our winner-take-all system favors two parties.)

Rosen's advice for Republicans is to "return to their Reaganite roots... We don't change our beliefs, but we have to better communicate those beliefs." It would help if the GOP had some decent beliefs to communicate. The GOP is currently the party of the religious right. The GOP does not need to better communicate those beliefs, it needs to jettison them completely. Furthermore, the GOP needs to jettison the massive-government "compassionate conservatism" of George W. Bush as well as the nationalistic, anti-liberty fervor of John McCain. Let us not forget, ever, that John McCain is an enemy of free speech, and as such he richly deserved to lose.

Rosen said Republicans "won't win until the American people are ready to hear our message." No. The Republican Party won't win until it is ready to offer the American people a message of liberty.

See the collected posts about the Independence Institute's 2008 banquet.

Malkin's Conundrum

Earlier this evening (November 13) I attended the Independence Institute's annual banquet. It was a lovely and fun night. Jon Caldara was in top form. Unfortunately, it will probably take me a few days to get up the photographs and audio interviews, as I need to attend to a family matter. For now I want to address the most important issue of the evening: Michelle Malkin's endorsement of faith-based politics in the form of abortion bans.

Hers was an uncomfortable message to bring to the Independence Institute, an organization known for sticking to matters of economics and self-defense and avoiding divisive "social" issues like abortion. Malkin is wrong in principle. And if Colorado Republicans take her advice, they are doomed to perpetual failure.

What of those who, like me, endorse the separation of church and state and advocate a woman's right to get an abortion? Malkin said Republicans should "let them go their own way" -- in other words, leave the Republican Party.

We have left.

The result is that Bob Beauprez lost the governor's mansion, Bob Schaffer lost the U.S. Senate seat, Marilyn Musgrave lost another House seat, and candidates like Libby Szabo lost the state legislature. (See my pre and post election comments on the GOP's faith-based political disaster.)

Fittingly, the Denver Post published Paul's Hsieh's article on the matter the same day that Malkin offered her comments. Hsieh writes:

I want to let [Republicans] know that they lost the vote of many former supporters (including myself) because they have chosen to embrace the Religious Right.

I voted Republican in 1996, 2000, and 2004. I believe in limited government, individual rights, free market capitalism, a strong national defense, and the right to keep and bear arms -- positions that one normally associates with Republicans.

But I didn't vote for a single Republican in 2008. I've become increasingly alienated by the Republicans' embrace of the religious "social conservative" agenda, including attempts to ban abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and gay marriage. ...

[T]he government's role is to protect each person's right to practice his or her religion as a private matter and to forbid them from forcibly imposing their particular views on others. And this is precisely why I find the Republican Party's embrace of the Religious Right so dangerous. ...

The Religious Right's goal of outlawing abortions would violate that important right, and sacrifice the lives of actual women for clumps of cells that are only potential (but not yet actual) human beings, based on religious dogma. As a physician, I find that position abhorrent and deeply anti-life.

As Ryan Sager writes for Reason, this is a widespread trend (leaving aside the controversies over the "libertarian" label):

The Cato Institute has done excellent work over the last few years tracking the shift in the libertarian vote -- the roughly 10 percent to 15 percent of the American public that can be categorized as fiscally conservative and socially liberal.

Based on an analysis of the American National Election Studies, Cato found that between 2000 and 2004, there was a substantial flight of libertarians away from the Republican Party and toward the Democrats. While libertarians preferred Bush by a margin of 52 points over Al Gore in 2000, that margin shrank to 21 points in 2004, when many libertarians -- disaffected by the Iraq war, massive GOP spending increases, and the campaign against gay marriage -- switched to John Kerry.

While it is true that faith-based politics is only one of the issues driving liberty voters away from the Republicans, it is also true that the faith-based politics of Bush and McCain is of a cloth with their big-government spending. Bush ran as a "compassionate" conservative -- i.e., a religiously altruistic one -- while McCain selected the evangelical economic lightweight Palin as he himself suspended his campaign in order to rubber-stamp Bush's $700 billion Great American Rip-Off.

Malkin made a couple of references to Ayn Rand, saying she recently moved to Colorado to get her own piece of Galt's Gulch and that she has "most virtuous" selfish reasons for wanting local conservatives to succeed. I am continually amazed by how many conservatives selectively read Rand -- and understand hardly a word of what she wrote even as they invoke her works. Notably, Malkin did not quote what Rand had to say about abortion or faith-based politics generally.

Unlike Bush and McCain, Malkin sticks with liberty when talking about economic issues. She hammered McCain for supporting the bailout, pushing environmental controls, and lamenting the evils of profits.

Malkin was positively inspirational. She said the proper Republican strategy is "simple: we stand up for our principles." We don't rebrand our beliefs, "we defend them." "We lock and load our ideological ammunition." "We do not whine, we do not wheedle, we fight."

Malkin said Repubicans must oppose any new stimulus, must oppose new "windfall profit" taxes, must oppose federal loan guarantees. "If you get rid of the ability to fail," she said, "you get rid of the ability to succeed." Right on.

Republicans who endorsed the bailout suffered "ideological pollution."

But then, in an instant, the anti-liberty Malkin took the stage. She said Republicans should not "de-emphasize" or hide their "pro-life" -- i.e., faith-based anti-abortion -- stance. To do so also would be to suffer "ideological pollution." Republicans "need to stand up for life unapologetically," she said.

And those who do not share Malkin's desire to impose religious faith by force of law? "Let them go their own way."

However, as Diana Hsieh and I explain, the faith-based opposition to abortion is not "pro-life," it is anti-life. It would sacrifice the lives of actual people to fertilized eggs. I do not advise Republicans to "de-emphasize" or soften their calls to outlaw abortion: I advise them to completely reject faith-based politics and defend the individual rights of actual people.

Malkin's conundrum is the one faced by the Republican Party generally: she tries to defend and violate liberty at the same time. Her stance is fundamentally untenable. It is no coincidence that the religious right is drifting away from matters of economic liberty and increasingly interested in welfare spending, environmental controls, and of course draconian social controls.

Malkin's treatment of abortion contrasted sharply with her comments on immigration. She admitted that there are "cleavages" in the Republican Party over immigration, but also things "we agree on." Oh, you mean that there are no "cleavages" over abortion? The facts prove otherwise. Yet, for Malkin, on immigration Republicans can agree to disagree, while on abortion the nonsectarians must be shown the door. (As I have argued, it remains possible for secular liberty voters to reform a coalition with those religious voters who endorse the separation of church and state.)

As Paul Hsieh reviews, Rush Limbaugh wants to purge the Republican Party of those who decline to toe the faith-based line. Malkin offers the same advice. She wants me to go my own way. So long as Republicans insist on imposing religious faith by force of law, I remain her obedient servant.

See the collected posts about the Independence Institute's 2008 banquet.

Hank Brown Rallies Republican Majority for Choice

This article originally was published by Grand Junction's Free Press.

September 15, 2008

Hank Brown Rallies Republican Majority for Choice

by Linn and Ari Armstrong

"The heart of the Republican Party is here tonight... This party has always been a bastion of protecting individual freedom, and individual rights, and individual opportunity. It took the form of fighting slavery, it took the form of leading the civil rights movement...

"It took a place in fighting to preserve individual freedom as the government became a regulatory monster at the federal level. And even today it takes the form of fighting to save Americans who work for a living a chance and an opportunity to keep a fair share of what they produce...

"And in true form the Republican Party continues to be a champion of individual freedom and individual rights. The issue that we are concerned about tonight is just such an issue. Who in the world ever would believe that the federal government and a federal bureaucrat should have the right to dictate to people their most personal decisions?

"This issue is about individual freedom, individual responsibility -- the very heart of this Republican Party. It's what we've always stood for. It's what's held us together... and what's set Republicans apart. We're the ones who believe individuals have a right to control their own lives. Individuals have a right to decide their own destiny...

"Our gathering tonight is very much in the spirit of this party, it's been the very fiber of what it's believed in and stood for its entire existence. And at the point that we give up supporting and defending individual freedom and choice, we give up the very core of this great party."

Hank Brown, former U.S. Senator and former president of the University of Colorado, shared those remarks last week in Denver with hundreds of supporters of the Republican Majority for Choice (GOPChoice.org), a national group with a strong Colorado presence. The group organized the event to support a woman's right to choose whether to get an abortion and to oppose Amendment 48, which would define a fertilized egg as a person in Colorado's Constitution.

Brown's remarks impress us for several reasons. As one of the elder statesmen of the Republican Party in Colorado, and as one of the state's most respected leaders, his words carry a great deal of weight. He has shown real leadership by championing a cause unpopular with a segment of his party's base. He has restated his party's basic principles. And he has pointed the way for his party to regain the trust of freedom-minded independent voters and Republicans who respect the separation of church and state.

Brown's comments are broader than a single issue: in a few words, he has restated the principles of liberty that we once thought -- and would like to think again -- belong to the Republican Party.

John McCain hardly ever mentions the words "individual rights," and never have we heard him muster much enthusiasm for the concept. Hank Brown said it, and he meant it. While Brown's party side came through when he praised McCain to your younger author, we wish that come November we could cast our presidential vote for a man like Brown.

We know what the opponents of abortion are thinking at this point. "What about the individual freedoms, rights, and choices of the unborn?" Brown did not get into that philosophical debate. As we've mentioned, the paper "Amendment 48 Is Anti-Life" at SecularGovernment.us explains why a fertilized egg is not a person.

Other speakers explained why Amendment 48 threatens to outlaw abortion -- even in cases of rape and health risks to the woman -- ban popular forms of birth control, ban fertility treatments, and unleash legal havoc in Colorado.

Brown was joined at the event by other notable Republicans, including Gale Norton, former Secretary of the Interior, and State Senator Nancy Spence.

From Grand Junction, former State Representative Gayle Berry attended. She's on the advisory board for the Republican Majority for Choice. She said her goal as part of the organization is "keeping government out of personal choice... A lot of us would choose life, we just don't want government making those decisions for us." She said she's particularly concerned that Amendment 48 would become part of the state's constitution, beyond the reach of the legislature. Also, "it puts 'person' in a definition that could be carried to the extreme."

Berry also showed a party side. Regarding Sarah Palin, who opposes abortion, Berry said, "I love her... I'm not a one-issue voter, and she's not a one-issue candidate." Berry also pointed out that Bob Schaffer also has come out against Amendment 48, though we note that he has not done so based on any fundamental principle. So the GOP remains conflicted.

In 1967, Republican Governor John Love signed a bill liberalizing Colorado's abortion laws. We're glad to see that, in 2008, some Republicans are again planting roots in the soil of liberty.

Republican Majority for Choice

Recently I learned about a national group called the Republican Majority for Choice. From first appearances, this group seems to be headed in the right direction. The organization writes, "We are deeply concerned with direction of our Party if it continues to endorse a social agenda that is both intrusive and alienating."

The group even has a Colorado affiliate headed by Amanda Mountjoy (whom I don't know). Here's what Mountjoy had to say against Amendment 48 (which would define a fertilized egg as a person):

Making changes to our State Constitution is a serious matter that should not be manipulated by special interest groups with a single issue agenda. This is not the place or the vehicle to debate private healthcare decisions. This initiative is a thinly veiled attempt by an extreme minority to impose their views upon the people of Colorado and will lead to big-government control of some of the most complicated choices facing our families.

Consequences of the initiative would be far-reaching and would not only include a ban on abortion, but also a ban on many commonly used forms of birth control. If the proponents of this initiative were truly concerned about reducing abortion in Colorado, as they claim to be, then they would work to forward proven effective, common sense measures like prevention and education. In the past Coloradans have defeated initiatives that interfere with personal freedom, and the Republican Majority for Choice is confident that Colorado voters will again vote to ensure that reproductive healthcare decisions remain between a woman, her family, and her doctor.

The group's newsletter offers a more detailed case against the measure. (Of course, I recommend the paper by Diana Hsieh and me on the subject.)

Unfortunately, the group seems to veer into unprincipled pragmatism at times. For example, the Colorado chapter claims that Amendment 48 "simply goes to far," following the line from the main campaign against. For reasons that Diana and I explain, that's a horrible position. Also, the group notes, "Thanks to the years of hard work and dedication from the members of RMC Colorado to providing complete and compassionate medical care for survivors of sexual assault, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter signed Senate Bill 60 in to law Thursday, March 15 to mandate hospitals to provide information about emergency contraception (EC) in the emergency room." However, the government has no business dictating policy to hospitals. That said, if hospitals intend to practice faith-based medicine, they should clearly inform their patients of that. So there is some role for the law to play in the matter -- as in any case of contract.

Yet, despite some problems with the RMC, the group represents a positive step for the Republican Party, which, under the guidance of the religious right, has become an enemy of liberty and handed Colorado government to the Democrats.